Was General Tukur
Buratai, our Chief of Army Staff (COAS), being disingenuous, insulting, or
outright stupid when he declared that the $1.5 million property in Dubai, UAE,
belonged to one of his wives? If you believe his story, you probably believe
that the N2.5 billion the EFCC allegedly discovered in a bank account bearing
the name of
the maid of former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, belonged to
her maid. “Believe this – You’ll believe anything” is one of the classics of
the thriller maestro, James Hadley Chase, and nowhere does this prevarication
and baloney play out than in our dear country.
Our COAS has been in
the news lately not because his men eventually routed and crushed the dreaded
terrorist organization, Boko Haram (BH), but due to an alleged financial
impropriety. One of the allegations against the chief is that he purportedly
purchased a piece of real estate in Dubai for $1.5 million. My understanding is
that the cost of the property is well beyond the chief’s income. We do not have
information about other properties he could be hiding elsewhere in Nigeria. I
doubt if he does not own a property in Asokoro, Abuja. As a corollary to the
revelation, the press and commentators are having a feast making a caricature
of the army chief. We have a saying in my part of the world that whoever
harvests ant-infested firewood invites the visitation of lizards.
I will be the first
to admit that I lack the expertise at punching numbers. However, I do know that
the chief’s earnings from the first day he entered service until the present is
easy to figure out. My purpose here, though, is to steer the conversation to a
different perspective: how could a serving army officer contemplate, structure,
and purchase such an expensive real estate?
Now, I am not insinuating that the allegation is true. I am conversant
with the general presumption that one is innocent until one’s guilt is proven.
That said, I would take a tangent here to explicate how a decorated officer
could easily smudge his reputation, and jeopardize his career, in the quest to
be one of our country’s millionaires.
General Buratai is a
quintessential illustration of how the elites have taken advantage of our lack
of accountability to plunder our riches and impoverish us. We live in a country
of anything goes: a country that celebrates stealing and decorates a thief.
Perhaps, the general
thought if his predecessors in office could steal and get away with it, why not
him? He probably figured out we did not have any record where the government
ever prosecuted a retired army officer for unjust enrichment. If you are like
me, you wonder how Nigerians have managed to remain relatively peaceful in the
face of the revealed sustained assault by our dishonest compatriots who are
supposed to serve the country “with love and strength and faith,” but have
contributed to our present economic crisis.
If you are like me, you will expect Nigerians to take to the streets to
ventilate their outrage over such financial misconduct by those in the position
of authority.
Our “leaders” have
acquired notoriety both at home and abroad for stealing and to the former
British prime minister we remain “fantastically corrupt.” We helplessly wait
for such a time when news from homeland would present encouraging signs of
political and economic recovery and improved quality of life for poor folks. On
the contrary, we daily are inundated with updates on how our “princes”
shamelessly enrich themselves at our expense.
When we think about
corrupt institutions in Nigeria, our attention is fixated on the Nigeria Police
Force (NPF). Somehow, we make exception to the military because we are afraid
to confront an institution that has a license to kill. Besides, the military
controlled our government through much of our history and arrogated to itself
the moral rights to accuse every other institution of corruption except its
own. Our military has overthrown elected civilian governments on the pretext of
ridding the country of corrupt politicians while presenting itself as the lone
institution incapable of being corrupt. Well, our reality reflects a military
that is “prodigiously corrupt,” if not worse.
When Boko Haram
sacked our military and successfully unleashed terror on Chibok and abducted
defenseless schoolgirls, I warned that we were better off collapsing our
military and trust Providence to provide a hedge around our country rather than
placing our trust on an ineffectual military that would abdicate its position
at the sound of a hunting rifle. The thrust of my argument was that it was
shameful that the military of the most populous black nation on earth could not
repel a ragtag terrorist organization that was at its formative stage. Some of
my readers lampooned my proposition for failing, among other things, to note
that our military lacked equipment and funding to prosecute the war on
terror. Of course, it lacked equipment
and funding because of such brazen human beings like Badeh, Ihejirika, Amosu,
Minimah, Buratai who are, to put it mildly, thieves and saboteurs. Our military, sadly, will continue to lack
equipment and funding as long as it retains such ambidextrous characters.
