The separation of powers theory is what shot Baron De
Montesquieu to fame. His radical ideas which the then decrepit monarchy viewed
with utmost suspicion was the remote cause of the popular 1789 French
revolution which made France the first country in the entire Europe to jettison
the monarchy for a republic. One of his quotes is apt and evergreen ‘When the
legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same
body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise,
lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them
in a tyrannical manner.
The United States of America is a surreptitious
antithesis of the wonderful check and balance theory in the sense that the Vice
President is also the President of the Senate. This curious arrangement was
deliberated upon by the founding fathers of the nation after the war of
independence from Britain. The agenda was to make him a vote tie breaker as
there are one hundred senators so he/she only comes in to cast a vote in the
event of a tie or deadlock as the one hundred and one person. The founding
fathers as a way of preserving the ideals of Montesquieu’s theory ensured that
it was the Senate Majority Leader that presided over Senate meetings.
The Nigerian experience is more straightforward as every
senator has an equal vote and the delineation of the constituencies puts the
number at 109, an odd number that has no need for an external tie breaker. The
position of the Senate President who also doubles as the Chairman of the
National Assembly is very critical as he or she is supposed to represent the
aspirations of the people especially the Man on the Clapham Omnibus at the
apotheosis.
The worst thing to have happened to the Nigerian National
Assembly was the emergence of Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki as its Chairman and
Senate President. My heart bleeds that he is occupying the same position once
held by the Great Zik of Africa, Akweke Abyssinia Akweke Nwafor Orizu, Dennis
Chukwudebe Osadebay, Joseph Wayas, Dr. Wilberforce Chuba Okadigbo, Ken Nnamani
who saved this nation from the sinister Olusegun Obasanjo led third term agenda
and David Bonaventure Alechenu Mark who blocked the western liberal imperialist
same sex marriage agenda.
This is a man that has hardly done a day of honest labour
all his adult life. He is not known to have practiced made a mark in medicine
if he ever even hung the stethoscope after his mandatory houseman ship and
national youth service corps. He simply banked on his father’s vast contacts to
become an executive director in the now defunct Societe Generale Bank of
Nigeria (SGBN). He has no antecedent of spearheading any revolutionary idea in
an era where the likes of Tony Elumelu of Africapitalism fame, Aigboje
Aig-Imoukhuede, Fola Adeola, Jim Ovia amongst many others were blazing a trail.
Being a Simpleton was bad enough, being allegedly
culpable in a bank collapse was simply unacceptable and a mortal sin to boot.
In his late father’s rabid quest for raw power, depositors’ funds were
liquidated to finance the 2003 elections that unseated the late Rear Admiral
Mohammed Lawal whose only sin was asserting his independence from the
overbearing Oloye of Kwara politics.
Bukola Saraki was hurriedly drafted from Abuja where he
was serving Baba Iyabo as his aide on Budget never mind that I doubt if he can
initiate an intelligent discourse on budgetary matters to succeed Lawal. He is
another tragic case of a reluctant politician who then becomes sucked in by the
lure of power and never lets goes till perhaps the cold hands of death does him
part.
He has proven to more adept than the proverbial cat with
nine lives. Firstly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission seems to have
turned a blind eye to his alleged ignoble role in the crash of SGBN which left
turned many depositors into overnight paupers. 2002 was a terrible year in the
memory of millions of Nigeria. I can recall vividly how a successful
businessman who was a philanthropist of sorts became a mendicant to pay his
children’s school fees and wife’s humungous medical bills. His committee of
friends had to set up an emergency fund appeal to send him and his family on
economic exile to the United Kingdom to save them from something worse than
Biafran starvation. His case file seems to have ‘disappeared’ or gone ‘away on
leave.’ Old things seem to have passed away since the Heritage Bank deftly
re-emerged from the ashes of the SGBN.
Secondly, he has used his immense financial resources to
turn his trial at the code of conduct tribunal to a persecution and maligning
of his person. Things have degenerated so badly that many idle senators led by
Dino Melaye offered ‘ex gratis’ moral support to his ‘hardworking’ wife, Toyin
Saraki. When the Panama Papers scandal broke out, he claimed his wife and her
family were the ones who should have been on the dock of public opinion before
her infamous denial. Loud silence once again from the financial regulatory
agencies!
