NIGERIA’S CORRUPTION INDUSTRY: MAN OF THE YEAR 2013 A LEVIATHIAN EXTRAORDINARY
French historian, political thinker and world traveller Alexis de Tocqueville reasoned that “in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.” The decision of Nigerians to be largely docile, sheepish, uncomplaining, law abiding and undemanding accounts for our dysfunctional state, according to ex-South African president, Mr Thabo Mbeki. Perhaps the Arab Spring and the lessons thereof escaped Nigerians! In 2008, Nebraska State senator and atheist Ernie Chambers carried to excess the notion of getting the government one deserves when he sued God for sundry crimes against humanity including terrorism. But the suit was dead before arrival, for the honourable court that heard the matter reasoned that the Defendant has no determinable address where the writ of summons could be served! Unfazed, Chambers disagreed, rejoicing that the existence of God was established by the court's decision and deadpanned that in His omnipresence capacity, the Almighty God can be reached everywhere and every time for judicial notices. In retrospect, Nigerians a la Chambers have more rights to sue God for their national malfeasance of over half a century. In addition to terrorism, they are swamped by large scale industrial corruption which has produced toxic packages like poverty, squalor, kidnapping, rapes, bombing, murders, hunger, unemployment, advance fee fraud, domestic violence, treasury looting, hyper inflation, capital flight, oil theft, insensitive legislature, sex slavery, baby factories, child theft, rapacious judiciary, rampaging military, criminal police and security services. Happily, Nigerians are not of the same mode as litigatious Americans. They have not exercised this “right” against the Almighty God. But daily and everywhere, they ceaselessly petition Him in churches and mosques for relief from their oppressors. In truth, the living God is to be praised for His goodness to Nigeria and Nigerians, the incoherence and incompetence of an insensitive, deaf, dysmal President Goodluck Jonathan administration not withstanding. For prevailing on Nigerians not to unjustly sue Jehovah God, Nigeria's Corruption Industry is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
The shoguns of Nigeria's Corruption Inc have been on a good luck run since our political independence from Great Britain on October 1, 1960. Today, they rightly see and treat the Nigerian treasury as a river to be diverted to their private enterprises. And for over half a century, the trickle diversion has graduated into a flood. Oil theft in gallons worth thousands of naira that was bemoaned in the 1970s has taken industrial proportions as tankers on high seas daily and directly loads millions of barrels of oil worth billions of naira. In Nigeria, collateral corruption is unofficially, but actively a Directive Principle of State Policy. The governments and political parties are in an incestuous agreement on this rape of the citizenry. In Nigeria, Corruption Inc is the godfather of political, business, religious, cultural and sports barons. It is the sacredness of its civil service and the currency of its politics. The excellence of its educational institutions, corruption is the spirit of its religious observances and the glue of its security services. The winning number of its national lotto design, corruption is the religion of its criminal elements. It is the fleece that multinational businesses use illegally to engage in mind blowing capital flight. Deservedly, corruption is the vehicle privileged Nigerian politicians and indigenous businessmen employ to milk it dry. The Halliburton and Siemens scandals actually elevated the rogues implicated. Over two years after the N2 trillion Fuel Subsidy probes, there is no proper accounting and nobody was jailed for misdeeds in the act despite overwhelming evidences of graft. In all, convicted thieves remain eminent in politics. Indian and Lebanese born businessmen take up Nigerian citizenship largely on the rigour and recommendation of corruption. Nimble Chinese mandarins maintain a horde of slaves sweating away on their factories unmolested because of their mastery of corruption. For carving an envious niche in Nigerian life, Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
In development terms, corruption ate Nigeria's launch. An apex predator, corruption hunted, hurried and harried Nigeria out of the club of developed, functional societies while her contemporaries like Brazil, Singapore, Israel, Hong Kong, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Dubai, Indonesia and Pakistan have registered admirable degrees of development. While national Zacchaeus' mounted the sycamore trees of development, Nigeria the Giant of Africa remains a development dwarf, forever a “developing nation.” While national Zacchaeus saw the usefulness of development sycamore trees, Nigeria the giant though standing head-to-head with the sycamore tree was blinded to overlook science and technology, manufacturing and mining, learning and knowledge, democracy, functional public sector, efficient private sector, relevant educational system and good governance. The largest contributor to its GDP, corruption is Nigeria's lingual franca. Those who don't speak it find their path blocked, their peace disturbed and their development stunted. But because of its understanding of the unique peculiarities of its operating environment, corruption speaks many miraculous tongues in Nigeria. Corruption is the theme and reality of Nigerian life. A monstrosity, the giant called corruption now stands watch over Nigeria and Nigerians. Unsurprisingly, it is acknowledged universally that Nigeria's corruption has a growing and glowing effrontery and stature. For these admirable attainments, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
