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One has just finished reading the rejoinder to the article, "Bola Tinubu, Ibrahim Magu, The Cabal And 2023", written by Dr. Oladimeji Alo. This piece is a rejoinder to his rejoinder, and please, pardon the tautology. This headline was chosen to avoid boredom and disinterest, while essentially addressing the issues raised in the original piece and Dr. Alo's rejoinder, from whence this title was actually appropriated. 

His rejoinder, without a doubt brought forth a different perspective to the issues in public discuss, but evidently, not on the matters raised by the original article. In his very first paragraph, Dr. Alo had written inter alia:
"There appears to me a grand theory or hypothesis that has been constructed and there is a tendency to fit emerging data into that construct, however tough that attempts becomes."

It is one's considered view that his rejoinder fits this characterization more than anything he might have believed, albeit wrongly, that one had tried to do along that line. There was no theory anywhere. The was no hypothesis anywhere. What one did in that article was just pure analysis of events as they unfolded and were still unfolding in lieu of other anticipated occurrences in the public space, before expressing one's opinions which could not have been sacrosanct by any means.

 

  Remi Oyeyemi
 

For ease of comprehension, one would take his points chronologically as he laid them out.

Dr. Alo had written that one's "essay appears to presume Magu guilty, in his current travail." With due respects sir, this was a made up. There was no evidence of this in the original piece. In the piece, one had written inter alia:

"As the Chairman of that anti-corruption body, his era exuded an aura of effluvial. It was not just ugly, it ceaselessly rained moral pain on the polity. Rather than the edification of the mural of our morality on the public wall of our values, with unguarded gusto, Magu's era magnified the morass of our maxims, licentiously lacerating the laws and rules that are frameworks for justice, fairness, balance and equity."

Twice in this paragraph alone, the word "era" was used. In the previous paragraph to this, the word "trajectory" was also employed to denote the span of time. So, how this became pronouncement of Magu's guilt "in his current travails," is a source of curiosity. This, however, does not erase the obnoxiousness of media trials that Magu and his predecessors engaged in, ruining reputations, losing high profile cases, becoming political hatchet men, targeting only opposition members or rebellious party members. Most eggregiously, Magu had been unable to appropriately account for the looted funds among several heinous acts.  

Dr. Alo was worried that one spoke of Magu's nomination by BAT. He wondered what could be wrong with that. Obviously, Dr. Alo did not understand the message laid bare here. One of the reasons politicians nominate cronies into positions was to get such protégé to do their bidding when needed. Like Attorney-at-law, Ayo Turton had pointed out, such efforts were made for the purposes of "rub my back, I rub yours." This essentially is at loggerhead with the public good and interest. It is not morally right to use any office to specially benefit any interest at expense of the general public. Dr. Alo was speaking of guava while the subject matter was pawpaw.

It could not have been less interesting to know also, that Dr. Alo would consider the rivalry between Bola Tinubu and Bukola Saraki a "speculation." It is either he did not follow the events that led to the emergence of Senator Saraki as the Senate President or he was oblivious of the nature of the Nigerian politics. Senator Saraki had to be pleaded with, from several quarters to even allow some of the Tinubuists in the Senate to be on some committees. It was so bad that even Senator Remi Tinubu, the wife of the Jaggaban had to "blackmail" Senator Dino Melaye, Saraki's "man Friday" for her to get limited breathing space in the Chamber.

Dr. Alo was in addition, discomforted by the summation in that piece that Magu, like Osibajo, Fowler and Oshiomole, have been removed or humiliated in and or out of office in a grand design to stop BAT from contesting the presidency in 2023. Or, that Femi Falana failed in his bid to become AG of the Federation because he was backed by BAT. In this case again, one was speaking of tangerine, Dr. Alo was speaking of pear.

