There's a lot happening in more than just the offshore helicopter industry at the moment.
The UNHCR is reporting increasing levels of atrocities in the there northeastern states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno where the Nigerian army and air force are losing their battle against Boko Haram who are receiving increasing amounts of weapons being smuggled in through northern Cameroon as a result of the civil war in Central African Republic. UNHCR estimates that nearly 60,000 people have fled from the Nigerian states into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Boko Haram don't care about the atrocities they commit against schoolchildren. It's all just more publicity for them, a way of ramping up the level of terror and a significant threat to the Presidential elections next year.
It's so bad that even the recently appointed Minister of Defence Aliyu Gusau has resigned after the newly appointed military top brass refused to meet with him.
Mr. Gusau’s sudden decision to quit President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet arose from what the former minister considered an act of insubordination and indiscipline from Nigeria’s top military brass.
Several sources at the Defense Ministry told SaharaReporters that Nigeria’s top military officers yesterday refused to have a joint meeting with Mr. Gusau and his deputy, Musikilu Obanikoro, a former senator.
Sources at the ministry told SaharaReporters that Nigeria’s top military henchmen kept Mr. Gusau waiting for two days after he summoned them to a meeting, with different military service chiefs making excuses for their inability to meet with him and his deputy immediately. Finally, the situation turned testy yesterday when, after keeping Mr. Gusau and Mr. Obanikoro waiting for several hours, the Chief of Defense Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, showed up alone for a meeting.
“When Air Marshal Badeh showed up, the Minister of Defense told him he was expecting all the chiefs of staff within the military, but Badeh reportedly told him there was no need,” said one source at the ministry. Our sources added that Badeh also told Mr. Gusau that he alone would be meeting with the minister as the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), stating that this arrangement was the collective decision of military officers in the country.
One source said an attempt by the junior minister of defense, Mr. Obanikoro, to intervene was rudely brushed aside as Badeh asked him to “shut up.” “Air Marshal Badeh is said to have called Senator Obanikoro a ‘small boy’ and warned him that the military was not going to be taking orders anymore from bloody civilians like him,” one source stated.
Soon after the altercation, General Gusau (rtd) reportedly ended the meeting and asked the Permanent Secretary in the ministry to transmit his letter of resignation to President Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan is increasingly being shown as just another corrupt kleptocrat continuing the shameful practices of his thieving predecessors as a recent article in our newspaper Business Day reported
Anti-corruption in Nigeria: A fickle fight without fists
One disturbing and regrettable fact of Nigeria’s history is that the nation’s fortunes in 53 years of nationhood have been adversely affected by an unhindered reign of public sector corruption. But what is more irritating and which spells a collapse of the ethos upon which proper governments are founded is the likelihood that this pervading and monumental menace is being condoned by the Nigerian government.
The 2013 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria prepared by the United States Department of State, recently made public, noted without equivocation that “although the law provides criminal penalties for corruption by officials, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials frequently engage in corrupt practices with impunity”. The report further declared that “the anticorruption efforts of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) remained largely ineffectual”.
The report went on to allege that the Nigerian government is targeting only public officials who were out of favour for corruption charges and leaving out those in their good books.
The findings of this report, though not novel, reaffirm the public perception about the anti-corruption fight of Jonathan’s administration.
Analysts and observers believe that the fight against public sector corruption under the current federal government lacks bite and fire, allowing free reign for kleptocracy.
Recently, a senior EFCC official cried out that the Commission had a lean treasury which points to its increasing inability to engage in active anti-corruption operations. Is this a deliberate ploy to tame the Commission and put it in check?
Nothing gives better credence to the lacklustre attitude to anti-corruption under Jonathan than the manner he gave a state pardon to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha in March 2013, after he was convicted of embezzling state monies to the tune of $10 million; Alamieyeseigha is still wanted in the United Kingdom over money laundering charges. Add the President’s incredible
Centenary award to late military ruler, Sanni Abacha, whose stupendous loot is still at large across the globe. Indeed, it has been reported that the United States of America just froze $458m of Abacha’s loot held in the US.
Nigerians have raised their voices and pens against this move that appears to create models out of those whose conduct has been adjudged reprehensible.
We believe that in societies where leaders’ consciences are pricked, especially when issues are raised over their continued commitment to proper governance and conduct of state affairs, there would have been a quick response by government to the grave issues raised in the US report and the weighty allegation suggesting an insincere commitment by government to anti corruption fight.
The government of Jonathan has neither offered a convincing rebuttal nor even an acceptance of its limitations in this regard. That neither of these has happened confirms an unwholesome tradition that encourages our government to treat critical issues of governance with kid gloves. And it confirms that this government after all is not focused on fighting corruption.
When governments routinely shirk its responsibility of preserving the moral fibre that puts human society in order, rewarding good and sanctioning wrong, it loses its representative authority to direct the affairs of society, and thus become an imposition, a repressive institution that serves the interest of oppressors.
This attitude of government soils the reputation of the nation at home and abroad and ensures that the holder of the green passport is looked on with shame and odium around the world.
We urge the federal government to shed the disdainful toga of a government that encourages corruption by empowering all anti-corruption agencies to operate according to their mandates, and indeed step up the fight against an evil that threatens the future of our commonwealth.
Things are likely to get increasingly unstable and dangerous as the elections draw closer with political infighting translating into violence on the streets and Boko Haram seeking to capitalise on this to destabilise our country further.
