Interesting. Why has Bishop Kukah not found it worthwhile to lead another delegation to Buhari to protest the travesty of justice that sees a looter of public resources Orji Kalu being given another lease into the Nigerian legislature to continue the travesty of justice at equity that is the stock in trade of the country?
Why is he decrying the lack of security under Buhari when he was instrumental in starting this administration on the wrong footing?
Is Bishop Kukah saying if Buhari had ruthlessly pursued an anti corruption crusade, the army would overthrow him again ( this time the democratic will of the people ) and there will be no consequences?
Is the Bishop in the pay of corrupt public officials?
I thought Abubakar handed over power because he wanted to give the rule of law a chance. Now we know better, and we know the real reason Aare Abiola was murdered in captivity and the people behind the dastardly regicide.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>
Date: 28/01/2021 23:38 (GMT+00:00)
To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF CHRISTO/ISLAMICCORRUPTLY-GOVERNED NIGERIA (2)
When thirteen members of the self-appointed National Peace Committee led by ex-military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, sought and received President Buhari's audience at Aso Rock, on 11 August 2015, Muhammadu Buhari was barely two months and thirteen days in power as President of Nigeria. After meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the spokesman of the National Peace Committee, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, told the media that the purpose of their visit to the President was to urge him to tread cautiously in his fight against corruption. In his words, he said categorically, "I don't think any Nigerian is in favour of corruption or is against the President's commitment to ensuring that we turn a new leaf. I think what we are concerned about is the process. IT IS NO LONGER A MILITARY REGIME AND UNDER OUR EXISTING LAWS, EVERY-BODY IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY." Before examining the implication of what Buhari's August visitors said, let me recall what Buhari said in response to the concern of the self-constituted National Peace Committee. Buhari said, "We have really degenerated as a country. Our national institutions, including the military, which did wonderfully on foreign missions in the past, have been compromised. ...//... As Petrol Minister under General Obasanjo in the 1970s, I could not travel abroad until I had taken a memo to the Federal Executive Council asking for estacode. Now everybody does what he wants. That is why security-wise, and economically we're in trouble. Those who have stolen the national wealth will be in court in a matter of weeks and Nigerians will know those who have short-changed them." With that response, one wonders, which process had Buhari taken on looted public funds that arose the concern of the National Peace Committee?
 | The trial of former public officers who looted the national treasury and stashed the funds in foreign banks will commence in few weeks. President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed this, yesterday, when ... www.vanguardngr.com |
The two main official arrow heads in the fight against thieves of public funds in Nigeria, when Buhari ascended to power on 29 May 2015, were EFCC and ICPC. At the time the self-proclaimed National Peace Committee were afflicted with febrile concern for the process being taken, or about to be taken by Buhari, for the recovery of looted national assets, there were scores of cases of corruption which had been pending in different Nigerian courts since 2007. Those cases fell into oblivion after golden handshakes of naira and dollars between judges and the treasury looters had taken place and the accused were released on bail. As the spokesman of the National Peace Committee, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, truly averred, anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law, yet he failed to state what must happen if Judges fail, or refuse to adjudicate on criminal cases brought before them after granting bails to the accused. Should there be no limited time within which a criminal case could be heard and concluded by the courts? Treasury looting case in the home state of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah illustrates how public officials could steal with impunity and the courts would let it through.
