By Joe Igbokwe,
I was shocked to the marrows when I heard that some APC Senators asked the National Working Committee of the Party led by the National Chairman of the Party Chief Odigie Oyegun to prevail on President Buhari to drop all charges against Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct corruption trial before they stop sabotaging the presidency. Words failed me when it dawned on me that this potentially dangerous demand is coming from some APC Senators who are supposed to be the agents of change we promised Nigerians while seeking their mandate in 2015.
I reflected on the event of the past 24years from 1993 when we elected Chief MKO Abiola to bring hope to Nigerians and how he was crushed and decimated by demonic and satanic forces after five years struggle to defend and sustain the mandate. Time and space will not permit me to recall the quantum of energies expended to defend the mandate for five years, the wars, on the streets, the casualties including MKO Abiola and the late wife Kudirat Abiola,and many others, the damage to the national project, the devastation of our economy, the balkanization of the political entity called Nigeria, the alienation by the international community making Nigeria a pariah nation, and the ethnic division it visited on Nigeria.
After killing chief Abiola in July 7 1998, the same satanic and demonic forces still bent on decimating Nigeria further decided to foist PDP and retired General Obasanjo on Nigerians. In sixteen years, from 1999 to 2015 the same forces wasted huge resources running into hundreds of billions of dollars earned in times of oil boom. The unconscionable looters and unrepentant thieves diverted and stashed away these huge resources into private pockets. These funds have been traced to private accounts both at home and abroad, traced to real estates both in Nigeria and abroad, and traced to farms and some buried underground. The rest is now history.
In 2015 Nigerians elected retired General Muhammadu Buhari who promised to bring change in the way we live, the way we work, the way we reason, the way we do business and the way we manage our affairs as a nation. The real meat of what he is bringing on table is to reduce corruption to the barest minimum. Before then corruption had ruined and destroyed a country blessed with both human and material resources.
By the time President Buhari took over in 2015 our infrastructure was in ruins, our hospitals, our universities, our national carriers were in ruins, our Power, Agricultural, and Manufacturing sectors went underground. Now one way President Buhari planned to tackle these numerous problems is checkmate corruption which remains the biggest problem facing Nigeria. The dollars are no longer flowing in the way it used to be in the era of oil boom. Nigeria cannot even meet the approved OPEC quota of pumping 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day due to vandalization of oil pipelines by Niger Delta militants.
As a consequence of all this, it now behoves on the government to manage the little that we have but the satanic, demonic and greedy Nigerian politicians will not allow the system to work. They are governors, judges, law makers, Ministers, and political appointees, serving and retired who do not want the system to work. They work together to circumvent and destroy every step taken by the President to move Nigeria forward. Come to think of it, President Buhari dissipated all the energies he would have deployed to matters of governance, to run for the exalted office in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015(12 years). In fact, he cried in 2011 when he missed it again believing that it is all over but man is not God. God has a reason for making Buhari the President at a time like this and at this present stage and age to begin to reinvent and reposition Nigeria but the forces that stopped Chief MKO Abiola in 1993 are at work again. For 24 years they held Nigeria hostage. They steal all our money and they will not want to be investigated. They bribe judges and lawyers to get their freedom. They present forged certificates and false assets declaration and ask you to go to hell. They decide how much they must earn and the type of vehicles they want. They blackmail the President and try to twist the hands to yield to their criminal demands forgetting that he has the mandate of 15million Nigerians. They steal people’s money and ask you to go to hell. The satanic and demonic forces in Nigeria have no conscience, no souls, no love, no hearts, no brains, no heads, no eyes, no common sense, no life, and no shame.
They can still repeat what they did to MKO Abiola in July 7 1998. They killed the hope 1993 project and they are ready to repeat the shame with 2015 change project. The other day I saw Senators Saraki and Dino Melaye in group photograph with the former President Babangida who democratized corruption and corrupted our democracy since 1993. Instantly, I figured out that the forces of darkness are gathering momentary again. IBB represents our ugly past. To pose with Saraki and Dino Melaye, the known enemies of the Change mantra speaks volume that they can repeat the ugly events of the past 24 years. The forces that arrested, sabotaged and underdeveloped Nigeria in the past 24 years are still on the prowl, ravaging and looking for whom to devour. They can kill President Buhari just to have their way. The President and his handlers must be very careful as we are dealing with reprobate minds, these cultural savages and workers of iniquity.
Granted that we still have some small number of responsive, responsible and accountable Senators in the 8th Senate, I still share the opinion that the Red Chamber is no longer useful to Nigeria, all things considered. It has become a den for treasury looters and unconscionable characters. Nigeria must borrow a leaf from Senegal and Venezuela. Given our dwindling resources and the monumental problems facing Nigeria as a political entity, the Senate has become a burden and a house of cards. To all intents and purposes and with every sense of responsibility I think that Nigeria can do without the Senate. For now,the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is of zero consequences. Let the Senate cease to exist.
Joe Igbokwe
Lagos