Nigeria: Is EFCC fighting corruption or freeing the corrupt?
Uzoma
Ahamefule
 |
| Mr Ibrahim Lamorde, EFCC boss |
Immediately
the news broke that Nuhu Ribadu has been appointed the chairman Petroleum
Revenue Special Taskforce, the first thing that came to my mind were his days
in EFCC. Then I thought deeply about Nigeria and I remembered what
Senate President, David Mark said at a lecture marking former Governor of Imo
state, Chief Ikedi Ohakim’s first year in office, precisely 16 May, 2008.
He said, “48 years after independence, just barely two years to 50 years of our attainment of independence … we are still discussing on how to provide water, electricity, building roads, building hospitals … Our 48 years of independence appear to me as wasted years.” In agreement I reflected about this sad verdict and subconsciously in sober mood thought deeply about Ribadu, EFCC and the war against corruption.
Retrospectively, I sorrowfully remember the epidemic crooked structures the establishment of EFCC were meant to dismantle and how Nigerian corrupt politicians and some contractors have craftily averted justice to dishonestly live in mansions with enough millions in foreign accounts and enough food to feed their reptiles, dogs and cats while we ordinary Nigerians in the midst of plenty die in abject poverty, I shed profusely hot tears in regret. In my lonely curled lip, I painfully remember how wickedly our past leaders have corruptly planned for the future comfort of their children, then I rhetorically asked; how about us?
Because we
the Nigerian masses have been unjustly left without electricity, without roads,
without water, without hospitals, without schools, without any structure and
invariably without future in the 21 first century; where is the conscience of
Nigerian politicians? Despondently, they do not care about us. What did my
generation do wrong? In that pitiful, sorry and annoying state, my intellect
was at alert, because it was brainstorming trying to figure out visible
legacies left behind by our leaders. But unfortunately and disappointingly
there was nothing so extraordinarily cheerful except decayed Nigeria, endowed with chronic corruption,
political murder, ethnic contaminated mindsets and deceptive lip service of one
Nigeria
that they could not sincerely nurture from the beginning to maturity.
It was on this undesirable note that I reluctantly like a man who wants to commit suicide with his hands trembling to pick the hanging rope, that I picked my pen to write down in protest, in sorrow and tears that my generation is not a wasted generation, but rather the ruling class has failed us at all times beyond imagination.
It was on this undesirable note that I reluctantly like a man who wants to commit suicide with his hands trembling to pick the hanging rope, that I picked my pen to write down in protest, in sorrow and tears that my generation is not a wasted generation, but rather the ruling class has failed us at all times beyond imagination.
It was on
this deplorable sorry state of Nigerian roads, the failure to have steady power
supply, the collapse of Nigeria Airways without anybody prosecuted, the
declaration by EFCC, Nigerian courts and judges that the former Governor of
Delta state James Ibori was not a fraudster, a fugitive and ex-convict and the
epidemic corrupt practices in all the parastatals recognised and
institutionalised that I concluded that Nigeria is in trouble and that EFCC is
dishonest and regrettably a failure. The rigmarole into the 48 wasted years
according to the number three citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is
quite unfortunate but it was an honest verdict that is too hard to swallow.
Issues have been
analytically compacted for your savouring curiosity. And the naked truth of my
thesis in this article has been compressed to take you through the unfortunate
panorama of Nigeria’s
problems. It is sadly captivating and informing.
Uzoma
Ahamefule WROTE IN FROM aSTRIA
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