By Dele Sobowale
Watching the contortions of the damned is supposed to be a favourite sport of the angels —Edith Wharton, 1862-1937, in The Age of Innocence.
0805-595-3150: Dear Presido, you got it very wrong in that Bode George support. At least, at last he is cooling off in jail. But, one hundred years would have been better —Chibu.
MONDAY, October 26, 2009 will remain indelible in my mind – even if I live for a thousand years. It was the first time that any of my childhood friends; people with whom I grew up in the same neighbourhood and had similar upbringing would be sentenced to jail for anything.
We were brought up to be law abiding citizens in the area of Lagos Island where Bode George and I spent the early part of our lives. Bode would not be the first to go into politics and most probably would not be the last.
But, he has set a record of being the first to bag such a long jail sentence for 47 different charges out of 68. That itself must be a record of sorts, but the kind which a well-brought up “Lagos Boy” should not want to own. I cried when I heard the verdict – for three reasons.
First, I was alarmed when Bode went into politics and joined the PDP and quickly became part of Obasanjo’s inner caucus. I was alarmed because as Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910, had warned us, “If you work with glue, sooner or later you are going to get stuck.” (Vanguard Book of Quotations, p.76).
I knew that a PDP under the leadership of Obasanjo was going to be a cesspool of corruption – the sort to be avoided by decent people.
Thus when Bode went in, I was afraid nothing good might come of it. Now the worst has happened.
Second, I wept because, for anyone remembering, late Pa George, Bode’s stern and very upright father, who drilled into us, with advice and cane, the virtues of honesty in everything we do, it is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions that his son would end up splashing the hitherto pristine family name with mud.
If indeed the dead roll in their graves, the old man must be having a fit wherever he is. This is perhaps the worst possible way to repay parental love – even if the folks are dead. Third, and that concerns the two of us.
When the first allegations of misappropriation of funds at the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, were made, I called Bode immediately. As usual, operating on the principle that allegations don’t constitute proof of guilt (a point which Chibu quoted above and others miss when hammering on my support for you), I asked him point blank if there was any truth to the charges.
As Bode and I know, I am one of his few friends who have never benefited by one kobo from his public positions. I never asked and he never gave. But, we were still friends. He responded at great length and I still have physical proof of my visit to his office at Ikoyi. On the strength of his denial of wrong doing, I stuck out my neck and defended him publicly. My reward for it was an avalanche of insults and abuse. But, I persevered in the belief that Bode could not lie to me.
Only the devil knows what happened to the Bode I knew. Today, he has made history – the wrong type of history for the son of late Pa George. The tears might never end.
To be continued
V-Mobile shares: Tinubu, Attah vindicated (3)
EVENTUALLY, the EFCC, after Ribadu, investigated the matter and discovered that the entire petition was a hoax. Then, the EFCC did two things, it applied to the court to discontinue the case and the account was “un-frozen.” Yet, Ribadu, not satisfied that a Lagos High Court had disposed of the case without establishing any link in the funds with Tinubu and Attah, went to London to issue a witness statement on March 26, 2009, in which he not only repeated some of the same stories he had told in Nigeria but sought to rubbish the Federal government which was not even a party to the “cases.”
The eight page document, when it was not full of self-praise and vilification of everybody else in the country, was all about Ibori and the alleged $15 million bribe the former governor of Delta offered Ribadu in the house of Andy Uba, special adviser to former president Obasanjo.
Again, I investigated the matter. On September 11, 2009, I wrote to both the governor of Central Bank and the EFCC chairman informing them of my intention to visit Abuja on September 15, 2009 to verify if the $15 million was in the EFCC’s report for that period and if it was deposited, as claimed by Ribadu, in the Central Bank.
The visitors’ registers of the CBN and EFCC will provide evidence that I was there on due date. And, I can report authoritatively that $15 million was reported in the EFCC office and deposited as exhibit in the Central Bank. Mr. James Garba, of the CBN, who was seconded to the EFCC and who accompanied Ribadu to collect the $15 million confirmed the story. James Garba is now back in Central Bank.
But, again, it was all about Ibori. Neither Tinubu nor Attah was in any way connected. Even, Ribadu’s statement was clear on that despite the attempt to continue to pretend that there was a conspiracy and money laundering charges against the three ex-governors.
