For the second time in the life of this administration, a serving minister in the person of Mr. Godsday Orubebe has engaged in (apologies to late music legend – Fela Anikulapo Kuti ) a ‘roforofo’ fight (public spat) with other citizens of divergent status.
First, he (Orubebe) had
public spat[squabble] with a ‘commoner’, the former World professional cruiser
weight boxing champion- Mr. Bashiru Ali over issues that bordered on an alleged
double dealing.
This time, this ‘big man’ minister is in a political fight to
finish with his fellow ‘big man’ whom (Orubebe) pejoratively addressed as the
boss of the ‘Slum dwellers’ – governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, of River State.
The reason for this public show of shame and crude display of
power by the President’s boy’ is that governor Amaechi dared to challenge his
clearly non-performing ministry of Niger Delta- a ministry that has become one
of the most inefficient and incompetent bureaucracy in modern times.
I will return to the celebrated public show of shame between the
‘President’s boy’ and the ‘boss’ of the slum dwellers – Mr. Rotimi Amaechi who
equally doubles as the chairman of the Nigerian governors’ forum – a body known
for herbouring public office holders that consistently spread poverty to their
people through corruption, incompetence, looting and economic crimes (if you
are in doubt please check the criminal profile as compiled by the Economic and
Financial Crimes commission, EFCC).
On 12th September 2011, the Lagos based The Nation newspaper
ran a story with a screaming headline – “Documents nail Orubebe in quarrel with
Bash Ali".
The newspaper in the story stated that contrary to the claim
by the Niger Delta minister Elder Godsday Orubebe that his ministry was never
committed to sponsoring the proposed Guiness Book of Records boxing bout of
World champion-Mr. Bashiru Ali, documents obtained by them showed clearly that
the contrary is the case.
In a telephone interview with the paper, Godsday Orubebe was
quoted thus; “That man [Bash Ali]came to me with his proposal and I said these
are things that can be done by the National Sports Commission (NSC). I gave him
a recommendation note to see the minister of sports of that time. Later
he came to me that some people told him that the propgramme will be included in
the budget of the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. I said if other people
are lying I will not lie. The ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has nothing to do
with sports so the programme could not have been part of our budget. So,
it is not in our budget”.
The minister of Niger Delta in that interview called Mr. Bashir
Ali, unprintable names just for daring to expose the undercurrents of the deal
that collapsed like a pack of cards under the heavyweight of allegation of
bribe-seeking. Bashir Ali is the one time World professional cruiser
weight champion (in 1987) who brought honour to Nigeria.
But The Nation newspaper exclusively obtained a document
which purportedly contradicted the claims of the minister of Niger Delta
Affairs.
Dated August 27th, 2009 the letter in the possession of the news
writer, was said to have been written to the National Sports Commission by
the Niger Delta Affairs minister and it stated thus; “I am directed to
inform you that the ministry is in the process of supporting an international
boxing tournament between Bash Ali of Nigeria and John Keelon of Britain. We
are therefore seeking for your nominee to serve as member of the committee that
will work out the modalities on how to arrange and finance the tournament. The
nominee should be an officer of not below the rank of Assistant Director”.
But Bashi Ali claimed it was because of his refusal to part with
some of the $14.2 million allegedly budgeted for the fight under skill
acquisition in the ministry’s budget that was why the show was scuttled, an
allegation the minister denied. Bashiru Ali made a dramatic show of the entire
scenario by erecting a tent near the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters in Abuja
where he slept and fasted for nearly two weeks before public spirited individuals
talked him into ending the hunger strike.
Sadly, the President who is the appointing authority of the
minister and the National Assembly that does oversight function over the
ministry of Niger Delta Affairs allowed these weighty allegations to be swept
under the carpets.
Now, back to the bigger fight between the president’ boy and the
boss of the slum dwellers – Godsday Orubebe and Rotimi Amaechi, it may be nice
to know that the cause of the quarrel has shown that most political office
holders have no iota of respect for the people they ought to serve in the
first, place. They all talked down on all of us as if we don’t matter in the
entire equation of governance.
The ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was created by the President
Umaru Musa Yar’adua/Goodluck Jonathan’s administration as part of effort to
pacify the then armed militants in the oil rich Niger Delta to lay down their
arms. The Amnesty programme is to allow the Federal government to address the
multidimensional developmental challenges that face these crude oil rich
communities that for fifty years have suffered systemic marginalization and
underdevelopment from the federal government even when Nigeria makes all the
money sustaining the nation from the exploitation and exportation of the Crude
oil natural resources that these devastated Niger Delta environments are
endowed with.
