Spreading The Web Of Complicity In Nigeria

How many people have noticed that Nigeria’s beleaguered president, President Bola Tinubu no longer travels abroad half as much as he used to do in his first two and a half years as President? In those early years, the propaganda vigorously spread about by his courtiers and propagandists was that he was flying around the world, seeking foreign investment.

It is possible that he has sobered up and curbed his spendthrift tendencies. But that is highly unlikely given the following alleged planned expenditure profile of his Maladministration, which to the best of this writer’s knowledge have not been forcefully refuted or officially debunked.

Consider this stack of budgeted expenditures.

In Nigeria, the poverty capital of the world, where ‘a foreign loan a month,’ keeps the country from falling overboard into the fiscal ocean:

• The Tinubu Maladministration purportedly budgeted billions of Naira for attending the last World Cup in the USA. It was a World Cup for which Nigeria a country of 230 million people did not qualify. Cape Verde an island nation of barely 600,000 people did qualify, and reached the Round of 32, losing narrowly to World Cup holders and eventual finalists, Argentina.
• The Tinubu Maladministration purportedly budgeted billions of Naira for the rehabilitation of the palaces of traditional rulers.
• The Tinubu Maladministration purportedly budgeted billions of Naira for the rehabilitation of Churches and Mosques.
• Millions of Nigerian citizens, victims of ethnic genocide are still languishing, some for upwards of 11 years, in Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camps, nationwide.

With the kind of fiscal choices made above, the Tinubu Maladministration can hardly be said to have abandoned their customary penchant for fiscal recklessness in favor of fiscal prudence.

Realizing that they have monumentally failed and can never win a free and fair elections, the Tinubu Maladministration has resorted to a three-pronged approach to retain power by all-foul means. One prong is to clear the deck of any credible opposition.

Their main target in this quest is the preeminent opposition politician, Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, whose party and whose candidature, together with that of his running mate, Engr. Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, they plot to disqualify via suborned courts using the most ludicrous and most ridiculous of technical means.

The second track is to suppress voter participation in opposition strongholds and to manufacture fictitious results. The third track is to seduce, bribe, and capture all state institutions. To this end, all the institutions of the state, bar none, are currently under the thumb and malevolent control of the Tinubu Maladministration.

We are talking of the electoral empire, the aptly mis-named Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the National Assembly, the Judiciary from head to toe, Thirty-three of Thirty-Six State Governors, the Police, the Army, the DSS etc., all pliably under the Presidents’ beck and call.

Despite this firm partisan control of the levers of the State, the Tinubu Maladministration is still desperately insecure, lacking one thing that ordinarily assures an Administration of victory at the polls. That one thing being the support of the people.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, awarding themselves very high marks for superlative performance in office, their actions betray the pangs of conscience of a Maladministration that has woefully failed the people and has nothing left in their tank to make meaningful impact in their lives.

The panicked presidency cognizant that their days are running out, grasping at straws, and clutching at strands, have decided to share part of their fiscal misconduct or thievery with Churches, Mosques, and Traditional Rulers, to stave off their fate.

They are striving tooth and nail to 'create by purchase,' the optics of whitewashed popular support against which background they would rig next year's presidential elections. Instead of investing in the welfare and well-being of the people, the Maladministration, deeply invested in the cultivation of greed in national institutions, is extending that sick outreach into the sociocultural cum religious milieu.

But that may only be part of their motivation.

Connecting the dots of their bizarre fiscal conduct, I n I suspect that terrible financial misdeeds that will make former military dictator Gen. Sani Abacha blush with shame have already occurred or are going on presently as we speak in Nigeria.

The emphasis currently, beyond providing a whitewashed background of centers of support for purposes of rigging, is to stretch the web of complicity by accumulating potential kompromat, encompassing credible extra-governmental institutions such as social influencers, Churches, Mosques, and Traditional Rulers.

This they intend to serve as insurance against what they perceive might be a fast-approaching day of reckoning, in which case they can plead for leniency, since all of society will be directly involved.

Let us drill down on this by putting it out there explicitly that another motivation of theirs in extending their malevolent outreach to bribe churches, mosques, traditional rulers and social influencers, is to prime themselves against the day of reckoning should they be booted out of office in next year's elections.

Their intention being to spread the web of complicity by roping-in the Churches, the Mosques, the Traditional Rulers, and social influencers, in their dark web of complicity, as beneficiaries, and as such moral accomplices of their unprecedented thieving spree, with the intention of diluting their punishment because ‘all are involved.’

But Jah Jah cannot be deceived. If Jah says they must move, nothing can save their presidency. On the other hand, if Jah Jah decides to give them more time in power, nothing shall save the people of Nigeria from more excruciating pains and suffering, like nothing they have seen so far. It is either one or the other.

In all of these, the surprise is not their unparalleled level of thievery. The real surprise are the international creditor institutions still lending money to Nigeria, and the sophisticated Nigerian elites supporting them in the run up to next year's elections.

God forbid, should Tinubu manage to successfully rig the 2027 presidential elections, because as far as I n I's human eyes can see, he cannot win it, if the elections are free and fair; History being our guide, should this happen, Nigeria's elites, starting from those cheering him on today, will start dropping dead, one by one, on the streets.

The wage of sin is death.

We are 👁 👁.

Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE