Nigeria’s blood-sucking elite

By Rotimi Fasan
NIGERIA’S political elite is a conclave of vampires. They survive on the blood of their innocent victims, in this instance the blood of struggling Nigerians who have nobody but God to protect them. This elite class of political jobbers are quick to amass wealth at the expense of the struggling majority. But they are never known to give out scholarship to indigent students who need it, nor are they famous for setting up foundations or charity organisations to research some of the killer diseases that the vast majority of Nigerians are ravaged by.

Not even such diseases like cancer that the jet set lifestyles of this greedy Nigerians expose them to increasingly are accorded the benefit of research grants that would ultimately be for their own good if not for all. Nigeria’s class of rich outcasts would rather travel abroad to spend their stolen wealth in the enrichment of the economies of those who already have more than enough to take care of their needs.

Yet nothing frightens and rankles more than the readiness of this elite class to make victims of Nigerians and survive on the predicament of the poor. Their capacity for mischief has no limits, and we see this again and again in the manner they deprive others of the gains of our commonwealth. This is what we see today with the revelations pouring in of how a few Nigerians have diverted funds meant for the procurement of arms for our military into their own private pockets.

The Sambo Dasuki arms deal scandal has served to show what blood-thirsty persons are most of our so-called big men and women. Without lifting a finger or breaking a sweat, they connived to turn the office of the National Security Adviser into the strong room of slush funds for all kinds of illicit causes including suspicious payments to media organisations. Dasuki was the benevolent and ever obliging Father Christmas that dispensed favours at the drop of a hat.

Let those claiming that the likes of Dasuki, Bafarawa, Dokpesi and company being currently tried for misappropriation of funds and money laundering- let those clamouring for their human rights –even when these rights have not even being manifestly denied them- let their supporters be reminded of the rights of the hundreds of millions of Nigerians who have had to bear the brunt of the greedy antics of these big men and their associates.

No life, ultimately, is more important than another even when we are not all treated equally before the law in Nigeria. No amount of alarmist cries of politically-motivated persecution can change the fact that these people have a case to answer. Let them address themselves squarely to answering the case against them before shouting us deaf with noises of a witch-hunt.

The people in question have apparently perpetrated grave acts of economic sabotage against Nigerians, exposed them needlessly to the death machines of Boko Haram and are yet peddling the blackmail that they are victims of political persecution. The real victims in this unfolding drama of greed and pilfering are poor Nigerians who have been exposed to the insecurity of insurgent and armed robbery attacks.

These are the real victims, not the rich men and women whose stock in trade is to feign ill-health once they are called upon to account for their ignoble actions. Or how else can anyone describe the deliberate exposure of defenceless people to the depredations of terrorists? All the while the Goodluck Jonathan government claimed to be fighting insurgency without any result to show for it, it failed to disclose that members of that administration were involved in the business of fund diversion rather than acquiring weapons that could make our military a true fighting force.

For this reason we can’t just forget about the Jonathan administration and close the book on it as some have urged. Yes, Buhari needs to face up to his own responsibilities. But part of that responsibility is to ensure that acts of economic or political sabotage, such as the current case of misappropriation and diversion of billions of dollars for arms procurement, must be investigated. Lives and properties have been lost on account of these. Such criminal acts cannot be overlooked in situations where even Buhari’s own performance is being hobbled as a consequence of such acts of sabotage.

Jonathan was quick to deny that he authorised release of what we now hear is about $6 billion dollars, (rather than the earlier advertised 2 billion dollars), for arms procurement. But both his National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and his Minister of Finance and so-called Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, have admitted to the fact that funds meant for arms were in fact released. Iweala has admitted to releasing, with the authorisation of the president, over $300 Million US dollars in one instance to Dasuki for arms procurement.

Dokpesi has not denied that he collected billions of Naira from Dasuki. He has only said that it was payment for an image laundering job done for Jonathan without telling Nigerians why he should have been paid from the coffers of the NSA. Beyond the case of Dasuki, Dokpesi, Bafarawa and Okonjo-Iweala, there are almost weekly revelations of how Nigerians have been defrauded by persons in positions of power in the name of providing security. Yet what we’ve had and continue to have are harvests of deaths. Shouldn’t somebody account for this?

The Nigerian political elite have been known to engage in ritual acts of shedding human blood for the purpose of acquiring power. They have been known to patronise shrines where blood cuddling oaths are taken in order to undermine their enemies. But with what is been revealed now with this Dasuki arms purchase deal, our politicians have clearly moved into the realm of direct wastage of Nigerian lives in order just to make money.

They sent ordinary soldiers into the battle field practically with their bare hands and call them cowards for refusing to fight. They made it possible for ordinary villagers to be kidnapped and turned into sex slaves even as they feign concern for their plight. While Dasuki and Dokpesi now seek to enforce their own rights (and their rights must surely be protected under the law), who among them showed similar concern for the rights of the soldiers mauled down in battle or villagers either killed, taken prisoners or uprooted from their ancestral land? Who speaks for this silenced majority?

Nigerians need to get to the root of this scam. They need to be assured they are not mere fodders in the greed machine of the rich and powerful. And until these concerns have been fully addressed cries of a witch hunt by those being called to account amounts to cheap blackmail.