The competence or lack of it, the corruption or lack of it on the part of these people had nothing to do with their being humiliated in or out of office. Dr. Alo obviously was not able to see what was and is still going on in the high wired politics. The scheming, the treachery, the shifting loyalty, the short and long knives being used to subvert or destroy identified and or presumed political foes. Would Dr. Alo be bold to contend that Akin Ambode, for example, was not forced out of Alausa because Tinubu wanted to maintain control? 

Same goes with the Cabal that is determined to hold on to power in 2023. If they fail in their objective, they certainly would make sure that Tinubu did not get it, at leasy, that is what political traffication implies. To this extent, to further weaken Tinubu, all his men must be ousted or incapacitated before the competition started. As I was writing this, the news broke that Tinubu's candidate for governorship race in Ondo State, Mr. Segun Abrahams has been disqualified by the APC. Piece of a puzzle.

The refusal of Dr. Alo to comment on the rigging of the 2019 elections actually intrigues one. Evidences abound of underaged voters in several parts of the North. News and pictures of stolen ballot boxes abound everywhere. The inability of the INEC to resolve many electoral crises was unambiguous in the psyche of the public. In many cases, it was to the Courts that the politicians had to resort for resolutions.

On the treachery of Tinubu against the Yorùbá Nation as exemplified in his silence several times when there had been crisis in Yorùbá land, Dr. Alo noted as follows:
"If my memory serves me right, BAT issued statements on each and everyone of those crises. What anyone could say was that his statements on each issue did not meet the expectations of those who  wanted him to do more. My view is that every leader is free to choose his own approach to a  crisis, based on his assessment of the appropriateness of time, space and strategy."

Unfortunately, Dr. Alo could not quote a single statement from any of the Tinubu's responses to the occasions mentioned as evidence of his claim. I respectfully posit that Dr. Alo should not have relied on his "memory" alone. He should have done a "little research" to bring out evidences of his claim that "BAT issued statements on each and everyone of those crises."

On RUGA for example, Tinubu's silence was so deafening that Emmanuel Aziken wrote in the Vanguard of July 6, 2019, under the headline "Understanding Tinubu's Silence," as follows:
"In the face of these, the quietness of a particular section of the political class to the Ruga Settlement issue has also been conspicuous.
Of particular note has been the silence of the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
At the peak of the controversy with ethnic jingoists taking over the public space there was the expectation that the leader would show the way by bringing caution to bear as he often does. The leader was, however, uncharacteristically reticent."

On Amotekun issue, Tinubu could not be seen or heard. On January 16, 2020, one had written a piece titled, " AMOTEKUN: Where is Bola Ahmed Tinubu?" Six days after the article, on January 22, 2020, Tinubu was forced to release a statement titled, "Public Discourse On Amotekun," in which he prevaricated, equivocated and cavilled to the nausea of the majority of the Yorùbá people, gauging from their public reactions.

The public would need the help of Dr. Alo to refresh their memories with those "statements" of Tinubu made about the issues raised in that article. The public would like to know what exactly did Tinubu say on the crisis at Ile-Ife and the carting away of Ife sons to Abuja for trial? What exactly did Tinubu say on the kidnapping of Chief Olu False and the murdering of his security? And on the murder of Pa Reuben Fasoranti's daughter, yes, Tinubu made a statement and we acknowledged it: "Where are the cows?"

Any leader who is bereft of compassion for his people is not worthy. Your people should not matter to you only in election season when you flaunt around bullion vans loaded with cash. They should matter to you at all times. What has become incontrovertible about the Tinubu political saga is that his mercantilist politics is all about "profit making" at the expense of the Yorùbá Nation. He sees the Yorùbá people as pawns in his game of illicit money-making chess. Thus, the schools could rot, the hospitals could decay, industries could pack up, youths could be unemployed, their farms could be gutted, their women could be raped, it did not matter to him. For his ambition, anyone and anybody was dispensable at anytime of any day.