Thirdly, He has followed his late father’s populist
footsteps of massively impoverishing the populace and then attending to their
ephemeral needs of simply providing them miniscule meals. His attempt at
morphing into a folk hero has ended up in a gargantuan fiasco. The infuriated
hoi polloi who eyes are opening more widely than that of Adam at the Garden of
Eden nearly stoned him which prevented him from praying openly at the Mosque
barely a year into his becoming the nation’s number three man.
Fourthly, His greed and lust of power is extremely
nauseating. This was a man who betrayed his father who was both his financial
and political benefactor by fielding the incumbent governor, Alhaji Abdulfattah
Ahmed who was then his Chief of Staff against his younger sister, Gbemi Saraki,
the choice of the then Strongman of Kwara politics. The shock of his eldest son
and child’s betrayal must have hastened his joining of his ancestors barely a
year after the election of 2011 that forced him into ‘premature’ political
retirement in the manner reminiscent of how Samuel Goomsu Ikoku contested
against his own father Alvan Ikoku and sent the educationist, activist,
nationalist and politician into a non-pensionable retirement.
Fifthly, his avarice for filthy lucre is legendary. He
and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu a.k.a Jagaban are united in their belief of former
governors having a mind boggling pension plan to take care of their whims and
caprices even in death. Kwara is one of the most impoverished states in the
African continent and they are providing a house in Abuja and Ilorin GRA
alongside some other breath taking perks for the rest of his idle life. What
manner of a law maker cum ‘law twister’ is this!
Many decent Nigerians are still in anguish over the
non-confirmation of Ibrahim Magu’s appointment as the substantive EFCC Chairman
only for the Turakin of Ilorin to stoke the flame and unduly heat up the
already charged and tensed political stratosphere.
Saraki responded to a quip by Senate Majority Leader, Ali
Ndume who opined that it was hypocritical of the Senate to allow Saraki to
continue in office while he is still in court battling the corruption
allegations against him. His response was akin to that of the Biblical Pontius
Pilate when he lamely contended that ‘“You are jumping into conclusion that he
(Magu) was rejected because of the accusation. I don’t think there was anywhere
we said he was rejected based on accusations.
“We have nominees that come all the time with different
issues. Two weeks ago, we screened the Chief Justice of Nigeria and he scaled
through.
“Now the EFCC chairman came and he did not pass the
screening. Someone else will come and may pass. This is our constitutional role
and I don’t think we should personalise or politicise this.”
It is instructive to note that the silver spoon kid made
this statement in faraway Morocco where he was attending an African Summit on
Climate Change and Food Security ostensibly on taxpayers’ funds. Never mind
that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than
for Kwara or even his immediate constituency, Kwara Central to ever witness
food security in his lifetime.
It is sad that he is also a Kings College Lagos alumnus.
This is an institution that has produced political greats like Anthony Enahoro
who moved the motion for the nation’s independence at barely 30, Francis Akanu
Ibiam who was the Governor of the defunct Eastern Region, Hezekiah Oladipo
Davies who played a gallant role in the country’s struggle for independence and
was a two time Minister in the First Republic, Adeniran Ogunsanya whose
affiliation with the Great Zik of Africa was the only thing that caused him the
gubernatorial seat in 1979 against Jakande who ironically lost the right to be
described as Kings College Old Boy with
his expulsion from the great college, Alex Ekwueme who was the nation’s vice
president in the aborted Second Republic, Femi Okunnu, arguably the nation’s
best Minister for Works and Housing despite his training as a lawyer among a
host of men of timbre and calibre apologies to the late Dr. Kingsley Ozumba
Mbadiwe of K.O knockout fame.
The Senate should do the right thing by redeeming itself
through the purge of its greatest moral albatross. As long as it obstinately
refuses to do so, it has murdered sleep and we certainly cannot afford a repeat
of the Macbeth tragedy!
No comments:
Post a Comment