Twice in the past two weeks, I have listened to the Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed live.
The two occasions were media interactions with him in Abuja. During the first session, the minister dropped a bang – 55 Nigerians stole N1.34tr from the public purse between 2006 and 2013.
The revelation reverberated all over the nation with almost every newspaper leading with the screamer.
At the second meeting early this week, Mohammed did not hide his excitement about the rave his revelation became in a matter of hours, thanks to the ICT factor in media dissemination today.
He was happy that all the newspapers hyped the news and my interpretation is that it gave the government some exaggerated importance. That is why he was happy. Indeed, that is enough to make the image-maker of a government, especially a government of a party that believes more in gimmicks some pep. APC from the word go had thrived on larger than life propaganda, and it is having a field day this time.
But beyond the minister admitting that he was excited that the whole world is agog with the revelation, I was really taken aback that the nation’s minister for information is happy that the news about his country the world has is its record in public thieving.
How on earth would that make me happy, even as one that never lays claims to patriotic zeal, that Nigeria, even if I am coerced to be a citizen, is known and smeared all over the world as a place where stealing public money has been elevated to national cause.
It was a shock to me that Mohammed felt elated to inform us that the popularity of the news piece was even re-echoed last week by a certain god called John Kerry, the US Secretary of State. He said it with glee to my utter amazement that while addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) last week in Davos, Switzerland, Kerry made a prominent reference to it? Really? A happy and exciting development for sure? Then something has really gone wrong in so many ways.
I had thought that as the minister that informs Nigerians and the world about Nigeria, that Mohammed is the mouthpiece of the nation and not APC. Whereas the APC spokesman can speak with joy about his party, when his party is in control of governance at the centre, he should also speak with extended circumspection on the image of the nation.
When some other people were there in charge, rightly or wrongly, they encouraged Nigerians to speak good of Nigeria. I believe in that only when I speak about Nigeria outside Nigeria.
It is good to remind Mohammed that even in the local media, just like in the international media, what the news screamed was 55 Nigerians stole. What Kerry, maybe some kind of god from USA whose word must be greeted with excitement borne out of inferiority complex, the only reason one would exclaim that even John Kerry made reference to it before the whole world, said was that Nigerians stole public fund. What the loud mouth in the US Republican presidential race, Donald Trump, just like the whole world has always said is that Nigerians steal government money. None of them outside Nigeria ever aligned that stealing to PDP, APC or any other party.
They just say ‘Nigerians.’ Then how would it be a source of joy to me that the world was sold a banal dummy about Nigeria? Yes, that figure and number of the stealers mentioned is all dummies sold by Mohammed to Nigerians and the whole world.
On the day he rolled out the piece, he did not state much on how it arrived at the number of thieves and how much they stole. But during our meeting with him this week, a journalist re-echoed the position of many Nigerians that the respected minister should give a list of the 55 Nigerians.
In fact, his response to that challenge got me sincerely worried. Lai Mohammed noted that the figure and amount are derived from charges filed by the EFCC against 55 Nigerians and the alleged figures attached to each of them? Oh my God!; and further charged the media to apply sleuthing adroitness to figure out the names.
The honourable minister is a lawyer that should know better that charges are mere allegations until proven to be true by the court. So why did he delve into this crass propaganda of elevating mere allegations, most of them by some un-coordinated EFCC led by a master in raising claptraps called Nuhu Ribadu who had fun in filing 1000 charges against an individual and sustaining none? His EFCC cooked up the charges and the frivolous figures attached to them. Does that mean monies were not stolen or that nobody stole? Far from it. But most of them have had their trials stalled and no conclusion yet as to take those figures filed by EFCC as hard facts.
Let’s view it the other way, when Nuhu was EFCC boss, he listed 31 of 36 governors that would face arrest and prosecution on leaving office. He also attached figures of amounts they stole. Some of those governors listed by Nuhu are APC leaders today. So why didn’t the minister list all the 31 since it was the same EFCC that made the accusations?
And in an accusatorial judicial system, when did allegations start to presuppose guilt? Have we started operating an inquisitorial adjudication where accused persons are guilty until they prove themselves otherwise? Was it fair that our information minister that should find a way to cover the image of Nigeria and at least cloak it in clean garb before the world, decided to elevate fallacies into facts and slosh tar on Nigeria by telling the world that 55 persons, not yet proven by the court, stole certain amount of money, not also proven? Is that the best way to fight corruption and make the world join us and celebrate a new dawn?
When we fight the bad system we all know and want toppled, we should not forget that the duty remains for us to preserve the image of the nation, which is actually our collective image.
It is only a person out of his mind that would defend the acts of the PDP in the 16 years they were in charge; but we should not overlook the fact that the opposition, now made of the APC, was also in charge in the states. About 60% of them then in the PDP as managers of the nation in those years are today APC leaders and still managing us. Have they changed to angels just because they changed parties? I doubt it.
So let us draw a line a between fighting the opposition, fighting corrupt officers and fighting the nation. I say it again and again that I have never been one of those that shout patriotism at the rooftop, but I am identity conscious and anywhere I have ever found myself outside Nigeria and with non-Nigerians, I have always remained a vehement defender of Nigeria because it is my identity, even grudgingly.
That was the reason I flatly refused the BBC about 10 years ago republishing my investigative piece on extrajudicial killings in their medium after The Sun report. I had asked the man that always called me from London his interest in the work, and further inquired from him if he would have had as much interest in the report if it were positive about Nigeria.
He could not answer the questions and my conclusion was that much as I hate how Nigerian Police kill Nigerians, I would not allow the outer world to join in messing the institution because they preserve their own rots among themselves. Let us watch carefully how we feel happy about Nigeria being denigrated.
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