 Dr. Alo also had issue with one's position that "BAT is not enthusiastic on the issue of Yoruba nation. Rather, all he wants is power for himself." One is not backing off this position because there are more than abundant evidences for this. But where Dr. Alo got it wrong was to bring about the clamour for Oòduà Nation as the reason Tinubu was being called out for his acts. In one's article, this was not even an issue at all. Not even Restructuring of which Tinubu himself was part of the deceptive, duplicitous, deceitful and dishonest All Progressive Congress (APC) crowd that sold it to Nigerians during the 2015 Presidential Campaign, was mentioned in the piece in question. 

So, how Dr. Alo appropriated those issues to justify his defence of Tinubu in his rejoinder remains a source of curiosity. If Dr. Alo was interested in discussing the issues of Restructuring as well as the desirability of the clamour for Oòduà Nation, he would be welcomed to the table. Dr. Alo's rejoinder veered off the rail as far as this matter was concerned. In Philosophy 101, that would qualify for "red herring."

Finally, in his concluding paragraph, Dr. Alo wrote as follows:
"Finally, I would plead that we recognize the achievements BAT recorded in the last 20years, even when we disagree with his person or his politics."

One nearly puked reading the above. The "achievement BAT recorded in the last 20 years"? What achievement (s)? It was interesting that Dr. Alo once again, could not avail us the so-called achievements. Is it the destruction of our educational system in Yorùbá Nation? Or the turning of our hospitals to slaughter slabs? Or the destruction of our industries? Is it the financial fleecing of the Yorùbá States to comatose? Or the perversion of everything that was Omoluabi as he openly insulted all our traditional Obas? It doesn't matter if he feeds them, he had no right to drag them collectively in the mud. Anyways, Obas are supposed to be fed, what else is new? So, what are we going to point out as his achievements?

Stretching out a helping hand to Dr. Alo, could the achievement of Tinubu include installing the plague called Mohammed Buhari? Or the rigging of Election in Osun? Or the making of anti-people mercantilist politicians out of his cronies? The institution of kleptocracy across the Yorùbá political landscape? The making of governors who planted flowers and painted roundabouts at billions of Naira?

Some even pointed to the ascension of Yemi Osinbajo and other political nitwits as an advantage for the Yorùbá! I had a professor postulating that many of these kleptomaniacs have had "personal advancements" because they get bigger posts and political appointments! Woow! Imagine such reasoning about the expectations from the political class by a professor? That was doomy and gloomy.

What is the benefit of Osinbajo's Vice Presidency or any of the empowered Tinubu  cronies to the ordinary man or woman at Iragberi, Sepeteri, Oko Awo, Iree,  Adà, Idominasi, Itire, Odédá, Ìjèbú - Igbó, Erùnmu, Olódó, Ìlárámòkín, Ilè-Olúji, Ìlàje, Ìlawe, Mushin, Arámoko, Ìgèdè, Ìbàràpá, Idominasi, Ilowa, Isonyin, Ilora, Ajebandele, Ilese-Ijebu and many more towns and villages across Yorùbá land? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Rather the lot of the people under Tinubu's leadership has been tears, misery, misfortune, gnashing of teeth, death, arson, kidnapping and several woes that have scarred their psyche. The measurement of a good leader is the well being, progress and happiness of the greatest number of the people. This is the only criterion that matters. Any other criterion would be window dressing.

In the last line of his rejoinder, Dr. Alo asked, "what exactly do we want?" Well, while we are not particularly looking for a Saint, we want a leader with an iota of integrity; with a trajectory that is not forged and with a modicum of morality. We want a leader that wouldn't be a laughing stock, that would have the moral force and not the force of illicitly acquired money to lead. We want a true patriot who sees his ambition and future in the desires and aspirations of his people. That is what we want at the minimum.
"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it." --John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1960.

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The writer for host Tucker Carlson posted highly offensive messages online under the name CharlesXII.

In what further punctured the lie by Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), that the wedding of his son, Abdulaziz, to Khadija Danbatta, in Kano on Saturday was done in compliance to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control guidelines, SaharaReporters has confirmed that the lavish ceremony did not only breach the laid down protocols of the NCDC but also violated the stipulated number of persons approved to attend a social event at this time by the Nigerian Government.

