by Tony Icheku
The comments trailing Charles Ogbu's articles lampooning President Muhammadu Buhari's administration is really an expose on the mindsets of his critics. It revealed a lot: Of some who would rather be slaves in a Country where corruption, injustice and impunity reigns supreme, so long their stomach is filled with crumbs from the masters table; Of others whose intransigence and ignorance cannot be comprehended. Ogbu in his two articles published on the social media: "In Defense Of Goodluck Jonathan", and "In Defense Of The Masses: No! This Is Not The Change We Voted For!" relished in Buhari bashing themes. Not one good has the Buhari administration done for Nigeria in the last fifteen months, he argued.
Well, everyone knows there are two sides to one coin, different perspectives to every issue, therefore Ogbu could only have seen issues from a very limited prism. And his interpretation further restricted by his own narrower view of issues whose complex overwhelms hims. Take corruption for instance. Ogbu thinks that corruption is like eating ice-cream in a fast food joint.
I mean that was my submission when I read his assertion somewhere in his article that "Corruption alone don't kill an economy". Shocking.
For me that was enough grounds to dismiss him as one of the deluded minds on the cyberspace. But no, I realised that Ogbu is a young man who doesnt really understand the pains wicked politicians and civil servants has inflicted on Nigerian and Nigerians or he has been brainwashed.
But let me begin this article properly. Maybe Ogbu would be willing to examine with me the flipside of the coin. Who am I? I neither work for President Buhari nor do I belong to the All Progressive Congress, APC. Am just a Nigerian who do not share Ogbu's "In Defense Of The Masses: No! This Is Not The Change We Voted For!".
I know for sure that Buhari is the change majority of Nigerians yearned and voted for. And I would use the South-East where Buhari bashing appears to have become the rave of the moment on social media as the prop to build my arguement.
From the names which I believe are real, my South-East brothers appear to be the lead singers in faulting Buhari's every move. Isn't it nauseating that after
16 years of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP left the entire South-East geo-political region desolate, depraved, ruined and retrogressing, we can still see something good about the party? What is there to cheer about the legacy of former President Goodluck Jonathan who lost the 2015 election to Buhari?
My Igbo brothers who look back to the locust years of PDP insult their own sensibilities and that of us all if they claim there is anything worthy to celebrate first in PDP and second in Jonathan. I repeat and stand to be corrected, 16 years of PDP left Igbo stripped of all dignity and development. It emasculated the strong and asphyxiated the weak. I do not remember a single passable Federal road in the entire SE: Look at the major federal roads - from Onitsha-Awka-Enugu - Abakiliki; Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt; Umuahia-Ikot-Ekpene; Aba-Ikot-Ekpene.
The cluster of Onitsha-Nnewi-Awka should have been a thriving hub of commerce and industry, but insecurity, dearth of infrastructure robbed it of all opportunity to progres to the next level, same as Aba where lack of power, armed robbery, kidnapping and general insecurity led to exodus of industry and
commercial concerns.
The interesting thing about insecurity in the South-East, is that while it boasts of the highest number of police checkpoints or police presence per kilometre, its crime rate keeps rising.
Under the Obasanjo era, when power plants were sited here and there or existing ones refurbishd, how many were sited in the South-East or refurbished?
How about political offices? Despite voting the PDP, from 2007 to 2015, were not the SE schemed out from holding top political positions? For instance, in 2007-2011, when the Speaker of the House of Representative position should have come to the South-East, where they not cheated out of it?. And even later robbed of the National Chairman of the party?
How good was Jonathan to Ndigbo? Was he not the same who gave with one hand and took with the other: First he met Ogbonnaya Onovo as Inspector-General of Police and had him fired. Did he not sack Prof. Barth Nnaji as Minister of Power, and even supported his cronies to attempt to steal Geometric Power Station, a privately owned concern from the man? Was not Festus Odimegwu unceremoniously removed from office as Nigeria Population Census, NPC boss? Jonathan, Obasanjo did their best to hurt Igbo interests, which do I mention, which do I leave out?
In the same PDP locust years, Igbo lost its poliltical leadership class as mediocres, political jobbers and all sorts of shady characters were propped up as authentic Igbo leaders. Was it not in Dr Alex Ekwueme's own Anambra State that the aburdiest political drama was enacted? Where an elected governor was
kidnapped, held hostage in a toilet and his forged letter of resignation later presented to the House of Assembly?
