The stage is set for tomorrow’s presidential election in Nigeria. Candidates are inspiring their supporters in last ditch efforts, leaving no stone unturned. Seventy three candidates are on the ballot but sitting President Muhammadu Buhari and his kin and keen challenger, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, are the main men gazillion eyes around the globe will be watching. Who knows the direction tomorrow’s electoral wind will blow? Who knows whose head will wear the victory crown? For this duel, ethnic division will take the back stage. Religious rabble-rousing will take a shadowy distance. And corruption will boldly be on the ballot.
History is replete with agony and pain from thorns and thistles of corruption that choked Nigerians in the guts for many years. The facts are not easily forgettable. In 2010, our savings depleted from $21bn to $2bn in 2015 to bankroll an election. In 2013, our external reserves declined from $47bn to $29bn in 2015. It was straight through the conduit of cronyism and corruption. How can we forget that the Federal Government borrowed $2bn to pay salaries in that season of Nigeria’s life? In 2014, the American government found out that about $9bn was stolen by 50 people in that dispensation. We remember that revelation. In their audacity, the same people who abandoned almost 10,000 projects used as aqueducts for stealing when they were in charge now want to make Nigeria work again! An assemblage of men and women who cannot account for $328bn made from oil as the country ran into a headwind of a brutal recession want to make Nigeria work again.
In that dispensation, Nigeria’s infrastructure was in a decrepit state. Inadequate infrastructure holds back economic growth by at least two per cent per annum. Absence of adequate infrastructure in Nigeria, particularly poor electricity supply adds a massive 16 per cent to business costs. According to a World Bank study, Nigeria needs about US$ 14.2bn per year to bridge the country’s yawning infrastructure gap. Before the present dispensation, the sum of $5.9bn was committed to infrastructure. Seventy per cent of the started the projects were later abandoned, and 93% of the commitment went into private purses of political apparatchiks and cronies. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission once said it traced a whopping sum of N34bn to a former petroleum resources minister. Her hidden $37.5m mansion was also uncovered. The same set of bleeders today are throwing big sums of our stolen money behind one of the candidates in this election. We heard about their cozy confraternity recently in London; and we heard about lofty promises made to squelch unearthed corruption cases against them if the candidate wins Saturday’s election. These are reasons why corruption is boldly on the ballot tomorrow.
Lingering poverty and protracting hunger are sickening results of corruption. Our roads have become killer snake-pits and our hospitals in dysfunction because of corruption. Corruption is the reason a nation’s economic growth is stunted. Corruption is the reason Nigeria has lagged in almost all areas of life. Profligacy and debauchery in leadership are reasons why a country wastes away. Corruption fight is tough, its battle field is large, and road rough and long. It is like a cat with nine lives. Its fight-back ability evokes wrath against its fighters. When corruption fights back, it burrows into its fighters’ flesh with its poisonous paws. Corruption is not laying down and playing dead in Nigeria.
A candidate may be sluggish in approach, not gregarious in disposition; and have no gift of the gab, but if his love for Nigeria and Nigerian is not in doubt, and his modesty about life moves the minds of men, he is beloved and trusted by his people. Nigerians want a man who is non-conforming to stealing. They love men in public service with no secret bank accounts anywhere around the world and mansions and libraries built in their names by anyone. Eloquent or not, my people are enthralled with men whose towering presence alone is a check on men writing blank government cheques for their friends, home and abroad. Nigerians love bulldozing commitment to refurbishing, rebuilding, and entrenching our infrastructure.
We are not in a corruption-free system yet; but Nigeria is today far better than where we used to be not too long ago. In the last three years, the sum of N2.7tn has been committed to rebuilding our infrastructure. In Nigeria’s other life, the funds would have ended up in the hands of thieves. Thirty six states have a major ongoing road projects as of today. The Kano/Lagos Railway will soon roar in a take-off. The Lagos/Ibadan end of it will be completed in January. Mambilla Plateau, begun 40 years ago, will be completed. Nigerians are excited about this development because they behold the beauty of what has been done with their eyes, not just what has been spoken about in campaign rallies. The Treasury Single Account has stopped the haemorrhaging of the treasury. Over N108bn has been saved from removal of maintenance fees payable to banks, pre-TSA. The nation is being saved N24.7bn monthly with the full implementation of the TSA. “Ghost workers” elimination has saved Nigerians N120bn. Nigerian Customs Service is reporting the highest-ever revenue collection. The total amount remitted by JAMB between 2010 and 2016 was a paltry N51m! It was once an enriching route for ravens and killer hyaenas in government. But not too long ago, it remitted N7.8bn to the coffers of government. It is why corruption is on the ballot tomorrow.
Do apologising leopards change their skins? Do power-hungry, money-mongering, position-posturing orgulous ogres ever change their ways? Where you observe the gathering of vultures, you better run for your life. Do not enthrone a remorseful armed robber as the CEO of your treasury. If your first experience in his hands was like a debilitating flashflood, his second coming will be a fiercer round of tsunami-stealing that will bring you and your life-dreams under water. You can adore him who you believe is savvy in business. You may slobber all over him who you acknowledge is knowledgeable in economics. Genuflect before him for his deep-pocket testaments and vast empire. Trust him that he will turn your bitter water into wine and pave your roads with gold. But be reminded that corrupt men serve nobody else’s interest but theirs and their corrupt friends’ alone. Any politician with a history of corruption is one who deserves serious scrutiny. Nigerians must not pick as president a man or woman whose second nature is stealing.
I echo the statement of President Buhari which he recently made in Abeokuta, as I hang up my pen: ‘Vote candidates of your choice”. But forget not that corruption is boldly on the ballot tomorrow. Flee from it before it fleeces us again. God bless Nigeria
*Written By Fola Ojo