THE BEHEMOTH SINS TO EARN MORE FORGIVENESS AND NATIONAL HONOURS
On the sycamore tree, Zacchaeus the dwarf met salvation at the invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The physical dwarf increased in height spiritually. This marked the turning point of his life of sin, corruption and affluence sleaze. The sycamore confession saw Zacchaeus the tax collector and publican repent publicly of his multitude of sins and he resolved to pay back four folds all that he corruptly got by dishonesty, bribery and defrauding. The foundational hardness of Nigeria's Corruption Inc prevents it from receiving the sycamore tree as a place of repentance. Because its tree of corruption is as tall as the sycamore tree, it mocks those climbing Mount Salvation for repentance. Even as people sneeze from cold of homelessness, hunger and poverty, they commit more sleaze. Because the titans of Nigeria's Corruption Inc are worshipful idols themselves, the idea of worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ is anathema to them. Wasters of our tax treasury and publicans of the basest sort, the lords of Nigerian corruption even scan the canvass of the dead in order to steal more. The thought that a rogue should pay back fourfold his unjust gains gives them heart attack! Zacchaeus seized a moment of transformation and met God. Nigeria's privileged rogues have so far not honoured God's call to them to change their evil ways. Their equate pilgrimages to Rome and Mecca, Jerusalem and Medina to be righteousness! They assume that titles like Alhaji and Sir, sheikhdoms and knighthoods means acceptance before God. Miraculously, Nigeria's arm-twisting officialdom sees nothing wrong in unjust measures and unequal weights that overburden ordinary Nigerians in deprivations. For dead consciences, for hearts seared with hot iron, for immunity from change, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Just as the Roman Catholic Pontiff rules covered by the Doctrine of Infallibility, Nigeria's pontificating looters operate under similar doctrine. Just as the Pope is beyond error when he speaks ex-cathedral, Nigeria's treasury looters are beyond prosecution whenever they steal entire national and state budgets. These privileged rogues are tax collectors who don't pay into the national treasury the tax proceeds they collect. They are publicans who are told, “go and sin more and more!” They are patriarchs instead of pariahs! Catholic in taste and thirst, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is cosmopolitan, courageous and congruous. This anomaly may confuse people with law and order tradition, but it boasts a competence that is compelling, almost compulsorily attractive in its area of operation. A panoramic view of the architecture of Nigeria's Corruption Inc reveals a cathedral of ungodly compact mettle. As a behemoth laughs at bows and arrows, so does Nigeria's Corruption Inc derive great mirth about “the resolve of my government to fight corruption.” It recognises this tame, impotent declaration as playing to an empty gallery! The view of critics actually helps it to appraise its staying power. As they say in Warri, “na you get your mouth!” Bravely, Nigeria's Corruption Inc rose from its latest yearly review convinced that facts, figures, feelings and findings conclusively evidence it as an accepted citizen offering well patronised, appetizing menu to almost all. Undeniably, its aroma is all-embracing. It's the conqueror-par-excellence. But for the international community, Nigeria's Corruption Inc would have sacked the government outright! As a College of Indecency, its only superior organisation morally is the College of Cardinals in the Vatican. For manoeuvring diplomatic, media, international, NGO, emotional and Diaspora mine fields successfully, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Nigeria's Corruption Inc has a last, legal weapon against the rule of law: State pardon! This is an executive government black market relief against all sanctions by the justice system no matter the gravity of the fraud. Ab initio, Nigerians have an infinite capacity and tolerance for corruption, bad governance, nepotism, graft and misdeeds. Nigeria is not a robber's nightmare or a believer's paradise. It's not a haven of peace for law abiding citizens or a no-go zone for enemies of the justice system. An ex-governor stole $55 million while in office and is a free man today. Another ex-governor who stole over $250 million was declared innocent by many Nigerian courts only to be convicted in Britain! The Secretary of the Police Pension Fund calculated his own pension to be N5 billion and went home with it! Chief Obasanjo's presidency burnt $16 billion to give Nigerians darkness. President Jonathan recently cried that some Nigerian civil servants “own more houses than Dangote,” Africa's richest man on Forbes magazine global ranking. After billions of naira walk into thin air, Kangaroo Probe Committees are usually set up to tour the nation and a few foreign countries on all-expenses paid trip under the guise of “fact-finding visitations” or “probe panels.” Despotic decisions are usually the result of lack of rule of law. Four ex-heads of states were not in attendance at the National Council of State meeting where Jonathan ram-rolled his pardon request of convicted ex-Rivers State governor and his ex-boss, Chief D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha. Presidential imprimatur oversees gross abuse and tyranny. In nations under the rule of law, certain defined principles guide the issuance of state pardons. In Nigeria, serial treasury looters are privileged to receive the apology of corrupt administrations. Transparency International, the global anti-corruption body may wail that President Jonathan's “decision undermines anti-corruption efforts,” but it was not designed to discourage corruption! As TI correctly noted, it actually “encourages impunity.” Methinks that it signifies the onset of collateral corruption and for that great innovation; Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Nigeria's federal lawmakers are a lawless mob. But they are the richest and most privileged lawmakers on planet earth according to a study by the London based Economist magazine. Our Third World lawmakers earn more than First World lawmakers. And they arrived at that label not by rule of law, but by unrestrained greed and unrivalled arbitrariness. Economically, our globe traveller lawmakers see Nigeria as their private estate. In 2011, reknown lawyer and elder statesman Professor Itse Sagay {SAN} went to town with astonishing sums that Nigeria's prodigal, unproductive federal lawmakers bleed the nation as remunerations and allowances. In 2011, Central Bank Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi figured that the money guzzling assembly members took as home pay about 25 per cent of the overheads of the federal budget. In August 2013, ex-education minister Dr Oby Ezekwesili wept that over N1 trillion was spent by the nation in the past eight years to kit the 469 members at both the Senate and House of Representatives. That amounts to N266.5 million for an assembly member for the period under consideration. Only in Nigeria where over 70 per cent of the 170 million citizens live below the United Nations $2 poverty daily threshold could its legislators drown in obscene affluence and parochialism. Unsurprisingly, its supposed oversight functions got short sighted over the N1.5 trillion abused by the executive arm from the Stabilisation Account, Ecology Fund and National Resources Account between 2002 and 2012. They legislate over a nation that earned N2.5 trillion in 2010, but spent it all and a borrowed N200 billion to finance consumption! For falling short of the expectations of Nigerians, for garnering filthy lucre instead of legislative integrity, for successfully resisting calls for transparent reform, for being the spirit behind the actions of our federal jumbo paid national assembly members, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
In Nigeria, corruption can be a friend or an enemy, depending on choice. Millions have chosen it as a friend to be cuddled, admired, praised, adored, worshipped and surrender to. The public and private sectors including religious circles teem with its devotees. Strangely, very few Nigerians have refused to bow to corruption! While many souls globally across many millennia worried and wearied about death and its fearsome power, Nigeria's corruption does not give any serious practitioner any headache. While Egyptian Pharaohs built pyramids is failed attempt to escape death and dying, Corruption Inc which does not entertain fear of dying, is a visible, living pyramid in Nigeria. While Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang never got from his alchemists the mystical elixir to keep death at bay, Nigeria's Corruption Inc has achieved that feat! The 16th century Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon died in skirmishes with Natives Americans in a futile attempt to locate a fountain of youth. In Nigeria, Corruption Inc determines the lives of youths {about 70% of the population} as the minister in-charge of the Youth Ministry. Nigeria's corruption mastered the variables that mastered and massacred the Pharaohs, Chinese emperors and Spanish explorers! The failure of anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission ICPC, the Police Fraud Unit, the churches, mosques and justice system to land a pitiful punch against this behemoth attests to its fearsome dominance. Recognising the dormant grace of law enforcement agencies, corruption dominates in Nigeria. The rampaging stamina of corruption in Nigeria is uncontested. The ability and agility of Corruption Inc to go democratic in 1999 remains a sterling achievement. For this victory over the Nigerian state, Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
