Three months or thereabout into President Buhari’s government in 2015, then leader of the All Progressives Congress,APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu counselled him on the need to assemble his cabinet. Apparently concerned about Buhari’s foot dragging on the issue,he told him publicly not to look for saints to work with.
Six months down the line, the soldier- turned politician appointed Ministers to run his government after a search that lasted eternity. The rest is history about their competence,capacity and performance in office.
Today, with the mountains of revelations coming out of the inquisition on his eight- year tenure,he will definitely turn in his grave and probably send a message if he could, that true to Tinubu’s counselling, there are no saints anywhere, not even among the Bible-clutching and Quran- wielding technocrats who shout from the rooftops .
During the now infamous tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the attitude of most Nigerians to the fate of humongous amount of money recovered from late Sani Abacha was that the loot would be re-looted.
Not under stern- looking Buhari, many argued, forgetting that his tough mien disappeared years ago after he and Babatunde Idiagbon left office.
Indeed,many believed that it was Idiagbon who was calling the shots.
But few months into the Buhari regime which I also welcomed with glee and beat my chest on the saintly gap -toothed Katsina general, I began to have a rethink.
Six months into the first term of Buhari, I declared to many who cared to listen that revelations of pilfering would surpass Abacha’s stealing spree.
With the situation of things now, it is clear as crystal that Asiwaju Tinubu was right when he told Buhari that searching for a Saint to be a Minister in Nigeria is a vain search.
For him, there is no point in spending six months searching for Ministers.
Revelations now coming in regarding how Buhari’s saintly Ministers helped themselves to the nation’s till would make him turn in his grave.
Except for death which covered his face,had he been alive he would’ve probably praised Tinubu and told him that he was right about the depth of corruption which has undermined the country’s greatness.
Indeed, as Ghanaian writer, Ayi Kwei Armah wrote decades ago,’the beautiful ones are not yet born’.
Today, Buhari would also have discovered that one of the reasons which made Abubakar Malami, his Attorney General marry his first daughter and mother of six as a fourth wife, is to cover the humongous amount he allegedly cornered for himself out of the recovered Abacha loot for which he is being tried.
He is standing trial today, courtesy of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for allegedly been unable to account for a princely $400m Abacha loot and other funds that developed wings and flew from the treasury under his watch. He has seventeen other charges hanging on his neck like the Sword of Damocle.
Death indeed is the greatest coverage for sin.
How would Buhari have felt if Tinubu had seen his in-law docked for allegedly helping himself with the loot?
Though he threatened to run to Niger Republic if any of his aides now being investigated ran to him, would he also have turned his back on his in- law or stood bail for him?
The trial of Malami may indeed open a pandora box of thievery if the EFCC is as diligent as it should in the investigation and prosecution.
The question now is, why is Tinubu’s government prodding EFCC to descend on Buhari’s Ministers now ?.
Friday, December 12th, Chris Ngige,the erstwhile Labour Minister also had his day in court to explain why a sum of N2.2bn developed wings and flew out of his Labour Ministry, even when government had to adopt Ways and Means to pay salaries of civil servants who engaged in series of strikes under his watch?
Ngige who is probably closer to the ground that many other Ministers, also contemplated running as Presidential candidate at a time Godwin Emefiele,who achieved the record of the first serving CBN Governor to bid for Presidency.
He is quoted as having told fellow Senators during his Ministerial screening in 2015 that he owes no allegiance to Bourdillon..meaning Tinubu and he were both Senators and former Governors.
He did not tell them that the former provided enough support for him both after his impeachment and estrangement with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and election to the Senate.
Now,the latter is the President. Is he going to ascribe his travails to him or his own light fingers ?
How Ngige hopes to outdo and escape the fate which befell the likes of Emefiele, who allegedly stole more than his predecessors, beats my imagination.
Having forfeited more than $10miion dollars so far to the EFCC in some of the 25 charges brought against him , Emefiele on close scrutiny must have beaten the record of late Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire who stole so much that he turned Gbadolite village ,his birth place, into a paradise amidst poverty- stricken local folk.
But Emefiele having forfeited 756 duplexes definitely qualifies to be crowned “king of thieves”.
Beside the trials of Malami and Ngige, the re-arraignment of former Ministers under President Goodluck Jonathan, particularly Stella Oduah who was part of the cabal that stole their ministries blind. Her on-going trial for billions of state money which allegedly disappeared could in a way demonstrate that being out of power for ten years after GEJ does not mean she can bury her exploits which probably ranked next to Deziani’s pilfering at the tottering NNPC.
Let us hope the EFCC under Ola Olukoyede will not merely make a media trial of this politically exposed big thieves a year to election but will see the cases through to conviction or otherwise.
Interesting days ahead for other yet to be revealed big thieves under Buhari who is no more around to throw his weight or prevent the on going probe into the activities of the angels which took him six months to assemble.