PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has set up two committees to gather-the word ‘gather’ is used advisedly-money for his election campaign. They are the Finance and Fund-raising Committee, chaired by Mr Oba Otudeko, and the Donor Committee, chaired by Mr Aliko Dangote.

The committees look like a smokescreen, an attempt to throw Nigerians off the scent of the source of campaign fund. The president extravagantly funded his primary election campaign apparently without donations.

President Jonathan is not a poor man. He now freely talks about his beginnings of bareness—he obviously believes this will get him votes—but he was coy about his financial worth as vice-president. He did not see the need and was certain about the unwisdom of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s decision to publish his assets as he declared them to the Code of Conduct Bureau. President Jonathan ignored calls to follow Mr Yar’Adua’s lead, but his peevish obstinacy eventually wilted under criticism. His spokesman disclosed that the then vice-president was worth more than N200 million.

The asset declaration form is a void for what it hides. A person completing the form lists his assets, usually not honestly, but does not state how he acquired them. President Jonathan held moderately paying government jobs until he became deputy governor in 1999. But he was worth more than N200 million in 2007, less than 10 years after he anxiously, impatiently, waited for his next payslip, as honest civil servants continue to do.

President Jonathan will not spend his own money, as some American candidates do, and does not need to borrow from the public treasury to run a slick, sumptuous campaign. His cash-collecting committees have a very easy job; there are many people eager to curry favour with the president.

Mr Otudeko, chairman of the Finance and Fund-raising Committee, is fabulously rich, as are members of the Donor Committee. Mr Dangote, that Croesus of cash, that Midas of almost magical money, will moderate the deliberations of the Donor Committee. Other members of the committee are Mr Mike Adenuga, Mr Tony Elumelu, Mr Jim Ovia, Mr Femi Otedola, Mr Emeka Offor, Mr Kashim Bukar, Mr Sayyu Dantata, Mr Kola Salako (I have never heard of the last three gentlemen; I do not read the scandal sheets, which, I believe, are called ‘soft sell magazines’ in this country) and Mr Dahiru Mangal.

Mr Mangal, a close friend of the late President Yar’Adua, is certainly in the money. But it is said to be money covered in the tarnishing soot of smuggling. A magazine article detailed Mr Mangal’s business activities, which it said widely skirted legality, and called him a sinister smuggler. This was a bald accusation, as naked as a new day, without the half-dressedness of a euphemism, but Mr Mangal took refuge in silence, in silence that convicts.

Mr Mike Okiro is also in opulent circumstances, according to reports. Well, he retired as the country’s chief of police. But Mr Okiro has always said, with candour and gallantry extremely rare among Nigerian men, that his wife holds the purse strings; it is her money and he is something of a kept man. Ha! ha!

Mr Okiro is chair of the Security Committee of the Jonathan campaign.  When did Mr Okiro become a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? Mr Okiro’s critics during his time as the Inspector General of Police called him a PDP sympathiser. Mr Okiro issued statements that threatened the opponents of the PDP-run (badly so, it was said) government and tried to circumscribe democratic freedoms.

Millions of Nigerians are enslaved by hunger and the government does not appear interested in helping them win their freedom. Indeed, government policies have tightened the fetters and strengthened the steel of starvation. A few people have taken firm, selfish possession of the country’s abundant wealth. There are magnificent mansions, some of them unoccupied, in a country where millions of people live in hovels and many are homeless. The owners of the mansions do not work harder than those who live in shacks of shocking rudeness. Some very rich Nigerians, in fact, do no visible work.

President Jonathan’s Donor Committee, which has the usual cast of hard-core capitalists, is a provocation. It is a declaration of war, the rich against the poor. It is in the interest of the rich, especially the nouveaux riches, people with new money that has the old, wrinkled face of sin, to avoid a lifestyle of screeching ostentation. They should also help the poor. They say that ‘no condition is permanent’ in Nigeria and today’s princes of prosperity may be in need of charity in the future, as is the experience of Theodore, King of Corsica, in Voltaire’s Candide. Theodore is one of the six deposed kings taking dinner in a modest inn in Venice.

Former King Theodore tells his story: ‘…I have caused money to be coined, but am not master at present of a farthing. I have been myself on a throne, and have some time lain upon straw in a common jail in London.’

Mrs Cecilia Ibru, until two years ago an empress of wealth, is now a prisoner. Her case is proof of the changeability of fortune.

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Your view

Nosa, thanks for your piece ‘A mother’s fears’. I almost cried my eyes out reading it. The world has turned upside down. When I felt my own fears should be abating, my only son having successfully gone through university, we have just discovered that the ‘good’ lady he married is, in fact, a ‘monster’. The cultists are sacred cows because they are the children of judges who should try them; the police who should prosecute them; the who is who in the Nigerian nation! Some mothers, too. Terrible! Lord, please forgive and help us.
Mary, Ekiti
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Your ‘A mother’s fears’ is a masterpiece. Well researched and well thought out, especially for the caring parents. The fear comes from nowhere and oscillates round no one in particular. It causes all sorts of ailments. We just put all our thoughts and trust in God’s hands and be prayerful. It shall be well with us.
Demola Akinyemi
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It is not the fault of the gang members; some of their parents belong to occult societies, thereby sponsoring their children’s evil act. May the Lord save us from a society where insanity is mistaken for sanity.
Akindaini Atinuke
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The Lagos State Commissioner of Police should please find a lasting solution to the problem of Eiye and Aiye confraternity members. We want peace in Epe. Enough of these killings. Governor Fashola, come to our aid before the worst happens.
Sadiq Dare, Epe, Lagos State
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I love your articles. They address the socio-economic, political problems of this country in a poetic dimension.
I am using this medium to tell our leaders that the winds of revolution is blowing across the world and that Nigerian youths will stand up and fight for change in this country.
Victor Ojedayo
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Judicial kung fu
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Your column on feuding justices provides insights into the current malaise in the Nigerian judiciary. One can now fully appreciate the concern of retired Justice Eso when he commented that there were bag eggs in the judiciary. Last year in Lagos State, there was a hue and cry over postings of some justices that necessitated paid advert listing seniority and specialisations of all serving justices to explain and justify their postings. If for any reason at all, Justice Ayo Salami finds it inconvenient serving under the CJN or would want to resist posting by a superior authority, the logical option is to resign from service but we hardly resign in Nigeria. Otherwise, he should take the humble pie and desist from dragging the judiciary further into the mud.
Omodele Olanipekun
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