Let us be blunt. No amount of obscurantism can hide the perilous state in which Nigeria finds herself today. No amount of dummies sold at public fora can heal the assorted afflictions that plague our body politic. No amount of claims of a witch-hunt from political jobbers can erase the fact that the deed is wrong or lessen the pain that people have been feeling since. As governments find it harder to dole out benefits and spoils, more people are realizing how much they have been duped by their political leaders. More are recognizing that they have been given a six for a nine and that they are merely being used.
That is a summary of the brawl between good and evil in this country that has emanated from the trial of the senate president at the Code of Conduct Tribunal sitting in Abuja since penultimate week. The nation has been sharply divided. A mental calculus of the embattled Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki’s worth which stands at N11,475,391,817 suggests that if he has to spend a million naira a month it will take him an entire century (one hundred years) to exhaust his account. If he has to share the money equally with each citizen of Kwara state which stands at 2.8million people, each person will walk away with N4.000.00. There are 13.000 state government workers in Kwara state. If Saraki was compassionate enough to pay workers only the minimum wage each, they would all earn salary for three and a half years.
But alas. Grandstanding, as usual, Saraki sat beside several other senators in the court which looked like a ceremony, not the trial of someone accused of deceit. Before he appeared at the CCT, the commentaries for and against the court were laced with vacuous vocalizations of people drunk on sentimental liquor, most of them unaware of the fact that there are no more untouchables in Nigeria. If you took his pronouncements seriously, you would think that Saraki had provided an idyllic planet to Kwarans, where milk and honey flowed and the inhabitants lived a life of enviable goodness. But while his pronouncements sounded good to Kwara state, many of whom are themselves suffering from the failed and broken promises of his administration, the rest of us, are left wondering as to the real state of the country’s affairs and the bleak future that lies ahead if there is no radical change in the way we conduct our affairs.
What baffled me most was the article by one Bashir Akanbi in a newspaper (Not Daily Trust) who suggested that public funds were being wasted on a probe that would lead nowhere. The senate president’s stooge is peeved at citizens who dare to criticize Saraki or support his inquisition. He is in the typical mode of the politician who believes that every criticism is unfair and carries an agenda. But Saraki does not have to remind us from where he has come or how he was “subjecting himself to the powers of the CCT because of his belief in the rule of law. In fact, he did not come voluntarily.
He was compelled by the High Court that he first ran to in search of succour. But to the court, Saraki has been free a long time and his antecedents are well-known. He must face his demons in the dock.
At the twilight of his meteoric political career, there is nothing he can do in the limited available time to alter those declarations to make them more acceptable to the public. Or am I wrong? I really wish I am, and that we can see a rejuvenated, transformed and even a redeemed Saraki leading Nigeria to the path of greatness. But my heart tells me that short of a political miracle this is not going to happen. The senate president and members of the NASS in both political parties are too wedded to the past; are too much prisoners of the failed political culture that has been Nigeria’s unfortunate experience, that they are ready to fight, kill and maim in order to retain the status quo.
They only see what is wrong with the system when they are hungry to get back into the driver’s seat. But those who wish Nigeria well must not ease up on giving just and reasonable critiques of power and how it is exercised by those who are given the authority to exercise it. Speaking for myself, I do not know Saraki personally, and so have no concern about his personal profile. But as a citizen of Nigeria, I have to be concerned with what he does with the power that he usurped.
Saraki is no doubt aware that many of the things for which he is criticized would never be said to him by senators. Their fawning loyalty often leaves important things unsaid. Those in his inner circle are his quintessential apologists; they will tell him what he wants to hear. But this soothing palliative may not be what he needs to hear or represent what is best for Nigeria. They do so because in the system over which he presides, their political longevity depends on speaking nicely of the leader. But in not pointing out his weaknesses and shortcomings they are, in fact, doing him and the nation a disservice. One would not be surprised that there are those who wish him failure by the ways in which they titillate his ego.
What his offence really comes down to is a lack of respect for the holistic worth of the Nigerian. This is a contempt that is shared by all politicians. We cannot expect the APC to regale this country with its best performances during its stint in power if impunity is sustained. I could write almost verbatim the speech that the Senate Prresident should have read while he sat helplessly in the dock, in a manner of what the future will look like when he eats humble-pie, resigns honourably and allows the country to seek prosperity. But that speech in which he cried for help to save his office was very empty and vacuous to the vast majority of the people. My take is that Numbers one and two have declared their assets and nothing is amiss. It is the turn of number three. Barka da Sallah.
This article was originally published on Daily Trust.