Interestingly, Sokoto State where Matthew Hassan Kukah is a Bishop, had a Governor, between 29 May 1999 and 29 May 2007, named Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, the one who in 2000 enacted Sharia laws in Sokoto state that resulted, in some instances, into the amputation of chicken thieves. After his tenure, EFCC investigations revealed that Governor Bafarawa and sixteen accomplices defrauded Sokoto state of the sum of N15 billion through various contract scams. Thus, on Tuesday 15 December 2009, the EFCC arraigned Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa and eight others before a Sokoto High Court (eight others were at large) presided over by Justice Bello Abbas, who denied bail to the accused. His lawyer filed a motion at an Abuja Federal High Court, challenging the jurisdiction of Sokoto High Court to try him. The Abuja High Court presided over by Justice D. U. Okorowo ordered the release of Bafarawa pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice. Normally two courts of equal rank cannot overturn the decision of one another, but in Nigeria, pilferers of public funds can always shop around for judges that will deliver desired ruling. That was why Bafarawa ran to Abuja to purchase another ruling on his bail instead of appealing to the Court of Appeal against the ruling of Sokoto High Court. Although Bafarawa and his gang of fraudsters were eventually granted bails, the case was forgotten until after year 2015 when Buhari came to power and all cases in coma were revived. While the case was snail-speeding into oblivion Sokoto High Court, presided over by Justice Bello Abbas, on 29 June 2017, discharged Alhaji Tukur Alkali, Bello Isah, Alhaji Isah Sadiq, Alhaji Habibu Halilu Modachi and Alhaji Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi who were standing trial along with Bafarawa, from further criminal proceedings on the ground that the then APC Governor of Sokoto State (now PDP), Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, had granted them pardon. Section 36 (10) of the 1999 Constitution as amended permits the President or a Governor to pardon a convicted person but not a person under trial. Why did Tambuwal pardon only five out of the sixteen people undergoing fraud trial with Bafarawa? The implication of the pardon was that the five accused had admitted their guilt of participating in the N15 million fraud against Sokoto State to Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal. Granting such admission to the Governor existed, why did he not wait until the court had pronounced judgement before granting pardon? The EFCC, on 25 September 2017, filed an appeal at the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal, challenging the ruling of the Sokoto State High Court in respect of the pardon granted by Governor Tambuwal to five people charged for fraud alongside with former Governor of the State, Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa. The Appeal was never listed for hearing as at 31 July 2018, when Sokoto High Court presided over by Justice Bello Abbas declared not guilty Bafarawa and the rest of his co-accused fraudsters just 11 years after the case was first heard. While one may complain that some known looters of public funds in Nigeria are set free by the courts, many are never arraigned or charged as the fuel subsidy frauds enquiries in 2012, confirmed.
As stated earlier, the leader of National Peace Committee, ex-General Abdulsalami Abubakar, was Nigeria's Military Head of State from 9 June 1998 to 29 May 1999. His pension from the Nigerian government is not based on his military service to Nigeria but as a former head of state. Just like all former Heads of State, General Abdulsalami receives 100% of the basic salary of the serving President; he is entitled to six new cars every three years; free medical care for himself and members of his family anywhere in the world; one residential house in the federal capital territory, Abuja, and another one in any place of his choice in Nigeria; he is entitled to furniture allowance which is 300% of his annual basic pension; he is entitled to house maintenance allowance which is 10 % of basic pension and car maintenance allowance which is 30% of the annual basic pension. Other benefits include entertainment allowance, which is 10 % of the basic pension and a personal assistant, who earns 25% of the former Head of State's annual pension. Besides, he is entitled to free security guards for life. Taken into consideration that millions of Nigerians don't even get the minimum wage of N30,000 a month, one can conclude that former Heads of State in Nigeria, as represented by the retired General Abdulsami Abubakar, are over-rewarded for their services to Nigeria by their pension benefits. But General Abubakar was not contented, he wanted more.
In 2003, the former Military Head of State, Retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar, incorporated a company named Maizube Petroleum Limited with one million share capital. He held 600,000 controlling shares in MAIZUBE PETROLEUM LIMITED while the rest 400,000 was evenly shared between one Abubakar Isah and one Abubakar Aminu. In 2011, General Abubakar's MPL claimed N5,509,407,903.00 from the federal government as fuel subsidy for importing and supplying 63,474,066 litres. All the 2012 enquiries on fuel subsidies discovered that ex-General Abubakar's Maizube Petroleum Limited fraudulently received 5 billion, 509 million, 407 thousand and 903 naira for importing and supplying 63 million, 474 thousand and 66 litres of GHOST PETROL to Federal government of Nigeria. Like most of Nigeria's public officials, General Abubakar worships naira and not Allah or God (Naira Akbar, Almighty Naira). Just like most of the fuel subsidy fraudsters exposed in 2012, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and his MPL associates, as of today, are yet to be charged in court for fuel subsidy fraud. But this man, who ought to have covered his head in shame was preening like a peacock publicly by leading a gang of people with the heart of snake and conscience of hyena in order to warn President Muhammadu Buhari to tread cautiously in his pursuit of national thieves.