According to government's order, social events of more than 20 persons were prohibited at this time in order to help curb the spread of Coronavirus in the country.

However, videos and photographs seen by SaharaReporters of the wedding of Malami's son showed that not only did participants at the ceremony, which took place inside the Kano State Government House, more than 20, many of them did not wear face masks to protect themselves and others from contracting Coronavirus. 

Also, the large number of top serving and former government officials including leading players in various industries from across the country present at the ceremony on Saturday showed that indeed more than a few private jets touched down in Kano on Saturday for the event despite the denial by Malami earlier in the day.

The AGF had through his spokesperson, Umar Gwandu, earlier on Saturday in reaction to a story by SaharaReporters denied that private jets were booked ahead to fly dignitaries into Kano for the ceremony.

But following the unfolding of events later in the day, it became clearer that indeed more than a handful of jets had specifically flown into the ancient Northern Nigerian city for the elaborate ceremony.

Findings by SaharaReporters further revealed that a former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, former Zamfara governor, Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari, incumbent governor of Sokoto and Zamfara states, Aminu Tambuwal and Bello Muhammad Matawalle, were among dignitaries that graced the occasion with their entourage. 

A former Speaker of Borno State House of Assembly, Goni Ali Modu, House of Representatives Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Minister of Power, Engr Sale Mamman, and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Baru, are among other top functionaries present at the wedding inside the Kano State Government House.

Curiously, ex-Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, who was arraigned in court on May 5 this year by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged N714.6m fraud also attended the elaborate ceremony in Kano on Saturday.

---

Photos from the event:

On Friday, Malami ordered the EFCC to hand over all high profile corruption cases to his office.

This was on top of other top cases he had taken over in recent times, which suddenly fizzled out of oblivion against public interest.

SaharaReporters gathered that the wedding ceremony turned out to be a nightmare for motorists and commuters in Kano, one of the busiest cities in Northern Nigeria, who woke up to the sight of armed security personnel barricading roads in key locations within the metropolis.

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SaharaReporters further scooped that in testament to the raw wealth on display, the wedding ceremony will move to Birnin Kebbi, capital of Kebbi State, on Sunday (today) where an exclusive dinner party will be staged by the AGF for top guests.

The event will also continue on Monday with two special events lined up including a Walima -- a Muslim ceremony where other women in a family welcomes a new bride.

In separate reports on Saturday, SaharaReporters had revealed how Malami bought a N300m mansion for his son and wife in Abuja as gift in addition to another N100m property in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State constructed under less than two months.

Persons close to the AGF, told SaharaReporters that since being appointed into the government of President Muhammadu Buhari in November 2915, Malami, a little known lawyer before then, had embarked on a relentless purchase and construction of property through alleged public funds.

He has been constantly accused of using his influence in Buhari's government to promote impunity and human rights violation despite being Nigeria's chief law officer.

 

See Also Corruption EXPOSED: How AGF Malami Granted Approval To Firm Standing Trial In Court For Stealing Crude Oil, Diesel To Auction Goods Seized From It 0 Comments 12 Hours Ago

 

See Also Corruption Top Controversial Cases Taken Over By Nigeria’s Attorney General, Malami, And How They Ended 0 Comments 1 Month Ago

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Again, the system felled Ibrahim Magu, Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week. It had always done that. Olusegun Obasanjo, the maiden president at inception of Nigeria’s fourth republic, first erected the crucifixion upon which a crime-fighting czar was hung. While employing the old Yoruba verbal denunciation of thieves by way of pouting lips, clapping both hands repeatedly, literally poking hands into the face of the accused and shouting Ole! Ole! E ki’gbe ole, ole!, Obasanjo did all that against former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun in January, 2005.

