Funny bunch. They say we should stop talking about corruption. They say
we should stop talking about the wreckage they did here They say we
should not talk of the bizarre brigandage they superintended. They say we
should stop talking about yesterday but should talk of today and tomorrow.
They say we should keep mute over the vicarious damage they did to this
country just yesterday. They say we should stop complaining about their
sordid acts of Byzantine stealing. They say we should stop going after
them and their loot. They say they need less distraction to enjoy their
good fortune and we should rather look for our loincloths where we took
our bath on March 28. They say we should close their chapter for now and
pretend their egregious wastage never happened. They say we should talk
less of their debauchery. They say we should not look back and they are
wont to remind us of what happened to Lot’s wife in our effort to recall
the expanded rot of yesterday’s vultures’ feast. They want to hush us.
They want to gag us. They want to outlaw us from crying after they
mercilessly whacked us. They want to bring to early foreclosure the putrid
mess they did just the other day.
The say that the present anti-corruption war is a ruse because the country
is not corrupt. At best, they say the country has become corrupt since
Buhari came in as theirs was sparkling and without dent. Oh yes, we are
‘de-marketing’ Nigeria by talking of corruption. We are driving away the
legions of foreign investors they brought, just by stealing every kobo in
sight, when we talk of corruption. No, it is blasphemy to say Nigeria was
corrupt, at least when they were here. They ask us who told us that
Nigeria was corrupt. They said we are wasting time probing their
impeccable records. They say we are just making up tales of looting just
to explain the fact that we audaciously sacked their God-sent era. They
say we are merely witch-hunting them. Yea, they have become witches but
they say it is heresy hunting them. They say they did us a world of good
by robbing us blind; that they were merely keeping our wealth in custody
for us and that we should stop complaining but rather thank and garland
them for being so magnanimous. They have tried every trick to get a
recalcitrant country to parry its attention from their sordid mess and
rather face the man we elected to clean their mess. Though they pretend
they have no conscience but they betray a deep pinch by what remains of
their conscience whenever we remember or narrate the ghoulish acts they
did to our country. So is it not better they get us to criminalise any
discussion on corruption so that they can enjoy a little peace? Oh yes, we
must cease talking about corruption so that they corrupt can find some
comfort.
Anti corruption? They say their foot! They say we are just raising a heck
for nothing. They say we are just wasting precious time when we should
rather leverage on their elephantine achievements to go to the moon. They
say we are just making a mountain out of a molehill by looking and talking
of their misdemeanours. They say we are just chasing shadows looking for
stolen heist among the angels they are. They say no money was stolen in
Nigeria under their watch. They say those who are confessing so pruriently
on how they ate yams are just being hypnotized to confess crimes they
never committed. They say all the petrifying details and confessions we
are hearing today are acted scenes meant to entertain us as no such things
happened under their immaculate leadership. They say they ran a clean and
impeccable era and that by talking and klieg-lighting their acts, we are
just wasting precious times on nothing. They say that the international
community a shunning us because we keep talking of their corruption. Yes
the international community are mumufied and zombiefied dummies who know
nothing and see and hear nothing. So the less we harp on the audacious
sleaze of the past 16 years especially in the bizarre past six years, the
better for us as a country. They say we are committing treasonable crimes
by letting the world know the depth of the corruption they did here before
the present regime came. They say the world has resolved not to patronize
us should we adamantly keep reminding of their nefarious acts which they
feel will serve our best interests if we keep the details under the rugs
and rather concentrate on mugging Buhari for defeating them in the last
election.
They say we should just focus on how Buhari is destroying the Naira- yea
every known wailer is now a forex trading Mallam, keeping us abreast of
the daily happenings in this interesting Naira-Dollar slugfest. They make
no attempt to tell us what we are selling in the international market as
to buoy the Naira against the dollar as they are not telling us of how a
country whose treasury was cleansed the way they did can maintain a strong
currency when the sole product that financed their licentiousness is going
for free. When we talk of their wicked inability to save for the present
rainy day when the dollars were freely flowing, they remind us that it was
not their duty to save for another man to spend. Theirs was to loot,
steal, plunder and eat for all of us. All they are saying is that the
Naira must be brought at par with the dollar by fire by force and that
Buhari must create trillions of jobs and make the economy strong after
their gluttonous feast. How he is able to do that should be his headache
but we stop distracting them by talking of their corrupt acts or even
probing their acts. It was neither their lots to create jobs nor save for
the future so we should stop looking at their horrible stewardship. The
past is past and should be treated as such. No looking back, they remind
us.
They say we should be talking of how ‘nothing works’ since Buhari
displaced their divine era and replaced the feel-good days when they ate
on our behalf and ensured that we dance for their selfless sacrifice of
pocketing the commonwealth on our behalf. They say we should rather be
talking of how Buhari has not created zillions of jobs since oil is almost
going for free and they are won’t to remind us how they packed millions of
jobless Nigerians in every available public space, extorted them of N1,000
each and ended up trampling tens of them to death in the quest to recruit
3,000 nebulous immigration jobs when Naira was averaging $120 per barrel.
