NUHU ALIYU'S FRIVOLITIES

SHOULD the Senate and the House of Representatives fail to act, there would be two discernible consequences of Senator Nuhu Aliyu’s recent repudiation of his grave allegations that there were fraudsters in the National Assembly. First, it would show that such remarks from the members of the upper house should be taken with a grain of salt by the Nigerian public henceforth. Second, and this inevitably derives from the first, such glib remarks inevitably would become the yardstick for measuring the quality of lawmakers who people the National Assembly as the remark would be considered to be representative of the National Assembly.

FOR about four years now, Senator Nuhu Aliyu had virtually made a sing-song of the allegations that there were people of questionable integrity in the Senate. According to him, he had had cause to interrogate these individuals while he was in the service of the Nigeria Police from where he retired after 35 years as a Deputy Inspector-General (DIG).

EVEN at that, those whose grasp on logic were firm, had cause to be cynical about his outbursts. If the Senator had done his work well as an ex-DIG of Police, these characters might have been prosecuted and jailed and they would not be fit to be elected in the first place. It was,. therefore, a welcome development when the National Assembly took him up and decided to put the matter before the Ethics and Privileges Committee.

AT that formal level, it would no longer be a snide remark offered glibly by a senator throwing tantrums. It would become a formal thing upon which the National Assembly would be obliged to repudiate such aspersions being cast upon it to impugn its integrity. It was at this level that Senator Aliyu realised the weight of his allegations and it was at this level that he found it expedient to demur, very much to the disappointment of the expectant Nigerian public.

RATHER than make good his threats of naming names, Senator Aliyu was only able to offer an apology. According to him, he had now been legally counselled about the import of labelling anybody a criminal when a competent court of law had not done so. He also said he did not enjoy the fact that he had been losing friends in the National Assembly since he made the allegations.

BOTH the retraction and the reasons given are at best gratuitous insults to the intelligence of the Nigerian public. Senator Aliyu, as a retired DIG of the Nigeria Police, should ordinarily know what it means to label anybody a fraudster or criminal. His claim as to losing friends in the National Assembly was even more infuriating. The implication was that the Senator considered his friendship with those he labelled as criminals to be more important than his patriotic duty of exposing fraudsters who are pretending to be lawmakers in the country’s legislative Assembly.

ALL told, Senator Aliyu had been at his frivolous best leading Nigerians on. Shortly before he recanted and offered his apology, the Senator had claimed that he was even ready to die naming the fraudsters as he considered it a patriotic call only for him to shy away from this patriotic duty at the eleventh hour.

IT is now up to the National Assembly to let the errant Senator know that the Assembly would not tolerate such irresponsibility, indecorous and damaging accusations from its members, especially those with long years of experience in public service who did not know the dignity embedded in circumspection. By the time an individual rises to the level of being a lawmaker, he ought to know that certain things such as flippancy and frivolities are beneath him. Senator Aliyu has dishonoured the National Assembly in these four years by his bogus and spurious allegations. He has wasted the Assembly’s time and caused a great deal of disaffection for it from the Nigerian public. He has also diverted the public’s attention from the serious issues of the day.

IT will not be asking for too much for the Senate to punish this serious offence, at least to prove to the Nigerian public that it deserves to be taken more seriously than Senator Aliyu and his “friends” in the National Assembly are doing. The upper legislative chamber should be for serious-minded people who are bent on showing leadership by both example and conduct. It is now obvious that flippant and frivolous senior citizens who are gravely bereft of circumspection if allowed in such a hallowed chambber will rubbish all its essence.

THE only way open to the Senate is allow Senator Aliyu to ride the horse of his deceit. It will need to confirm to the already cynical Nigerians that contrary to their suspicion, some distinguished senators are not secretly heaving a sigh of relief that Senator Aliyu has finally been swamped by his dilemma to prevent their being exposed.

ONYIUKE AND THE LOST IRONY

DID Nigerians miss the irony when the Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, told members of the House of Representatives that the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, forced her to take the Transcorp job? Trust Nigerians for their wild imagination; many of them were in a sensuous mood and were ready to read unpleasantness into a rather serious issue, despite its ironic reflection of the Nigerian state.

The hardworking Dr. Okereke-Onyiuke disclosed that the inability of the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) to operate maximally and profitably was due to the government. She said Transcorp, which owns the majority shareholding in the national carrier telecoms company, had had to defer to government which had a minority shareholding. On the company’s board of directors, it is the government that is calling the shots because it has more people. Therefore, Dr. Okereke-Onyiuke, who did not need to be forced before she turned the NSE into a thriving and prestigious mega establishment, was made helpless.

PERHAPS the reason Nigerians did not want to be bogged down with irony is that they are well attuned to it. Indeed, some Nigerians believe paradox and not irony was invented in Nigeria. It is hard to fault such a belief. In Nigeria, poverty is measured by the mind-boggling extra dollars the country makes. The majority of Nigerians are growing thinner from excruciating social conditions but the national till is getting bigger and is about to burst with petrodollars.

SO when 40 or even 49 per cent is said to be bigger than 60 or 51 per cent, Nigerians know that that is the order of things in such a perplexing paradox which their country is. Therefore, the situation in NITEL should not come as a surprise to Dr. Okereke-Onyiuke; it is the order of things.

Nigeria, her country, has the patent for absurdities. It once held the whole world spellbound with its magical 12 2/3 of 19 drama. No country has ever tried to perform such a political abracadabra. It is also in her country that two million people registered as voters in a state. More than that number was recorded in votes in the elections that were held!

NO, Nigerians did not miss the irony; they are the irony.