We have succeeded in
raising a military that flouts the laws of the land and cannot protect her
landscape; a bunch of shenanigans, psychopaths, thieves, rapscallions, and
fools who would stop at nothing to liquidate our commonwealth in order to line
their pockets. The mistakes of the past when we celebrated the military
overthrow of civilian administrations have come full circle to haunt us. Our
officers have tasted power and fame, and acquired expertise at cutting corners
and hardly understand the difference between personal and public funds. I dare
anyone to challenge my position that we will ever restore professionalism in
our military with the crop of officers we have currently. Put differently, those who hope a day will
come when military professionalism will come into being in our country may wait
a very long time.
In any event, the
relevant inquiry, in my view, is how a serving officer could have the audacity
to convert funds meant to service our army to personal use. The answer is not
difficult to determine. General Buratai is a product of the entitlement proclivity,
which the Babangida administration introduced in the military. To IBB, any
general who has “distinguished” himself or herself in the service of the
country should be able live in a “hill top mansion,” own oil well, and own
properties in various parts of the world. Buratai’s conduct is not different
from that of the officers before him: Obasanjo, Babangida, Abacha, Danjuma,
Useni, Abdulsalami, Mark, Marwa, etc. The authorities are yet to invite any of
these retired officers to account for his service to the country. They continue
to enjoy their loot, except for Sani Abacha, who we revile because he is dead.
If he were alive, he probably would be one of our power brokers and no one
would dare question his source of wealth.
Our hyperventilation
over the financial impropriety of General Buratai without more will amount to
nothing unless it will pressure the government to hold him as well as the
previous occupiers of the office accountable and perhaps open up an
investigation into the activities of our military going back decades. I argue that the perpetrators of crimes
against our collective interest belong in jail, and they should forfeit that
wealth and their fruits. Until we demonstrate
our outrage by sending a strong message to our leaders that we can no longer
tolerate anyone treating our interest with levity, we will continue to watch an
endless stealing movie. My insistence that General Buratai must go is due to my
penchant for fairness and moral disapprobation of anyone who converts public
asset to personal property.
Our social structure
is rigged in favor of a certain demographic group, especially the military and
this is common knowledge. In other climes, once someone alleges that you
compromised your professional responsibilities, you stepped aside to allow
access to the records to determine the veracity or otherwise of the
allegation. In our situation, you retain
your position to cover your tracks, and if you are well connected, the matter
dies a natural death, and we are back to business as usual. And if for some reason, the matter goes to
court, you hire some dubious Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who has access
to the presiding judge, and for sure, the “honorable judge” will grant you
permanent injunction and you walk the streets of Nigeria with your shoulders
high.
President Buhari
(PMB) has tried to convince us that he is devoted to fighting corruption and
recovering our stolen wealth. My take is PMB is not fighting corruption; rather
he is trying to recover our stolen wealth. You do not fight corruption without
reconfiguring the structures that encourage corruption because corruption is
symptomatic of a structural failure. In any event, if PMB is genuine about
recovering our stolen wealth, he must take the only sensible, prompt, and decisive
course; fire General Buratai, and go after Babangida and his cronies and
subject them to the ventilation of our criminal justice system before they pass
away and their stolen wealth transfer to their children. In my view, the
retention of General Buratai after what we know about him is a stain on PMB’s
rhetoric and an insult to honest citizens who struggle daily to provide for
their families. I am opposed to selective justice. I have argued variously that
people similarly situated deserve similar treatment. If PMB fails to seize this
opportunity, General Buratai will leave office and hide in the governor’s
mansion and enjoy immunity from prosecution or proceed to the National Assembly
to enjoy his loot.
We cannot build a
sustainable nation on the shoulders of kleptomaniacs and liars. A nation is built by the sweat and blood of
selfless men and woman who are motivated by their love for country to
serve. General Buratai remains the wrong
person to head our army at this time. His killing antecedents from Zaria
through the South East are enough to press charges against him for crimes
against humanity. I urge PMB to do
everything within his powers to break the cycle of stealing pervading our
military. What is at stake is greater than any person or group’s ambition; it
is the future of our children and children’s children. We have a responsibility
to leave behind a nation where justice flows like a river and thieves are held
accountable and serve their terms in jail.
-Dr. Nwike Ojukwu
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