Why I will not vote for President Jonathan in 2015(4) 4)Corruption As a precursor to my engagement on this issue vis a vis the President Jonathan Administration,I state unabashedly and Unequivocally the obvious ,corruption didnt emerge during his tenure,its since pervaded all sectors of our economy . Its not without shame that we have been competing for laurels for corrupt practices for sometime now. To assert the detailed index consult transparency international .You will get all the necessary and historical analysis of our derelict status . However,A basic indicator of who should be asked To head the country would be further buttressing our attitude to this menace which single handedly is responsible for where we are today , I will quote our president on two occasions and ask any discerning observer to see the attitude of leadership in this regard. Asset Declaration “The issue of public asset declaration is a matter of personal principle.,” he said. “That is the way I see it, and I don’t give a damn about it, even if you criticise me from heaven. When I was the Vice President , that matter came up, and I told the former President, let’s not start something that would make us play into the hands of people and create an anomalous situation in the country.” “The law is clear. A public officer should declare his assets, and if there are issues, then the relevant agencies would have a basis to assess whether you have amassed wealth or not. When it is said that people should declare their assets in public, it is not only the President or the vice President, it includes everybody, including Ministers. Remember ? I DONT GIVE A DAMN. You will see as we proceed that this wasnt an overreaction nor slip of the tongue.Its a summation and abbreviation of the sine qua non of the present administrations attitude to corruption . Hear him further “You don’t need to declare assets publicly, otherwise you are playing to the gallery.You don’t need to publicly declare assets. That’s a matter of principle. If I have to declare publicly, it means every polictical office holder will have to declare publicly. And it is not the right thing to do. That is my belief. “It is not the President’s declaration of assets that would change the economy. There are challenges security, power and revolutionising agriculture. These are areas we should be interested in . Whether Mr. Jonathan publicly declares his assets or not is not the issue.” Can u see? Its a mindset issue here . Corruption redefined In response to a question during the presidential media chat may 4,2014,on the several cases of corruption leveled against his administration Over 70 percent of what are called corruption, even by EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and other anti-corruption agencies is not corruption, but common stealing. Corruption is perception, not reality Seriously? Listen to him further “We are trying to avoid executive dictatorship. As executive president, I must be mindful about how I use my powers. If I exercise about 40 to 50 per cent of my powers, Nigerians would say I am a dictator. The parliament has to exercise their powers based on law. If they are not careful about how they deploy their powers, they would become a kind of dictatorial body that would not allow them to work. Even if the above statement is tactless ,its still devoid of an iota of moral leadership . Lets see the several incidences of unresolved corruption allegations . The oil subsidy scam All you need do is google the findings and discrepancies between actual products imported and monies disbursed. Let me afford you some details. Breaking down subsidy costs To bring home the truth, the amount spent on petrol subsidy alone in eight years is 15.57 per cent higher than the N4.69 trillion 2014 National Budget, and also 10.61 per cent more than the 2013 budget of N4.93 trillion. For 2014, the Federal Government budgeted N971.1 billion for payments of subsidy, keeping it at the same level in 2013. At the current rate, subsidy payments over the last three years, including payments made in the last eight years, would have amounted to about N10 trillion. The amount the country is spending on subsidy is almost twice the amount (196.07 per cent) allocated for education in the 2014 budget, which is N495.28 billion; more than three times (369.6 per cent) the N262.74 billion budgeted for health; and 148 per cent more than the N655.47 billion allocated for the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND. In terms of welfare, subsidy provisions in 2014 can pay the salaries and wages of about half the workforce of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, of the federal level given the N1.723 trillion provided for personnel cost in the budget. Now imagine the fact that this particular scheme is devised in secrecy and fraught with much irregularities . Till date All reports to bring to book the facts ,fiction and fallacies have either been discarded or ignored. The Nuhu Ribadu Led. Investigative report In its 178-page report, the committee revealed how oil money in the custody of the NNPC were spent on extra-budgetary purposes such as the acquisition of a N2.23billion chopper for the president and a purported sponsorship of the World Cup. In what appears a brazen misuse of public funds, the NNPC also gave out N700.5million in loan to Sao Tome & Principe based on instruction from the presidency. It also made a curious payment of N2.421billion to a foreign company, Royal Swaziland Sugar Company. The reason for the payment is unclear. The Corporation also claimed to have underwritten a N521million expenses incurred by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources. This is in addition to the N250million the agency told the committee it spent on court cases involving the ministry. The ministry has its own budgetary allocation and it is unclear why the NNPC is paying for its expenses. The nature of some of the expenses are also unclear. The committee also found that the NNPC was being used as illegal lender to presidential committees, ministries and parastatals. For instance the corporation claimed it incurred about N20billion on the Presidential Implementation Committee on Maritime Safety and Security, based on instruction from the presidency. The Ribadu committee also determined that about $1billion in signature bonuses, discrepancies in payment by the NNPC, and debts from oil companies were unaccounted for by the NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources. DOWNLOAD >>>>> Report_of_the_Ribadu_led_Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force 2012 Again this report was politicized and had its swan song rather early. The Sanusi Imbroglio The media was a washed with enough mudslinging