He did more: Obasanjo asked Balogun to immediately tender his letter of resignation, on account of huge theft of public money traced to him. The dossier lay threateningly on the table before Obasanjo that morning inside the Aso Rock Villa. As narrated by Nuhu Ribadu, first EFCC’s Chairman’s biographer, Prof Wale Adebanwi in his A Paradise for Maggots, Balogun went on all fours as a tribal symbolic solicitation to Obasanjo to, in my words, kill me at home and not kill me abroad, whose Yoruba translation was, pa mi si’le, ma pa mi si’ta. A total sum of N2.7 billion in five different banks and jaw-dropping number of choice properties had been traced to the police chief whose mantra for combating crime was Operation Fire for Fire.  

Three people were at that meeting: Obasanjo, his Chief of Staff, Abdullahi Mohammed and Balogun himself. Mohammed had earlier summoned Balogun, on behalf of the President. The three of them, being and having affinity with the Yoruba nation (Mohammed hailed from Ilorin, Kwara State), could connect with Balogun’s symbol-baiting prostration. Here was the bodily hefty, giant-in-position Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police in total surrender to his accuser. Tafa Balogun was not only prostrate, in that prostrating position, he was pliant, literally castrated of his manhood and was in subdued acceptance of his guilt.

Balogun was to be dragged by the EFCC to court a few weeks later. He had been handcuffed and even dragged on the floor by young police officers who probably had not stopped sucking their mothers’ teats when he joined the police force. Then Chief Superintendent of Police, Ibrahim Magu, one of the EFCC operatives under Ribadu, led that operation that saw a huge crime czar like Balogun falling with a deafening thud like a common felon. Thoroughly defoliated of his manhood in the public by Magu and his boys, Balogun had reportedly pleaded with them that, “I can change your lives, please. Let me settle you and let’s settle this. I can make you rich for life.”  Festus Adedayo

Within the period he held the brunt of power, Ribadu oscillated in the air like a pestilence to a commune of Nigerian fraudsters and corrupt Politically-Exposed Persons (PEPs) who were mutating in the air like a ravaging virus. Aside allegations against him that he was Obasanjo’s poo-poo bowl carrier, Ribadu succeeded in instilling fears into the hearts of Nigerian malefactors clothed in the euphemism of political office holders. His rout of criminals was so celebrated that late literary giant, Chinua Achebe, in lauding the clinical way he fought crime and criminals, compared him to Eliot Ness. Ness was an American crime-bursting legend of the 1930s renowned for bringing down the Al Capone gang in Chicago, Illinois. His law enforcement team, a 1,000-strong group called Bureau of Prohibition, was nicknamed The Untouchables. When the system was to chop Ribadu off, it made mincemeat of him and flushed the Adamawa-born crime-buster down the cistern like a common felon.

In quick successions, Farida Waziri and Ibrahim Lamorde came, appointed into office by Presidents Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. They also made noise and got some criminals to scamper off their felonies. However, not long after, they became the proverbial Maga dogs, biting the systemic hands that recruited and fed them, thereby getting drenched in the sewage waters that seemed to have been reserved for Nigerian crime-busting chiefs. So, why did the four EFCC czars come into office with so much hope, so much adulations, expectations, vapory glories, but ended up being drenched in a haze of ignominy? Is there a latent systemic error that will always ensure that the after-office graveyards of these crime lords must be garlanded with stench and shame?

As against what its minders are making us to believe, it is a huge minus to the Muhammadu Buhari government that Magu is being tried now. It is either the government has no mind of its own and was amenable to being swept right, left and center by the currents of some individuals’ whims and caprices, or that it is seriously implicated in the politics of crime-fighting, the ocean of which is alleged to have drowned Magu. This is because, in the cache of allegations said to have been leveled against the ex-EFCC boss, there is a rehash of same allegations which the DSS, about five years ago, saw as reasons why Magu’s nomination should not be upheld by the Nigerian senate.

