There's a Yoruba saying, yiyoekun, t’ojoko, meaning, the stealth of a leopard is not of cowardice. President Buhari just because he has chosen not to play to the gallery by pandering to Nigerians’ desire for a quick-fixer, a Rambo that would as soon as elected start shooting wildly at anything on sight, began to get called Baba Go-slow.
Two things. One, Nigerians old enough remember General Buhari’s first coming as a military head of state, and how immediately on grabbing power he and his partner-in-arms, General Tunde Idiagbon, started hounding all politicians and some businessmen into detention and sentencing many to jail terms of many life times. They expect an encore. But Buhari also remembers that and what befell him. Two, Nigerians hurt badly. Stories of looted monies in astronomical proportions stink to high heavens. They hear of billions of naira and sometimes even of dollars, and their minds boggle. Yet they are hungry and see the looters parading themselves as the wise ones, Lords for whom there is no tomorrow, their private jets mere toys of competition in “my jet is bigger than yours” game.
But some of us knew that the leopard’s stealth is not of cowardice but of cunning to ensnare the game. Now the president has blown the whistle, just when he got the assurance of America’s support in hunting down the looters and their loot.
According to President Buhari, it’s a whole 150 billion dollars of it. Doubting Thomas may say that figure is impossible. Well, wasn’t that how it was said that General Abacha couldn’t have looted $5b or more until the monies came tumbling down in tranches?
$150b? What could that do? For a start, coming to N34.5 trillion, it is more than the Federal budget in any one year almost ten times over! With such sums, we would by now have railway networks with modern gauge running the length and breadth of Nigeria; our intractable energy problem would be consigned to the past thus enabling the upsurge and survival of industries; our schools, colleges and hospitals would be equipped and raised to world standards. But some bast..ds wouldn’t let it be.
The good thing is that the sort of money we are talking about cannot be hidden under a bushel; it can’t be quickly withdrawn in cash and flown into thin air. The mere process of withdrawing just $50m of it at a go will cause a ripple if not uproar in the banks they are held.
“The fact that I now seek Obama’s assistance in locating and returning $150 billion in funds stolen in the past decade and held in foreign bank accounts on behalf of former, corrupt officials is testament to how badly Nigeria has been run,” says President Buhari. And he has enumerated the stages of his approach: “First, instil rules and good governance; second, install officials who are experienced and capable of managing state agencies and ministries; and third, seek to recover funds stolen under previous regimes so that this money can be invested in Nigeria for the benefit of all our citizens.”
For this, the President seeks our understanding and patience. I give him mine! And that’s saying it the way it is.
-Tunde Fagbenle
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