One murderous variant of Nigeria's corruption is Boko Haram, the pre-eminent nihilist Islamist sect. Our Man of the Year 2012, Boko Haram has maintained suzerainty over 13 northern states. This year, it demonstrated a new fearsome fire power by spreading its tentacles to some southern states. In line with its philosophy that western education is sin, Boko Haram mounted a sustained attack against pupils and educational structures. August 2013 witnessed the massacre of 41 school pupils in Borno State. On Friday October 2, 2013, the Islamist terrorists also deleted 140 Nigerian troops from earthly existence. On October 5, 2013, 62 children were burnt in a holocaust by the nihilist sect in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital. This month, Boko Haram has ensured that the Nigerian military earn its pay! The killer brigade by weekly battles has maintained the combat readiness of the military. This correspondent thinks that the jihadists have presidential protection because President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan conceded that the murderers are his “siblings” whom he “cannot move against.” Earlier this year, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the Chairman of PDP, the ruling party hailed the Islamic destroyers as “freedom fighters.” The miracle of this sordid outlay is that the Jonathan administration later offered his “siblings” amnesty from prosecution without a kobo of compensation to the families of over 4,000 souls killed by them and owners of properties and business worth billions of naira razed by them. For the salient, fraudulent template behind this misjudgement, Industrial Corruption is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
From the sacred pulpit of the National Christian Centre Abuja one penultimate day in September 2011, President Jonathan stunned the entire hierarchy of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the nation by wailing: “I am not David. I am not a general. I am not a lion. I will defeat the Goliaths in our land.” In the essentials of governance which is the preservation of lives and property, President Jonathan knowingly or unknowingly judged and found himself wanting. The president needs the strength and courage of a lion to reign as the apex predator of corruption. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the president who wears the uniform of generals during ceremonial outings must be a general of the host of the anti-corruption army. Needless to say, a Davidic president with a rage against the Goliath of corruption must head the army of zealots to kill it. Without these attributes, the Goliaths of corruption in Nigeria are ruling and reigning easily! Perhaps the Anglican Church in the president's home town of Otueke may put him in touch with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Who incidentally is also the Root and Offspring of David! – Halleluyah! For depriving and denying President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan the attributes of a David, a general and a lion, Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
NOW IS THE ERA OF INDUSTRIALIZED MISDEEDS
Courtesy of Corruption Inc, Nigeria has the largest number of emergency nouveau riche billionaires on the planet earth without any lawful enterprise. Operating from politics to the pulpit, the media to the military, in the markets and among mad folks, huddling in the executive and legislatives branches of government, established in the civil service and civil society, the operating environment in our nation largely favours the repulsive endeavours of these fraudulent rogues-at-large. Their modus oprandi varies, depending on the whims and caprices of the presiding despot in Aso Rock. However, their most favoured ruse is the use of mules! The Evil Genius reportedly empowered as his wealth conveyor belt a south west billionaire. Mercifully, the mule is active here in banking, telecoms, oil and gas businesses that employ thousands of Nigerians. The late dark goggled Gypsy preferred ferrying raw cash into Swiss banks and other tax havens. However, his preference for Indian apples sent him to hell fire and undid his kleptomaniac family. His hitherto clean shaved successor now outrageously bearded simply used carts, mules, horses and asses to cart away dollars, pounds, naira, euros. The Prefect of Owu Egba Congregation brazenly rebuilt his farming enterprise that the Gypsy collapsed and added a university, housing estates, a presidential library and a mini Aso Rock on an Egba hill. Nigeria Airways, our erstwhile national airline was bought for next-to-nothing and re-branded in the middle names of this two-time president and his favourite lackey, an ex-governor of Rivers State. Today's lucky