Four years ago, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions separately seized =N=104 million first and US$13.5 million later from then-Governor Goodluck Jonathan of Bayelsa. Jonathan had only recently replaced ex-Governor Diepriye Alamieyeseigha, who had been jailed, charged and impeached and stripped of office for basically the same act -- theft of public funds and money laundering.
The media and the EFCC made it out to be a case against Patience Jonathan, wife of then-Governor Jonathan, but lets not get bogged down by money laundering semantics; the only place she could have got that money is her husband. It would not be the first time Nigerian politicians have run their schemes through their wives and girlfriends; Nnamdi "Andy" Uba famously used accounts opened in the name of his American mistress Loretta Mabinton.
The case of the mysterious US$13.5 million disappeared from the media and the public consciousness rather quickly.
After the defeat of his Third Term Agenda, then-President Olusegun Obasanjo had seized control of the Peoples Democratic Party, using Ribadu and the EFCC as part of a carrot-and-stick process to extort support from the Big Men and godfathers of the PDP. Play ball with me, and enjoy your ill-gotten loot in peace, defy me and watch me jail you.
Obasanjo imposed then-Governor Umaru Yar'Adua as his chosen successor, believing the erstwhile Katsina governor to be weak enough to be manipulable. Obasanjo also selected then-Governor Goodluck Jonathan to be Yar'Adua's running mate ... at which point, Ribadu forgot case against Goodluck Jonathan.
In a world where political godsons routinely turn on their godfathers, it was important to have some kind of tool for keeping godsons in line. Famously, Chris Uba (Andy's kid brother) made Chris Ngige, then a candidate for Governor of Anambra, swear fealty to Uba before a juju shrine; Nigerians, mostly adherents of two global religions, nevertheless take oaths to shrines a lot more seriously than they take oaths made on any other basis. Even then Ngige and Uba fell out.
Obasanjo did not rely on oaths. What he did was have Ribadu open an investigation against someone (say, for example, Bode George), then have Ribadu suspend the investigation once that person became a dutiful godson to Obasanjo. Should that godson step out of line, and/or annoy pater familias Obasanjo, he could then have Ribadu reopen the investigation as a means of punishing the errant godson. As such, men like Bode George were very loyal, while other men, like Sani Ahmed Yerima, were very afraid; either way, they did what Obasanjo needed them to do, and the abysmal, shameful spectacle that was the 2007 Elections came to pass.
The $13.5 million seized from Goodluck Jonathan was not the first step towards a prosecution; it was instead the collateral or surety for the political investment that made Goodluck Jonathan the next Vice-President. The one thing Obasanjo never counted on was Umaru Yar'Adua sacking Nuhu Ribadu. Alas, all godsons turn on their godfathers (as Obasanjo had turned on his, Atiku Abubakar).
Yar'Adua's move was meant to build for himself an independent power base among the Big Men, offering them freedom from Ribadu's Revenge if they stopped their unwilling support of Obasanjo's efforts to continue pulling the strings behind the scenes. They duly broke with Obasanjo, ending his control of the PDP, rendering him just another ex-President.
The thing is ... once the anti-democratic, pro-corruption, mafia-style extortion leverage of Ribadu's fake corruption war was gone, Yar'Adua lacked a hammer of his own to keep the Big Men in line. Thus came the sense of drift.
Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating the Obasanjo/Ribadu model. For one thing, the eight years from 1999 to 2007 will probably be remembered as the single most corrupt "decade" (you know what I mean) in the federal republic's history -- not just post-colonial history, but entire history going back to the Stone Age. The rot reached all the way to the top, with both President Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku sharing in a $74 million bribe from Halliburton, among other things (I wish the federal republic was blessed with the sort of investigative writers and/or documentary film-makers who could tell the full tale of Transcorp, and Obasanjo's other attempts to transfer public property to his private ownership). There was so much hype about Obasanjo/Ribadu's attempts to keep Atiku off the ballot because "he was corrupt", not to mention impeaching Alamieyeseigha because "he was corrupt", only to sweep a US$13.5 million investigation under the carpet to impose Goodluck Jonathan as Vice-President and now Acting President.
War on Corruption? Rubbish!
And the "drift" that characterized the Yar'Adua administration is no different from the "drift" (save cellphone deregulation) that characterized the Obasanjo Administration's first five or six years (out of eight), and much of the activity that followed revolved around attempts to revise the constitution for a Third Term and efforts to maximize the transfer of public property to the private pockets of a coterie of business moguls who surrounded Obasanjo (and who cut him into their deals).
So it is not like we achieved any great reforms to any vital federal institution. The political machine created by Olusegun Obasanjo in his second term was good at what it was designed to do -- keep the machine in power directly before 2007 and (it hoped) indirectly afterward. It had no ambitions beyond that, touted no reforms and no restructuring, made no war on waste or graft.
In its own way, it was like everything that came before it, and everything (Yar'Adua and Jonathan alike) that came after it. Our governments lack substance and legitimacy, and even if they desired otherwise, they are generally unable to achieve much beyond just hanging onto power. Even now, this final year of what was to be Yar'Adua's first term is dominated by nothing beyond questions of whether Jonathan will be able to hang on to the Presidency after 2011, and if he doesn't, who is best placed to replace him.
Sadly, whoever "wins" the (sure-to-be-rigged) elections next year, we will be back to square one. If someone from north of the Niger-Benue wins, their will be an instant shift in focus to the question of whether the South-East or South-South should come next in the "rotation system", and maneuvering by various Big Men to put themselves in the frame. Conversely, if Jonathan retains, certain Big Men will argue that the next term (2015-2019) should go back to the North-West because they only had one while the South-West had two, or whether it should go to the South-East because they haven't had anyone since Ironsi and they can't wait just because the South-South jumped their turn.
Long story short ....
....substantive reform, restructuring and transformation are not on the agenda!
But still ... what happened to the $13.5 million investigation of the Jonathan family?
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