By Jaye Gaskia
The crisis of
bourgeois rule in our country is fast coming to a head, just as the global
crisis of bourgeois rule is also deepening! Not even the moral window provided
by the recent departure and celebration of Madiba, is sufficient enough to
redeem the global ruling elite in general, and the Nigerian treasury looting
ruling in particular!
For as is usual
practice for ruling classes everywhere, in order to renew their hold on the
psyche and consciousness of the popular masses, the victims of their misrule
they every once in a while co-opt the image and personae, the life and death,
of populist leaders of the masses; elevate them into iconic stature,
profusely and self servingly celebrate them, while claiming in the name of the
exploiting ruling class a life time of struggle against the same ruling class.
It was the same
way they took over and commercialised the memory of Che, of Malcom X, of Martin
Luther King Jnr, etc......It is what they are now falling over themselves in a
competitive race towards commercialising the memory of Madiba! Suddenly every
political head of the ruling class in every country, has had moments with
Madiba, that must be shared with the rest of us; each single one of them, even
while denying significant sections of their own populace basic rights now seem
to have been inspired and motivated by the example of Madiba! What a collegiate
of tragicomedians and congenital liars, these leaders!
Before we go
too far astray let us return to the purpose of our discourse today. However
before we go on, let me reiterate the point being made above. The ruling class
have always sought to seize moments such as with the departure of Madiba, to
launder its own image, sanitise its rule, and renew the hold it has on popular
consciousness; the deeper the crisis they face, the more strident and the
further they go in their quest to seize the moment and appropriate the legacy
of iconic figures!
The crisis
rocking our society, and that is now tearing apart the ruling class is
deepening; if we were to use the analogy of severe weather conditions, we would
say that the storm is gathering strength! And it may soon acquire widespread
devastating character of a super hurricane!
We have
witnessed the deep seated factional disputes within the ruling PDP, and the
ensuring splits! We have witnessed the hurried merger of very strange
bedfellows; capped by the now even more hurried merger of the New PDP with the
APC! A little here about the tactics of the New PDP before we proceed. The
strategic purpose of the New PDP seems to be to destabilise the PDP and defeat
the current leadership of the Party.
I suspect that
the strategists of the New PDP having reached the conclusion to abandon the PDP
and merge with the APC, needed to do this in a manner that enables the merger
process not to jeopardise the current political offices that their leaders
hold. The only way to achieve this is to merge while still keeping up the
appearance and reality of a factionalised PDP! Hence the majority of the New
PDP merging with the APC, while leaving a minority in New PDP, to keep the
faction alive.
This is the
only way their decamping from the PDP to another party, APC, can be
constitutionally legitimate and legal; and hence it is the only way to ensure
they will not forfeit their current positions. This is the only
interpretation that makes sense of the unfolding saga of the PDP crisis! And a
clueless presidency surrounded by sycophants rather than strategists, is unable
to respond effectively to this manoeuvre.
Now back to the
other aspects of the crisis; and to the legitimate questions that ought to be
raised by the victims of their misrule! If the coming together of the ACN,
ANPP, CPC, and a faction of APGA was not strange enough, and was not enough
grounds to question the sincerity of the promoters of the merger, what about
the merger of the merged entity, APC, with the New PDP? This merger with New
PDP is the clearest indication yet, and the latest proof, if we still needed
any more proofs, that the difference between and among the major parties of the
ruling class in Nigeria, is like the one between six and half a dozen;
absolutely no difference!
It is another
significant indication that all of the parties are bereft of ideology, as well
as any principled programatic platform! First the primary merger was announced
without a manifesto; without even a simple declarative program and statement of
principles! Next, the secondary merger was announced in pronouncement written
on one single sheet of paper, read out with shaky hands and shaken voices!
And just like
previously, other than trying to resolve disputes with respect to power sharing
and therefore potential or real access to the treasury, for the purpose of
organising a more coordinated and sanitised pillage of our collective wealth
other than trying to allocate spaces within the party, what were the gladiators
discussing behind closed doors for hours? For days? And for weeks?
The most
correct conclusion that can be drawn from the way and manner the primary and
secondary mergers were constituted and consummated can only be that the only
thing bringing all these pirates of the East, West, North, and South together,
is a common desire to upstage those who now control access to the federal
treasury, and install themselves, and their treasury looting machine, the APC
as the successor to, and new gate keepers of our collective wealth. This is the
only desire uniting them; certainly not our welfare, or our wellbeing!
But the secondary
merger, posses even more imminent danger to the mergees than the primary one;
how to share offices? Who controls the party structures in the new APC states,
where the PDP was hitherto in power, but that by virtue of the merger the APC
is now the ruling party?
And now to the
letter, the letter writer, and the intended recipient of the letter! Let us be
clear about one fact; the writing of the letter, the surreptitious leakage of
the letter to the media, and the audacious self serving anger of the intended
recipient of the letter are all integral parts of the crisis rocking the ruling
class in general, and the ruling party in particular. Any attempt to understand
and or analyse the letter outside of this context completely misses the point.