occupant of Nigeria's throne of graft is more nimble and bold. His consort is a unique student of corruption as First Lady, co-president, Permanent Secretary and “missionary”! President “My Oga At The Top” Jonathan has an assortment of empowered female ministers who steal, rob, over-invoice, buy and award outside due process. As is the EXECUTIVE robber, so are his minions who understand that our laws are to be breached. Shamefully, they extort the Nigerian state at will. So, it's understandable why an Inspector General of Police could haul away N17 billion and remain a celebrity! An ex-PDP National Chairman who was a one-time federal minister is still a VIP after committing some illegalities. For this union between the presidency and deception, Corruption Inc is or MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
In 2006, the Abuja-Lokoja road was contracted at the sum of N42 billion. Seven years later, uncompleted and with no questions asked, a brazen variation shut up the contract fee to N116 billion! Though Abdul Ningi, the Chairman of the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme bemoaned the largess as “scandalous and unacceptable,” Works Minister Mike Onolemememen defended the huge bill because of the “total re-designing” of the 400-kilometre road. In 2012, an inquisitive Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory saved the national treasury N38 billion from a satanic variation of the Abuja Airport/Kubwa Road expansion. The Ibrahim Bunu led Presidential Projects Assessment Committee frustrated the nimble thieves who upped the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport second runway from N49.6 billion to N64 billion for no justifiable reason. Though late President Umaru Yar Adua wanted the rogues who vaulted an FCT contract value from N35 billion to N80 billion to be punished, there is no record of anyone – contractor or civil servants - facing the music for that great treasury robbery. Though FCT Minister Bala Mohammed defends that “the president is concerned about the cost of projects executed in the country,” the beat goes on! The result is that over N7.8 trillion abandoned projects dot our landscape whereas billions of dollars have been paid out for them. It is estimated that about N2.3 trillion, roughly half of the 2013 budget has seeped away from NNPC accounts instead of being remitted to the federation account. For diminishing the wall of difference between public accounts and personal needs of privileged thieving Nigerians and foreigners, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
The Crusaders of Good Governance, an Enugu based NGO has hauled before the EFCC, Nigeria's anti-graft body a petition about a minister who maintained a private jet for over two years that left Nigeria poorer by over N2 billion. The privileged minister uses this jet for official and private purposes though ministers are supposed to be serviced officially from the presidential pool. Stella Oduah, minister of aviation in a stellar performance literally built castles in the air when she lavished N255 million for two additional official vehicles. Oduah is still a member of the Jonathan cabinet unlike a Ghanaian politician who was sacked for merely expressing a desire to rake US$1 dollars through politics! Unlike Nigeria, Ghana is the wrong clime for people in politics because of money. In a typical Nigerian situation, the whistleblower of Oduahgate who should be celebrated is now being sought to be disciplined by aviation authorities! As befits a peculiar nation, laws in Nigeria are observed in the breach. The burial of the father of a senior presidential aide in Bayelsa State earlier this year cost the nation the lives of Kaduna State governor Patrick Yakowa and Andrew Owoeye Aziza, a revered general. They died with crew members in a navy helicopter used as a taxi during the burial. Indeed, it is part of the employment contract of privileged Nigerian elected and appointed government officials to use state resources for private purposes like weddings, burials, naming, dedications, pilgrimages, house warming, warmongering, medical trips abroad, matriculations and convocations of spouses, children, lovers, business mules and family members. In Nigeria, public fund is private property of those assigned to manage them. For this incest between the national treasury and privileged spendthrifts managing them, Industrial Corruption is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Though Nigerian authorities fool themselves with the fancy notion of being one of the world's twenty economies in 2020, it may be a fool's paradise! Originally slated for 2010, gaps, misses and mistakes caused it to be shifted. While countries like China, South Korea and Taiwan removed millions of their citizens from extreme poverty in just two decades, Nigeria has nothing near the serious, purposeful leadership that made it possible in these countries. Courtesy of our nation's rapacious leaders, about 100 million Nigerians live in destitution according to World Bank estimates. And Country Director of the World Bank in Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly is worried about worsening poverty in Africa's biggest oil producer. Earlier this year, the National Bureau of Statistics {NBS} alerted that despite paper economic growth, poverty rate actually grew from 54.7 per cent in 2004 to 60.9 per cent in 2010. The NBS calculated 100 million Nigerians to be in absolute poverty while 12.6 were moderately poor in 2011. The above indices are evident in a country with peculiar wasteful culture. In northern Nigeria that has about 70 per cent of the nation's poor, state government funding of “mass weddings” has become the latest financial sinking in town. In 2010, Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Geidam sponsored weddings every Friday at a particular mosque. Mass weddings are sponsored by Kano State government to address worrisome levels of widowhood. The average southern man dies leaving a widow, the average northern dies leaving four widows, some still in their teens and twenties. Sokoto State has earmarked N130 million in a pilot mass wedding programme that may become a quarterly affair. The government would screen and select the 120 intending couples, pay the N20,000 bride price and give each groom a N20,000 “take-off” grant. Bedding materials, furniture, two wrappers and 10 yards of brocade will be thrown into the bargain. The state government says need to curb social vices like fornication and adultery informed the laughable, misplacement and misapplication of priorities which will only enrich top government functionaries. Mahatma Ghandi once deplored “politics with principle, knowledge without character, wealth without work, business without morality and worship without sacrifice.” But these are the stock-in-trade of Nigeria's corruption elite, their alter ego, their rule of the thumb. For these reasons, Nigeria's Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
The famous, but shameful My Oga At The Top phenomenon evolved from a media expose about recruitment scandal in a semi-military parastatal of the Federal Government. As a result of the employment-for-sale rackets operating in federal and state government offices, recruitment, postings, discipline and promotion in the nation's public service is a market worth the economies of some dirt poor West African nations. Quality, competence, character and integrity are sacrificial lambs on the altar of greed, favouritism, bribery, tribalism, religion, cult membership and indiscipline. Best practices are not the norm in the private sectors. Nigeria's Corruption Inc is wonderfully inventive and fruit bearing. It has evolved expert thieves, cutting-edge pen robbers, innovative economic saboteurs, hyper resourceful looters and unrepentant political jobbers. The binding covenant between Corruption Inc and Mafiosi elected and appointed Nigerian officials has given birth to The Total Man – a Nigeria with penal pedigree, criminal propensity, but a celebrity. For this unison of sin and Satan, Rasputin and righteousness, robbers and roguery, service and slavery, Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Corruption Inc has ensured that there's repercussion for looting public funds in Nigeria. It has banished prudence in the management of public funds. Lack of suitable and appropriate margin of precaution in high public and private sector positions are traceable to the ravages of Mount Corruption. The reason why elected and appointed Nigerian officials are inebriated with arrogance and pride even while mismanaging public funds is derived from the tutelage of corruption. They are not obliged to be sober, consider damage done to psyche of Nigerians. Industrial Corruption Inc has enthroned a brand new form of idolatry in Nigeria. With billions of naira, millions of dollars, euros and pounds sterling at their disposal, Nigeria's privileged elected and appointed officials have built golden calves in many subtle and not so subtle ways. Their sumptuous city palaces and well appointed country homes rival the pleasures of Arab sheikhs and Hollywood stars. In a nation of 70 per cent lives on less than one United States dollar daily, these money men and women are obvious objects of worship. In worshipping, all morality is thrown to the dogs. Girls and women of great intelligence and sophistication become willing sex play things, even paid to commit unnatural indignities like lesbianism, bestiality, pornography, incest, drugs and cultism. As befits golden calves in the image of Baal, honour, morality, good conscience, probity, righteousness and purity are discouraged and dethroned. As golden calves in the likeness of Baal, only one god is allowed in the lives of the devotees. God and His kingdom, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ the King of Glory is sullied, rubbished, debased and deleted. Devotees are not even permitted to flirt with righteousness. For remaking Nigeria in the image and likeness of satanic wickedness, Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Weighed down with great loot worth billions of naira and millions in foreign currency, hedged about with material goods from Dubai, Paris, London, New York and other