They say Buhari should do better than their impeccable record, after all
he promised change and was audacious to topple their bazaar-laden era.
They say we should ask Buhari why he has not brought the same Naira that
started its tumbling when they were feasting on a providential oil boom,
when the heavens were raining in the dollars while they were busy sharing
it among themselves. They say we should get our clubs, sharpen our arrows
and bows and target Buhari and his men for audaciously toppling their
God-sent era of freeloading. One of them recently reminded us that they
were called ‘share the money’ for good reasons-that they shared money to
go round while we are no longer sharing money in an era of change. They
say we should not ask where, when and how the rain started beating us and
that we must be the dummies they take us to be and not pretend we don’t
know that Buhari inherited a very healthy economy where they firmed our
reserve. Yes, they emptied our foreign reserves into their pockets when
oil was gushing raw dollars so why can’t the Naira gain strength now that
oil is almost free? They emptied the excess crude reserve to campaign for
a continuation of their divine, share-the-money regime just that we were
so naive to reject them. They turned the oil industry to ready ATM
machines so as to prepare us for today. They shared out defence budgets so
that we can be self reliant in defending ourselves and not look for others
They turned NIMASA, NPA, Customs, into cash cows because they felt the
country needed super humans like them to prosecute their dream of writing
Nigeria into the richest and biggest economy in the world. We should know
they were magicians who woke up one morning and told us we were now the
biggest economy in Africa- a feat they achieved through mass stealing,
total unemployment, comprehensive infrastructural breakdown, so why are we
complaining? Why are we looking back when we should look forward and tap
on their magic to take our rightful place as the richest economy on planet
earth? Why are we talking of corruption when we should be talking of the
unprecedented prosperity they unleashed us in six dizzying years through
what we call corruption? Why are we making up cases of corruption in a
regime angels practically relocated from heaven with a mission to
transform Nigeria to the greatest and richest country on planet earth? At
least they have succeeded in scripting Nigeria as the richest country in
Africa and they needed to achieve the feat of the richest economy in the
world in the added years for which they brazenly shared excess dollars to
get the citizenry to preserve them in power. They ask whether we never saw
the array of private jets and state of the art automobiles that littered
the Nigerian space while they were here. They ask if we never saw the
legion of curious billionaires they made with our oil money. They ask if
we never saw the array of jobless locusts that suddenly became proprietors
of private universities when they were here. They are genuinely irked that
Buhari has stopped these fonts of prosperity while inundating the world
with tales of their corruption which they say never happened.
So they don’t understand why we are mis-targeting when we should aim
rightly. They said we should unleash our anger at Buhari for exacerbating
the hunger and want they banished from Nigeria by stealing and sharing the
money amongst themselves. They say we should set upon Buhari and his
government for chasing rats in form of anti corruption war instead of
unleashing magic on Nigeria in the face of global economic meltdown and of
course, their uncensored orgy before Buhari cane. They want us to ask
Buhari why the Nigerian economy is not thriving in triple digits when
strong global economies are ebbing. Do Nigerians not realise they erected
enough bulwarks to prevent the Nigerian economy from such fractures the
fragile economies of America, China, EU periodically experience? Why are
Nigerians not directing their anger at Buhari who rather than liberalise
stealing and corruption to grow the Nigerian economy the way they did, is
plugging all rat hole through which smart Nigerians access the national
wealth and mop up properties all over the world, buy private jets and
make names as the richest people on earth? Why are Nigerians not targeting
Buhari for stopping the culture of blessing the big boys and girls, the
big party chieftains of their beloved PDP with state resources to bless
other fortunate ones? Why are Nigerians looking their way and the ways of
their fortunes instead of asking Buhari to stop his nonsensical war on
corruption?
Me too, I don’t understand. Why can’t we simply invite them to come on
again and unleash their miraculous wand on our distressed country? Why
can’t we re-invite them, with apology for our mistakes, and ask them to
continue from where they stopped on May 29? Why not let us harken to them
and stop talking about corruption so as to tap from their good fortune? Do
we remember that their leader was goodluck personified and that he even
became known in some global circles as ‘fortunato?’ So why can’t we cease
the searchlight on our brightest and bests and save the country by having
them come back to continue the steady march of the country to a world
superpower? Why not let us admit that we committed a grievous crime by
sending them away on March 28 and that we committed a more gregarious
crime by asking them questions about their stewardship when we knew they
were beyond reproach? Why not let us remove corruption from our lexicon
and find ways of even legalizing since it brought the country so much good
fortune when they were here deifying and worshipping it and telling us
that stealing is not corruption? Why should we dwell on their corrupt acts
when by that, we are de-marketing the country in the international
community who so much love them that they won’t bear to hear their
spotless names profaned in the name of fighting corruption? Why not let us
save ourselves their blitzkrieg, quench their present senseless wailing by
rather arraigning Buhari and his men for the audacious guts to replace
them, proceed to destroy the country’s economy and the Naira through his
nonsensical fight against corruption? I am being bought. I am being
seduced and of course, I am being led to believe that they are indeed
making sense.
Peter Claver Oparah
Ikeja, Lagos
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com