Another point
that is of extreme significance revolves around the character of the letter
writer [OBJ] himself. We should be clear about this, and we do not need the
smear campaign embarked upon by the agents of the presidency on the social
media, to underscore facts that we already know! The late Fela did not sing
'ITT - International Thief Thief' for nothing or out of boredom! The song was a
social commentary on live issues bordering on treasury looting; the late icon
was very clear and mentioned OBJ, MKO and Musa Y'Aradua as the thieves!
Furthermore, it
does not require the reminder of a presidency steeped in monumental LOOTERY for
any discerning mind to find the similarity and identity between Obasanjo Farms
Nigeria LTD [OFN], and the Federal government agriculture intervention program
under OBJ's military dictatorship - Operation Feed The Nation [OFN]; not only
suspicious, but also very indicting and indicative of the apparent wholesale
conversion of a public enterprise into the private enterprise of OBJ!
All the Generals
[of all the arms of the armed forces, including all the 'Thieves of
Air/Naval/Army Staff]; all of them, how did they acquire all the lands that
they now posses, and upon which they each have established super large scale
commercial farms? What loans, and what savings from their military salaries,
enabled them to establish big businesses, and become billionaires in Dollar
terms? How did they amass all these ostentatious wealth, if not by poking their
dirty fingers into our collective treasury and helping themselves to huge
chunks of our collective wealth?
So YES, OBJ is
guilty of everything he has accused the current president of; Can it be proved
that he did not help himself to our collective wealth? That he did not steal
from us? We have already mentioned OFN, but there was also the N2.8bn missing
fund from the NNPC, at a time when the Naira was stronger than the USD, and
under the watch of OBJ and GMB, who was petroleum minister then. Can it be
proved that there were no killer squads during his lengthy rule as both
military and civilian dictator? Under whose watch was Marshall Harry murdered?
Under whose watch was Bole Ige murdered? Can it be denied that he repudiated an
agreement to go for a single term, and even had the effrontery to try to amend
the constitution in order to go for a third term? So it is true, and we
already knew it, before the profuse outrage of a pretentious presidency
launched its smear campaign! Is the presidency just aware of all the sins of
OBJ?
So we know the
character of the letter writer, very well! But what about the content of the
message? Is there anyone among us in their sane minds that can any longer deny
the unprecedented scale and scope of treasury looting and corruption under this
presidency? How can anyone explain the depletion of the Excess Crude Account
[ECA] from $9.8bn to $2.5bn in less than 9 months? Or the depletion of the
External Reserves from $48.8bn to $44bn within the same period?
How can it be
known, and yet condoned, that the NNPC serially under-remits revenue to the
Federation account, and that it serially under-declares its income? How can
quantity of refined petrol rise steeply from under 35 million litres per day in
2010 to 60 million litres per day in 2011, and then after the scare of the January
uprising of 2012, return steeply to 38 million litres per day of 2012 and 2013?
Who were the ghost lifters responsible for the ghost 22 million litres per day
of petrol in excess of the previous trend? Who were the ghost beneficiaries of
the subsidy claimed for these ghost quantities? Who were the ghost NNPC
personnel and political office holders who authorised and covered up such
monumental pillage?
It is obvious
to us from the foregoing that because a thief has been exposed by another
thief, does not and cannot invalidate the fact that the exposed thief is
actually a thief!
The only sane
conclusions that can be drawn from the foregoing are simple; Treasury looting
and light fingeredness is a pervasive, widespread and ingrained culture and
practice of our light fingered ruling political elites! This ruling class in
its competitive adventure in primitive accumulation of capital through treasury
looting, will stop literally at nothing to get what it wants; including
trampling on our rights, messing up our basic infrastructures and services, and
organising murder!
The only sane
lesson we must draw from all of these is that Our Destiny is Truly in our own
hands; and not in the hands of any of the factions or fractions of the inept,
gluttonous, and treasury looting ruling class; regardless of their current
level dissidence with dominant sections of their class.
What this means
for us is that we must urgently take the necessary concrete steps, that will
enable us to break clearly from this tradition and convention of Looting Based
Service; and begin to put the building blocks of a real alternative Mass
Political Movement together, in order to facilitate the enabling environment to
unseat this ruling class and institute a new form of humane governance system
and process, that will help us realise our aspiration for Social Justice and
Social Transformation.
If we are going
to be able to Take Back Nigeria; we must have the courage, determination and
sense of purpose to first Take Back The Political Space, such that we can
organise and mobilise autonomously and independently of ant faction or fraction
of this treacherous, treasury looting ruling class!
(Follow me on
Twitter: @jayegaskia & @[DPSR]protesttopower; Interact with me on FaceBook:
Jaye Gaskia & Take Back Nigeria.)
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