exotic shopping paradises, ensconced in air in their custom made private planes, conveyed about in their Japanese 6-cylinder wonder jeeps, drunken with great power from the adoration, chieftaincies titles, fake doctorates, dubious awards, feet washing and multiple wives that stupendous wealth confers, Nigeria's privileged elected and appointed officials naturally become connoisseurs of the best wine from France, Italy, California and Spain. Graciously, these thieving officials have magically turned many barrels of water to become brimming with wine at the stroke of their pens. Naturally, addiction to alcohol has brought death, destruction, unhappiness, marital break-up, debilitating sicknesses, road accidents and ruined career on unmanageable and unimaginable proportions. President Obasanjo's administration {1999-2007} paid off $30 billion foreign debt and saved over $50 billion in foreign reserves and $20 billion in Excess Crude Account. Six years later, Nigeria is again mired in foreign debts despite records price of oil internationally. For the absence of average in their habits, for the lack of moderation in the consumption patterns of Nigeria's royal rogues, Industrial Corruption is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
ETERNAL IN NATURE, HOLISTIC IN NURTURE
Of necessity, Nigeria's Corruption Network is celebrating a great Jubilee in 2014. For it, it's being a centennial of growing power, increasing influence, unprecedented affluence, continuing domination, spreading authority and all-encompassing ascendancy. It will create and erect logos, banners, bulletins and billboards to mark it. For them, the theme may be: “Corruption in 1914, today and forever!” In the new century, it will re-invent itself for new opportunities and glory. The millennium signifies the time and space that Corruption Inc entered our national life and stole our wealth and peace. While slaves were freed in biblical Jubilee, our traducers, tormentors and taskmasters plan to acquire even more slaves as they eat, drink, party, drug, smoke, blaspheme and fornicate in celebrations across Dubai, London, Paris, New York and the Caribbean. Eternal enemies of the living God, they nonetheless will mock Him with fake “thanksgiving services” in churches and mosques as part of the Jubilee celebrations. The demands and blessings of Jubilee resonate in the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ in River Jordan. The titans of Nigeria's corruption would have taken over and tolled River Jordan for their own ends if it were in our territorial waters. The Jubilee will not be for them a re-discovery of the sense of sin, but a triumph of sin and laws, institutions and agencies that fight and penalize sinners. For seemingly standing victorious over man, God and His moral statues up to this Jubilee year, Nigeria's royal and serial Corruption Inc is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Friends, let us conclude this report. In a pitiful 53rd independence anniversary motion by Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba and eleven colleagues, they allowed “congratulations to Nigerians,” but expressed regret that Nigeria's “contemporaries” like Malaysia, Brazil and Singapore has left it in the league of underdeveloped nations. Regret without developmental incentives like first class infrastructure, competitive atmosphere, transparent justice regime, efficient civil service, well-funded public school systems, research based tertiary schools, global best practices in procurement and contracting that generate demands for more goods and services and create jobs is merely a waste of public time and convenience. Federal administrations that never reckoned with Section 142b of the 1999 Constitution which demanded that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” have no business regretting because they underdeveloped Nigeria and Nigerians. A justice system that allows a man who looted N49 billion to plea bargain and pay a N500,000 fine has no business regretting why things are in this sordid state. A nation that eulogises and celebrates monumental thieves with national awards, chieftaincies, church honours and Islamic turbanings cannot deceive anybody with regretting about our terrible status. A nation that grants unexplainable waivers worth billions of naira to corrupt, but well-heeded businessmen has no business thinking of development. In Proverbs of Hell, William Blake {1757-1827} warns that “the man or nation which never alters his/its opinion/state is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind.” Homer in Illiad warned that “the gods have so spun the thread for wretched mortals that they must live in pains.” For Nigeria's leaders who take delight in marginalising the people, reducing them to unbelievable levels of grinding lack and want and making money out of it, Industrial Corruption is our MAN OF THE YEAR 2013.
Historian, freelance journalist and writer, Pastor JOSEPH EMEKA ANUMBOR is the author of THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS, a critically acclaimed discourse on homosexuality published by Author House Inc., Indiana, USA.