When it became known to the public that the National Peace Committee led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar met with the out-voted President Goodluck Jonathan a day before meeting the new President, Muhammadu Buhari, the public suspected that the purpose of the NPC's visit to Buhari was to beg him not to probe the previous government of Goodluck Jonathan. Addressing the press after meeting with President Buhari, the spokesman of the National Peace Committee, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, denied that former President Jonathan had sent them to beg President Buhari not to probe him. Why then was the General Abdulsalami Abubakar's led National Peace Committee concerned about the process being taken by Buhari's presidency to recover national assets from looters? The answer to that question came when online Sahara reporters of 7 October 2015, published an excerpt from the speech delivered in Lagos by Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah. He was reported to have partly said : President Buhari is not new on the block. He came and saw but we all know the story. In declaring a war against corruption, he lost his job. It is quite interesting that none of all of those who have suddenly become vocal now in the war against corruption went out on the streets to condemn the overthrow of their hero. If Nigerians were so convinced about the war against corruption, why did they all cross to the other side of the street where (Military) President Babangida was already offering them decaffeinated form of war by stating that the overthrow of Buhari had become necessary because in his words on August 27th, 1985, 'Muhammadu Buhari was too rigid and uncompromising in his attitude to issues of national significance'?
As I have indicated earlier, he (Buhari) was overthrown when he embarked on his war against corruption and indiscipline. None of us went out on the streets to show solidarity with him. We embraced Babangida but we also ended up accusing him of sowing the seeds of corruption. Saying this barely two months after visiting Buhari and asking him to tread cautiously in prosecuting corrupt officials indicates that the purpose of the Bishop and his gang of National Peace Committee's visit to Buhari on 11 August 2015 was to discourage him from fighting corruption and to warn him that he could be overthrown as it happened on 27 August 1985. It is very plain that the Bishop was tacitly reminding Buhari that Nigerians who stood to gain from his war on corruption deserted him, left him to his fate in 1985 and, thereby, was urging him not to care about fighting corruption.
Section 15 (5) of the 1999 Constitution as amended states : The government shall abolish corruption and abuse of power. The meaning of corruption and abuse of power as intended by the framer of the constitution is when public officials demand and receive extra-payments for themselves, before performing their duties or delivering goods and services, to citizens. But what Nigerian public officials, whether elected or selected, appointed or employed, usually do is to award government's procurement and construction contracts to themselves. Thereafter, the public officials would certify that procurements have been delivered and constructions have been executed after which the contract sums are transferred into their personal or cronies' bank accounts without delivery of procurements or execution of the construction contracts. When President Buhari told the National Peace Committee that Nigeria has degenerated as a country because "our national institutions, including the military, ...... have been compromised," he did not disclose what the compromise entailed. Nigerians were only made to know through subsequent investigations that Service Chiefs and Senior military officers of the Nation diverted funds meant for procurement of weapons, recruiting and training of soldiers for combat, to their personal accounts. Small and poorly armed soldiers combined with Ghost soldiers were no match for insurgents who sacked villages and towns at will. The treasonable act of Nigeria's Senior military officers and Service Chiefs has enabled insurgents to kill thousands of Nigerians while turning over two million into internal refugees. Likewise, in the Ministry of works contracts for maintenance of old roads and construction of new ones have been repeatedly awarded and paid for over the years. Yet, all Nigerian roads contain potholes that have progressed to deep and large cemeteries burying oil tankers, trailers, cars and human beings, in hundreds on daily basis. Every public institution in Nigeria is permeated with theft of public funds intended for socio-economic development of Nigeria and for Nigerians by public officials who are entrusted with the responsibilities of planning and executing economic development projects. Rather than feel concerned for downtrodden, weak, helpless, exploited, impoverished and dead Nigerians because of the economic and living conditions created by thieves of public funds, the National Peace Committee and its spokesman, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, was only concerned about the process through which the precursors of poverty and untimely deaths in Nigeria are brought to trials. Which rule of law says the trial of thieves of billions of naira of public funds should go on for more than ten years without being concluded while petty thieves are quickly sentenced and others remanded in prison, indefinitely to await trial? Permit me to expose the hypocrisy of the National Peace Committee and their spokesman, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, about their so-called concern for the process of prosecuting looters of public funds in Nigeria vis-á-vis ordinary petty thieves.