and partisan views ,whilst we paid more attention to the fallibility of the messenger by sheepishly swallowing the bad faith mantra hook line and sinker,we ignored the salient facts. For example hear the CICs account While addressing the issue of ‘missing’ $20 billion he said, “If Sanusi hadn’t been suspended he would have come up with a different figure… If anyone steals $50 billion or $20 billion anywhere America will know, they will tell you where it is; it is their money.” Now to imagine you are trusting this man to institute an honest investigation after delivering a prejudiced verdict is to expect that I land on the moon this morning . The attitude is non challant and non committal . Is he corrupt as president ? I cant assert. Does he aid corruption ? I will borrow the words of the speaker House of Representatives.Aminu Tambuwal. “The President’s body language’ seems to be encouraging corrupt practices in the country,” the speaker said. “Take the subsidy probe, the pension, the SEC probe and recently the bullet proof car cases. After the House of Representatives did a diligent job by probing and exposing the cases, you now see something else when it comes to prosecution. “In some cases, you have the government setting up new committees to duplicate the job already done by the parliament. Take the bullet proof cars case, the NSA, with all the security challenges confronting the country, should not be burdened with a job that can best be handled by the anti-corruption agencies,” he said. He also said the government has no business setting up any administrative committee in a corruption case that is clear to all Nigerians, in apparent reference to the committee set up by Mr. Jonathan to probe the N255 million car scandal involving the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah. The three-man presidential committee had since submitted its report to Mr. Jonathan, with the president taking no action. “What the President should have done was to explicitly direct the EFCC to probe the matter. With such directives coming from the President, I am sure we still have good people in EFCC who can do a good job,” Mr. Tambuwal said. Attitudinally ,This regime is aiding and abetting it. Billions of US dollars are unaccounted for,unprecedented in our history . Its trite to know that whilst this persists the revenue accruable to states and other sectors have plummeted seriously . The Nigerian government has failed to meet its revenue projections for three years (2011, 2012, and 2013) in a row. Projected Federal Government revenues in 2014 are estimated at N3.58 trillion a 13 percent decline from 2013 budget estimates. Data supplied by the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) shows that two out of three revenue agencies of the Government: NNPC, and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), had budgeted revenue shortfalls of N1.94 trillion and N480.7 billion respectively between January and November 2013. These are ominous signs . Its acceptable ,that you dont change a Winning team neither should u retain a failing one. If we sentimentally sustain a regime with such enormous discrepit in ideas then we fail nationhood. Like I mentioned earlier. Economy is key,and economic development and corruption are antithetical to each other they cant co habit . Lest we forget ,the lack of accountability which is the life wire of corrupt climes is prevalent under this government . For example Between 2010 and 2014, a total of US$14 billion has been allocated for defence, security and the police. This year alone, the total sum is US$4 billion. Now, if US$14 billion has not clipped the wings of Boko Haram in five years, what difference can US$1 billion make if thrown into the crisis in the same old way? If the FG has not accounted for how it spent US$14 billion allocated to the security, defence and police in the past five years, why should it be given the green light to borrow another US$1 billion? If the said US$14 billion has not done much in upgrading military and security facilities in five years, what impact can US$1 billion suddenly make? These are some of the questions we want the National Assembly to ask before giving the FG the go ahead to plunge Nigeria into another round of external debts. Its without qualms that the budgeted amount has evaded accountability and transparency . This attitudes has elicited mixed reactions from abroad . The editorial stated, “Mr. Jonathan, who leads a corrupt government that has little credibility, initially played down the group’s threat and claimed security forces were in control.- New York Times the three tiers of the Nigerian government was ridden with “massive, widespread and pervasive corruption,” that failed to receive appropriate punitive response from the authorities. “The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption; however, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity,” -US State Department . This Administration is Allowing the theft of public funds to go unpunished sends the wrong message that those with powerful connections can act with impunity. The case should have been fully prosecuted and the government has not given adequate reasons for dropping the charges.- Transparency International . David Cameron, Prime-Minister of Great Britain, is reported to have asked President Goodluck Jonathan what happened to the $100 billion dollars Nigeria made from oil and gas exports in 2012, insisting that “lack of accountability and transparency is a big problem in Nigerian oil and gas industry.” We cant hide under political persecution every time we are made to account for the countrys common wealth . As a parting shot ,the hobnobbing with suspicious characters speaks louder than imagined . Whether we consider how a wanted man in the US becomes Major campaigner and financier of the presidents political ambitions or the complacency and conspiracy to grant candidature to a man previously indicted and impeached who eventually has been installed as governor or the granting of pardon to his erstwhile boss much more to discuss our nations future totally ignoring the fact that same man faces indictment in more than one nation in addition to his less than honorable past I will retort by quoting one on my highly respected nationalist ,Professor Wole Soyinka Finally,...When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name. In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns: “Bring Back Our Honour.” We cant afford Four years of sustained incredulity and impunity ,and in this case he wont be canvassing for votes and will surely NOT GIVE ANY DAMN! To be continued
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 07:20:14 +0000
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