Throughout the years spent by Magu as EFCC chair, those who understood the workings of the mind of the Buhari government claimed that he was an insider-outsider therein. This meant that though Magu was of the government, he was not for them. If he was for them, his confirmation as EFCC chair shouldn’t have lingered as embarrassingly as it did, like the cry of a wife who clandestinely murdered her hubby. There is the claim that he was of the Bola Tinubu/Yemi Osinbajo rump of the current power calculus. This then must explain why it was easy for those who cooked the slur on the Vice President’s name, using alleged proceedings of Magu’s interrogation, to reinforce the believability of their claim.

The truth is, there are far weightier allegations against Buhari government functionaries hanging in the public domain than those leveled against Magu. For instance, owning property in Dubai, UAE is alleged to be one of Magu’s errs. However, it is common knowledge that the UAE remains a haven where corruptly acquired wealth is laundered for the Nigerian political elite and owning eye-popping property in this Arab country is the rule, rather than the exception. No wonder cyber-heist kingpins like Hushpuppi and Woodberry found a comforting nest there. A minister in Buhari’s government was recently accused of owning humongous mansions in Abuja. His riposte was that he acquired them as a teacher. The Attorney General of the Federation, the one who must be popping champagne for having seen the back of Magu, also has a mountain load of his own allegations trailing him like recalcitrant flies envelope oozing stench. There is no doubt that illicit financial outflows from Nigeria daily trickle out of PEPs’ conduits and pipes.  

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai was, not long ago, enmeshed in an asset declaration scandal pronged on allegation of ownership of property in Dubai. In his reply, he claimed that the property belonged to his unstated family and that the family made these investments in this Middle East city in 2013, long before his appointment. No further questions were asked. No further investigations needed to be carried out. As far as Nigeria and government were concerned, Buratai’s answers were QED.

Matthew Page, in a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace page, had made a damning condemnation of this capricious craving of Nigeria’s political elite. “For Nigeria’s corrupt political elites, Dubai is the perfect place to stash their ill-gotten gains and enjoy luxury real estate worth millions. But unless authorities stop turning a blind eye, the long-term costs to Nigeria’s economy and Dubai’s reputation could be high,” he had written.

If the truth be told, Magu was an accident waiting to happen on the Nigerian crime-fighting system. So also were his predecessors. This is because, an office which is that consequential is subjected to inconsequential indices of operations which cannot but render its occupants dead on arrival. What procedure, process or rules guide the appointment of EFCC czars? In other words, how do they emerge? Are they chosen on account of moral gallantry, their ethnicity, man-knows-man procedure or mere seniority? How many times did past occupiers of that office, before and after coming on board, demonstrate ability to look at enticing lures in the face and tell them to go jump inside the River Niger? Elliot Ness, who Achebe compared Ribadu to, in 1931, had a member of the Al Capone gang bait with two $1,000 notes (about $17,000) if he turned a blind eye to the group’s illegal merchandizing. He refused and even though he died penurious at age 54, Ness’ heroic reputation is legendary in America.

Is there a crime-fighting institution or architecture in Nigeria? The answer is no. Our measurement of their suitability is the candidate’s ethnic affiliation, the person who introduces them and their loyalty to the occupier of authority seat. To expect a thorough-bred czar to come out of such a nebulous system is hypocrisy of the highest order.

The story is told of how Obasanjo picked Dora Akunyili without any bother about her ethnicity but a buzz that she had demonstrated an unusual moral courage alien to this clime while working with the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) as pharmacist. When she eventually came on board at NAFDAC, she merely rehashed what was her internal constitution. In serious climes, anyone who is to be appointed into an office as critical as the EFCC, who would naturally confront billions of Naira in kickbacks and illicit perks of office must have been psychologically grilled before society can arrive at their suitability. In Nigeria, politicians, who know the criminal functionality of having their Man Fridays occupy such positions, fight tooth and nail to have them in office.