But the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has being in the news for
the wrong reason of accusations of corruption trailing the minister as alleged
by several groups in the civil society community. Recently, the Niger Delta
Affairs minister was alleged to have fraudulently bought several choice
properties in the high brow areas of Abuja. He however denied the allegations
which the independent corrupt practices and other offences commission
[ICPC] is said to be probing. The ICPC is known as the weakest link in the
ongoing anti-graft war which most analysts believe has died down and the
politicians have returned to the business as usual 'share-the-money' tendency.
The River state governor was reported to have criticized the Niger
Delta ministry for not completing any significant project in the Niger Delta
region including the strategic East – west High way which has remained in the
design stage for years even with Billions of public money said to have been
sunk into this bottomless pit.
Rather than reply the River State governor with verifiable facts
to contradict the allegation of non-performance, the minister derailed by
throwing punches on the River state governor and in turn branded him as the
governor who has so much resources but has turned Port Harcourt the once garden
city of Nigeria into a slum. Minister Orubebe was literary calling the people
of Port Harcourt SLUM DWELLERS.
Mr. Orubebe then proceeded to show that he is the President’s
favourite ‘boy’ when he accused governor Amaechi of showing disrespect to the
office of the President of Nigeria.
Orubebe stated thus; “If today, the governor of Akwa Ibom State is
saying these things, I will sit down and reason with him, but not River State.
He is only talking; almost all the roads he (Amaechi) started are abandoned”.
The River state governor retorted by challenging the Niger Delta
Affairs minister to list his projects that the ministry has executed because at
least even by his (Orubebe’s) own admission, he (Amaechi) initiated many road
projects in Rivers state.
Governor Amaechi then dismissed the criticism of the minister
directed at him thus; “The minister’s allegations were an attempt to divert attention
from his failure to deliver on the East-West Road”.
This same East – West Road was the place whereby hundreds of
persons were roasted alive recently in River State when a petrol tanker
exploded because of the bad road and the poor villagers rushed to foolishly
scoop fuel from the fuel tanker that collapsed and poured its contents of
petrol on the road and near-by farms.
The serving Catholic Bishop of Bomadi Diocese was reported to have
challenged President Jonathan during a funeral mass for the departed former
National Security Adviser General Azazi, to complete it [EAST-WEST ROAD]as a
major legacy of his administration.
Now, the Niger Delta minister is busy exchanging angry words with
the River State governor over this same road and the President has not deemed
it appropriate to call his minister to order.
It will be the shame of the century if we get to 2015 and the
East-West Road that traversed the entire Niger Delta region and the second
Niger Bridge in Onitsha, Delta/Anambra States are not completed by this
administration that lavishly promised the people of South/South and South East
during the campaign in 2011 to entrust their bloc votes to this presidency with
a solemn promise to deliver these key projects that are so strategic to the
survival and economic empowerment of the people in these two regions.
Honestly, all that President Jonathan needs to do to ascertain how
unpopular most of his ministers are is to commission a study by
independent groups made up of market women, unemployed graduates and pensioners
drawn from the six geo-political zones but without the usual fun- fare
and publicity glitz that attends inauguration of such presidential panels
to avoid a situation whereby the panelists would be compromised by these
incompetent and corrupt ministers.
Nigerians are suffering and are praying that public office holders
should spare them of these public shows- of -shame of engaging in media warfare
even as these political combatants consistently fail to deliver on their
mandates and the law enforcement mechanism is too weak to bring them to
Justice.
Nigeria needs to strengthen the institutions like the judiciary
and the anti-graft commissions to more competently bring these grossly
inefficient public office holders to trial.
On November 13th 2007 President Yar’adua, (now late) had pledged
that “I vow before you this day that as President of this country, I will lead
the fight against corruption; the fight against corruption is my fight”.
But he [late Umaru Musa Yar'adua] failed spectacularly to
rein in minister Orubebe who was accused openly of corruptly demanding
bribe from a boxing champion and again with all the allegations of corrupt
enrichment including the claim that a leading construction firm built him a
palatial mansion in Abuja, the current President Goodluck Jonathan has deemed
it appropriate to let sleeping dog lie rather than querry his 'man-friday'.
This is sad.
On the side of governor Amaechi, the allegation that his state is
littered with numerous abandoned road projects even with the huge monthly
allocation, is a very strong one that must be probed further. During my last
visit last year to Port Harcourt I also noticed that there were too many
abandoned road projects. Governor Amaechi please concentrate and deliver
democracy dividends and allow posterity to more appropriately judge you.
* Emmanuel Onwubiko, Head, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF
NIGERIA blogs @www..huriwa.blogspot.com.
21/1/2013
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