Adamu Abubakar was arrested on 19 March 2012, at Darazo market, in Bauchi state, while trying to spend a fake N500 with an orange seller in the market. In less than two months, May 2, 2012, Justice M.T. Salihu of the Federal High Court sitting in Bauchi sentenced 18-year-old Adamu aka Damina Suruku, to 10 years imprisonment. He was found guilty on all four count charges of dealing, altering and being in possession of fake Nigerian currency notes. In another case, one Sani Ahmed was remanded in prison custody by Justice B.O. Quadri of the Federal High Court in Gombe, on a two-count charge of counterfeiting and being in possession of counterfeit1000 naira Bank Note. The above two cases out of thousands were reported in online Sahara Reporters of 8 May 2012. Sani Ahmed may probably have been forgotten in prison like most of over 50 thousand Nigerians incarcerated as awaiting trial. Let us now compare the aforementioned cases with that of the former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu (1999-2007), who was arraigned before an Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Binta Murtala Nyako, on 27 July 2007, and on a 107-count charge of money laundering, official corruption (Stealing of Abia State money), and criminal diversion of public funds to the tune of N7.2 billion. He was granted bail, whereafter hearing of the case snail speeded till December 2019 when he was jailed. However, on 8 May 2020, the Supreme Court quashed his sentence and ordered his retrial at the High Court on the ground that a wrong Judge pronounced the right judgment. As at 25 January 2021, ex-Governor Orji Uzor Kalu is yet to be re-prosecuted for stealing N7.2 billion from Abia State and he is now even a lawmaker in the Nigerian Senate. The concern of the National Peace Committee over the process through which looters of public funds were to be prosecuted as expressed by its spokesperson, Bishop Kukah, was grossly misplaced and, in fact, dishonest. Had Bishop Kukah read his Bible well, he would have discovered in the Acts of Apostles Chapter five that God did not delay justice to Ananias and Sapphira when He struck them to death with thunder and lightning for concealing a sack of wheat from being taxed by the Church.
In every fifty metres of any Nigerian street, there is a Church and a Mosque. Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has been governed by adherents of Christian and Islamic faiths. Christian public officials travel to Jerusalem every weekend to pray while their Muslim counterparts travel to Mecca every Friday to pray with the money which they have stolen from our collective patrimony. In a country ravaged by bone-racking poverty, Christian and Muslim public officials in Nigeria have become dollar millionaires by appropriating to themselves public funds which they attribute to God/Allah's blessing. The Child Rights Act enacted in 2003 and Universal Basic Education Act 2004, in combination with the letters of Section 18 (3) of the 1999 Constitution make education free and compulsory for every Nigerian child up to junior secondary school. Earlier in Section 17 (3c) of the 1999 Constitution it is said that the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that all Nigerian citizens without discrimination of any group whatsoever have the opportunity of securing adequate means of livelihood as well as adequate opportunity to secure suitable employment. Before that, it is mandated in Section 16 (2c) of the Constitution that the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care, pensions, unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens. The Christian and Muslim corruptly governed Nigeria have violated the constitutional rights of Nigerians (children and adults) as enshrined in Sections 16 (2c), 17 (3c) and 18 (3). Children that have been denied basic primary education have returned from the forest to form association of bandits, kidnappers and armed robbers with their educated and unemployed brethren. Ironically, those who have stolen the future of Nigerian children and should be in prison are shouting about insecurity. Defending his tirade of December 2019 against Buhari in the online Nigerian Tribune of 12 January 2021, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah said, " I believe that today, nepotism poses a serious threat to our country." That believe is completely false. The greatest threat to Nigeria today is the total rejection of merits for mediocre whereby people occupy offices in MDAs without being able to perform duties attached to the offices. Added to the threat posed by mediocre in offices is the theft of public funds of which perpetrators are never made to face the consequence of their crimes. If, for an instance, the entire Ministry of Water Supply in Nigeria is occupied by people from Daura, it would not matter as long as all Nigerians are getting potable water regularly. But if the whole country, including the people of Daura, lacks potable water we cannot blame that on nepotism but incompetence to produce potable water. Ability to produce potable water is not dependent on ethnicity and religion but on knowledge. While Christo/Islamic religious men and women that have governed Nigeria hitherto, feed themselves gluttonously on Tuwo, Èbà, Àmàlà, Rice and Pounded Yam with variety of soup saturated with beefs (products of crops and pastoral farmers), hungry and starving citizens are being fed by Christian and Muslim clerics with the words of God as if reciting some verses from the Bible will make a plate of Tuwo, Èbà, Àmàlà, Rice or Pounded Yam.
S. Kadiri
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