Again, are we being fair to appoint a policeman with no pedigree of snubbing ill-gotten wealth, whose salary is a paltry few thousands of Naira, to superintend over a potential illicit wealth empire like the EFCC? The Carnegie Endowment said PEPs – “individuals who are or have been entrusted with a prominent public function” like Magu and the likes, “are at higher risk of involvement in unlawful activity due to their positions of influence and access to assets.” In fact, it states that, as at 2016, the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (now known as C4ADS) “acquired the data of a private database of Dubai real estate information (dubbed the  ‘Sandcastles’ data) and that, at a conservative estimate, “at least 800 properties were found to have links to Nigerian PEPs or their family members, associates, and suspected proxies.” So why are we crying wolf now when we exposed a police officer whose take-home is less than a million naira to assets in multiple of billion naira worth?

In a Nigeria that is brimming with street mindsets of fraudulently acquired wealth, of filthy wealthy men and women who crawl in a cesspit like maggots, are we sincere to think we would always have men/women who will kick against what has become normal among us? Are we seriously looking for a clean EFCC chairman in this dirty clime? Those are the honest questions we must ask ourselves. If we now seek a person who is unlike the filth associated with us, should we just pick them peremptorily like they pick a fallen mango off the tree? 

This is why, if we think that, with Muhammed Umar as replacement for Magu, or even any substantive name brought up eventually, the maladies in the EFCC would stop, we are fooling ourselves and are on a Pyrrhic victory binge. This is because, no institution of consequence is so forged in saner clime.

By the way, I read that Magu is bitterly complaining that his tormentors-in-chief had treated him with rank ignominy, like a common criminal, inside the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence (FCIID) dungeon where he is said to be currently held. Oh, right? How did he, as CSP who led the assault operation against Tafa Balogun, treat the then Inspector General of Police? Wickedness is like the story in the Myth of Sisyphus, a 1942 essay by the Algerian-French philosopher, Albert Camus. While Sisyphus pushes the boulder down the mountain, he goes back again and does the same thing, till the end of time. Good is the only thing that can break the jinx.

Ondo: Heroines live here!

As interesting as the political soap opera that is playing out in Ondo State now is, we must take out time to acknowledge the pleasantly absurd scene that jutted out of the soap last week. In the thick of the melee to get the Deputy Governor of the state, Agboola Ajayi, impeached and the usual shamelessness advertised by politicians in the state, we must not forget that the state swam out of this usual Nigerian water. This was exhibited by the Chief Judge of the state, Oluwatoyin Akeredolu, who to my mind is the heroine of that soap opera. The Chief Judge, not kowtowing to political office holders, no matter their power and position, literally told the actors behind the impeachment that they were riding a roller-coaster of infamy.

To a request by the apparently financially instigated Ondo State House of Assembly, which was drunk on the bid to illegally impeach the deputy governor, Akeredolu, like a fearless judge that she apparently is, faulted the process of impeachment earlier spurned by the state legislators. In a letter dated July 9, 2020, Akeredolu had told the unruly and ostensibly shameless legislators driven by everything but the love of Ondo State, that their request to her to constitute a 7-man probe panel ran foul of constitutional requirements.

For me, no matter whether or not the legislators succeeded or eventually lived down their apparently influenced bid to impeach the deputy governor, that valiant pronouncement by Akeredolu could only have come from a heroine. This is at a time when men and women of honour, who can look political authorities in their bloodless faces and underscore justice, are becoming very rare in Nigeria. It also strengthens the hope that we will survive the mercantilists and buccaneers in political offices who are gallivanting about like Lords of the Manor of Nigeria. It probably also confirmed the thesis which Ondo State people flaunt that men and women of honour still inhabit that land.

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PHOTONEWS: Kano Governor, Ganduje Hosts Top APC Members At State Government House For Second Leg Of Malami Son's Wedding

This is despite Malami's claim that he only "notified" people and never invited anyone for the wedding.

See Also Exclusive REVEALED: New Multi-million Naira Property Built By Nigeria's Attorney-General, Malami, For Son In Kebbi State Uncovered 0 Comments 1 Hour Ago

 

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