“There’s an evil in our land, And a foe we must withstand, Let us be strong to fight the wrong…” Jennie Evelyn Hussey.
Nigeria has been given over to an evil debased mind and culture. Evil now rules us and the wickedness that has been sown is reaping a whirlwind of horrifying judgment that is shocking and debilitating the nation.
Saraki (Courtesy Saraki’s Facebook page)
Sadly, we deserve what is coming by our individual and collective sins as a people who have abandoned God for self.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed (Luke 8:17), and we are now seeing revealed the depths of viciousness and evil of the Corruption that have assailed the land and eaten deep into our moral fabric. We’re also seeing the insane lengths to which selfish and greedy politicians and civil servants, and their sycophantic, hypocritical followers will go to sabotage and deride the change that is going on. We have not seen anything yet; this nation is going to pay dearly for its sins.
Such is the case of the trial of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and the crisis the Nigerian Senate wants to plunge the whole country into, all predicated on their own selfish, invidious and insidious interests, and with a gross disregard for the sentiments of the people who elected them to make laws and uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It is only mischievous, evil-meaning and unpatriotic Nigerians who will see what is going on in the nation’s Senate and the case of Senate President, Bukola Saraki, as a political problem (and you don’t have to agree with me on this)
I contend that this is not about party politics. This is not about APC or PDP or whatever party. This is not about the office of the Senate President; it is about Saraki as an individual Nigerian, who MUST not be, or regard himself, above the laws of the land. It is about a very small but powerful, selfish, greedy, insensitive and corrupt section of the political class perpetrating disrespect to the people, Constitution and government of Nigeria. It is about perpetrating corruption and protecting their own, and their selfish interest. It is about insisting on having their way at the expense of the political and democratic progress of the country. It is about turning democracy on its head and manipulating it.
Mr Saraki has been on the corruption, fraud and deception carpet for a very long time, but in fairness to him, he’s just like most of our ruling elite for the past 50 years- Corruption begat them! The whiff of corruption and oppression has followed him, undoubtedly from birth. The Societe Generale Bank fraud and collapse with its resulting misery for thousands of depositors; the family stranglehold on Kwara State politics; the alleged looting of the state’s treasury; the Zimbabwean farmers’ fraud and hypocrisy; the betrayal of his father, and his nifty manipulation to become Senate President. It is only in our dear corruption-ridden and ignorant country that such impunity and lawlessness can happen with the authorities, themselves corrupt, not batting an eyelid and coming to the rescue of their own people from such unscrupulous politicians. In saner countries, he would have ended being banned from holding any political office, and to boot, be spending some time in jail.
Olukayode Nathan further wrote: “What has been barbaric is the attempt by senators to obstruct and prevent the trial of Bukola Saraki; the Senate President is facing very serious allegations before a tribunal set up through an act of the NA to prosecute certain crimes. What is really barbaric is an attempt by a section of the Senate to usurp the powers of the law enforcement bodies to investigate and prosecute crimes. The power of the Senate is vested through the Constitution, to which they are sworn to uphold and never to breach. They are there to make laws and not empowered to investigate or adjudicate. When senators behave like criminals, they must be treated like criminals. The people of Nigeria are the ultimate powers and reserve the rights to use all means available to them to prevent criminal assault on them by criminal legislators. If that means self-help, so be it! The advanced democracies of the world including Britain and the USA have had occasions where the members of the public were made to behead political office holders. To prevent this happening in Nigeria, legislators must respect the laws of the land and respect the people of Nigeria. Buying overpriced expensive vehicles for themselves at this austere time when most Nigerians face horror of hunger is an invitation to anger and chaos”.
Rotimi Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, involved in Saraki’s trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal has this observation in responding to the request by Kanu Agabi, the lead Counsel to the Defence (Saraki), for a long adjournment because “the defendant cannot always come to court everyday” on the excuse that the Senate would sit.
He said. “The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not the one on trial, the senators are not the ones on trial, the idea of saying the Senate President is on trial is abnormal, the Senate Presidency is not on trial, the only person on trial here is Bukola Saraki, a Senator, the Senate can sit without him; the Senators following him here don’t have business here, they should not be here, it is a disgrace that they leave their constitutional duties to follow the defendant here, I think we should never hear anybody saying that the Senate can’t sit because an individual is on trial”
What was said above made a lot of sense. But trust us, we refuse to accept the truth of the matter, and decide to play hide and seek with the Truth, as we always wont to do.
Unfortunately, the 160+ million people in this country are too timid, too complacent, not ready to leave their comfort (?) zone; divided amongst themselves along ethnic and religious lines, too prone to corruption and other illegal inducement, ignorant, primitive, befuddled, completely disoriented and mis-oriented and are really not ready to fight their own corner, unless God comes down and fight it for them. The whole country seem to have gone INSANE…..money has turned everyone’s head upside down, and you have some people defending this evil, in fact promoting it.
Our concerns remain with the ignorant few amongst us, who will always see this as an ethnic, religious, sectional or political assault on their right to belong to one camp or another. The essence of correcting this political absurdity is to see the Senators’ manoeuvre for what it is – sheer display of greed and disrespect to the Constitution and the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Nigerian society is not different from societies elsewhere. Perhaps our tolerance limit is more elastic. And that is because of poor perception and low self-esteem, caused by ignorance, illiteracy and poverty.
In the past, labour unions, vibrant and mature students and academic bodies, commodity moguls, insightful musicians and artistes etc., represented the largely complacent populace and acted as the motivation to galvanise the people.
Poverty has a tendency of keeping people grinding at individual personal solutions than turning to collective initiatives. Our unscrupulous politicians use this peculiarity to exploit us.
The appeal now is to mobilise the people through the press, social media and platforms to refuse the insult and poor treatment from the rulers. And in doing this, we must be helped to recognize our friends, lest we throw away the baby with the bathwater!
I have always wanted to tag with this knowledge, believing time would bring the much needed and desired CHANGE, only when we are “mobilized” and have matured politically to the point of “being mobilized”. But this change in the mind-set of both the rulers and followers seems to be taking forever; sometimes, it seems to be not taking place at all, or regressing. From this view, our mess is almost drowning us; we would need more than human hands for our “salvation”!
There is a point that cannot be easily over looked. The man from Maiduguri is affected by the same problems that afflict the man from Lagos or Benin. So are the man from Sokoto and the man from Makurdi, or Ikot Ekpene. These basic problems are poverty, illiteracy, diseases, hunger and generally poor standard of living in a country rich in natural resources but whose wealth has been squandered for decades by visionless, greedy and selfish rulers and their hangers-on.
Primordial considerations do not allow us to see things in their proper perspective. See the people who benefited from the money shared by the Office of the National Security Adviser, and by other scandals – they shared the money without regards to religion or ethnicity. It is all there for us to see and ruminate on. Corruption is the problem in Nigeria, not where you are from or your religion. Not even the political party you belong to or favour.
Ephesians 6:12 King James Version (KJV): “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”
Telling the Truth always has set me free!!!