Was it not in the same PDP that an elected governor was taken to a shrine, stripped naked and forced to swear an oath of allegiance to certain godfathers?
Why was impunity, roguery, brigandry, opportunism, corruption, prebendal politics the name of the game in South-East PDP? Because the PDP also held sway at the centre. Voting out the PDP at the centre was the change we needed and the change we voted for.
But I know how it is. Having stooped and fawned so long, a slave do not enthusiastically embrace freedom. Remember the grasshopper mentality. But lets see
what is still happening in South-East PDP, look at Abia State - Okezie Ikpeazu, Uche Ogah - are they not all of the same PDP family?
But this is about Buhari's change which Ogbu said is not working. Lets examine the issues he raised:
//Corruption alone don't kill an economy. Else, our economy would have died a long time ago because they've always been corruption in the system right from the very first post-independence govt of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa.//
Only a child would think that drinking contaminated water would not be harmful. Corruption is great enemy of development, development being the "process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy" Corruption suffocates that freedom. Corruption in its full manisfestation infringes upon the fundamental rights
and freedoms of individuals. In real terms, a foreign investor, the famous Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Atlantic narrates his experience of corruption in Nigeria. He was talking after the collapse of his collaboration with Nigeria's Federal Government to form a national airline. Said Branson on his experience in Nigeria…
“…We have Virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government…the details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s is better imagined… we put together a very good airline - the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA operational safety audit accredited, but unfortunately it got tied down to the politics of the country… we led the airlines for 11 years…
“We fought daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body) that didn’t know what to do and persistently asking for bribes at any point… Nigeria people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane…that may be irony because the people make up the politicians…
“But those politicians are selfish… we did make N3billion for the Federal Government of Nigeria during the joint venture…realising that the government didn’t bring nothing to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians KILLED it…Nigeria is a country we SHALL NEVER consider to doing business again..”
Hear and hear well, Ogbu, corruption kills not only the economy, it kills people and it is the reason why "Thousands of people have lost their jobs, millions have continued to troop to the labor market in search of nonexistent jobs, desperate parents have resorted to using their kids as collateral to collect food items from sellers, people are now stealing their neighbors' food from the fire etc." - your quote remember?
Ogbu's blatant audaciousness in dismissing corruption as non issue is worrisome. We know Corruption Nigeria plc is intimidated by Buhari's avowed mission to run them out of town. We know too that Corruption Nigeria plc has unleashed its army - foot soldiers, propagandists liars and self-appointed social critics to fight against Buhari's administration. if Buhari wins, they lose everything, therefore one can understand their desperation. But lose they will.
The unbridled corruption of the past era, the shameless looting of the treasury is one of the reasons Nigerians voted Buhari in 2015. It is the change Nigerians wanted and voted for.
Lets talk about Jonathan and Boko Haram. I do not know which town in Nigeria Ogbu lives in, if at all he lives here. But here in FCT, I remember one of the most disgusting and demoralising sights I ever saw was the military and police actually hiding from the misguided terrorists. Building walls, sandbags, creating road diversions to shield their barracks, formations, offices from the insurgents. Nigerians were cowed in their own Country. We were afraid to ride in the buses, to go to markets or to the mammy ,market. Today, many take for granted the victory over the Boko Haram terrorists. They forget the reign of the bomber who made it almost impossible for us to live without restraint.
I recall while campaigning for the office, Buhari made promises, for instance, quick end to the Boko Haram menace in North-East Nigeria was one. This was the period the insurgents had captured 14 local government areas in Borno State and hoisted their flags there. They had also taken the 200 Chibok school girls hostage. How about thousands of Nigerians killed, businesses worth millions ruined, many incapacitated in one form or the other?
For the people of Nigeria's North-East, millions of whom were becoming internally displaced persons, Buhari has restored hope. He has curtailed the menace of Boko Haram insurgency. Indeed, Boko Haram is fast becoming history. The wings of Boko Haram had been clipped, and the insurgents no longer had the capacity to carry out the kind of spectacular attacks for which they became notorious. If Ogbu thinks this singular achievement is not a worthy one, I recommend a psychiatric test for him,
End to Boko Haram terror is a change Nigerians wanted, and Buhari wanted that change too, thus Buhari is the change Nigerians yearned and voted for!