To be continued
Consoludoted banks xi vs area boys xi (2)
Power and money, of course do drive people crazy. So why shouldn’t people also gain power and wealth through being crazy —Saul Bellow, Vanguard Book of Quotations p.195.
DON’T forget the game is still robbery.
And since the beginning of banking “con-soludo-tion” (it’s not in your dictionary; so get the Jankara university copy), in 2004, the bankers eleven had been giving the area boys the beating of their lives. Would you believe that in 2007 and mid-2008 all the area boys in Nigeria took home was a mere N5 billion? I should know; I am their president.
Then the global meltdown occurred. Nine out of ten handbags or wallets snatched were empty! There was even a slump in the price of stolen handsets. All in all it was a bad spell from 2008 till now.
Meanwhile, one “striker” among the “con-soludo-ted” banks raked in over N150 billion for self (don’t ask for the gender please) friends, kids, in-laws, and even former nanny.
Another netted N40 billion on share scam alone. There ought to be a law! Perhaps in addition to public office holders bankers should have their heads examined.
To be continued…
Pardon Me Sir, I sought your email to no avail, I will buy vanguard tomorrow to get it, but you can take this has a forward.
Dear sir,
I know you are a very busy and all that being the President of the area boys. You have beamed your searchlight on the occurrences in Delta State very often and have found her leaders to be a very corrupt and wicked bunch. the state, as everyone knows is bedeviled by unbridled corruption starting from the immediate past Government led by James Ibori to the present one led by Emmmanual Uduaghan MBBS. These men and their collaborators have by their looting put the state and the inhabitants back by a decade. I see Dr Uduaghan in the media trying to project an image of a visionary leader by associating with the likes of Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State to pick cheap political clout.This will no longer be tolerated, Nigerians must be made to know the true state of things.
Recently, Medical students from Delta State University who were supposed to be “transferred” to the University of Benin were suddenly and against their will withdrawn from their host institution. The reason is that the accreditation issues that brought them to University of Benin had been settled.While progress has beeen made in the most shady of ways, accreditation granted and yet the said Teaching Hospital at Oghara is not operational , the stories around the place keep mutating again and again. Sir, when you beam your searchlight on the place expect unrestricted resistance from the Government and possible threats to life because they all have something to hide, the place is black hole that keeps gulping money. I leave you to find the dirty details yourself as nothing I will say will put the wastage in proper perspective.
My primary concern now is that the huge sum of N150 million or more was spent on keeping these students in Benin will be going down the drain unaccounted for. A rundown hotel called Yapat Hotel located on St Saviour’s area, some three local government area’s away from the University of Benin when they could rent one of the numerous hostels around the Ugbowo campus of the school, for very obvious reasons someone had been heavily favored by the State.You paid so much money for a botched tansfer (Botched by Delta State University in active connivance with some government officials) that could have caused you less if you had accepted the University of Port Harcourt who were ready to take N70 million less and accommodate the students in the Medical Students Hostel, and if the situation arises graduate the students from Delsu .For corrupt reasons this was not exploited.
The students have been returned to Delsu, to face an uncertain future. The manner in which the Vice Chancellor of Delsu’s insistence that his students be returned one would think they were prepared to receive them. Neither the School nor the state Government have been able to prepare the grounds for a speedy take-off of academic activities, as at time of sending you this email, the students were supposed to be domiciled in Oghara have been asked to resume in Abraka. The excuse was that the hostel accommodation had not been secured and electricity and water supply had not been stabilised at the site, the school has no locus standi because the decision to move the students back had been taken months before the execution of the action and as such had adequate time to prepare. The School has failed them before they are nursing fears that they will yet again fail them.
In your investigations you will be told that the students actively participated in their return and are happy. I tell you now that this is far from the truth, these students have been intimidated into submission and al are now very docile. The worry is that these student will bear dangerous grudges aginst each other, especially against those who allegedly betrayed them to the school authorities, and aginst the state who kept them from graduating more than two years overdue for a six-year course. They will become dangerous doctors desperate to get back at the system that put them so down. Nobody wants dangerous doctors because they will do very unethical things just to catch-up with their compatriots from other schools.
Sir, it will be appreciated if those who are responsible for this kind wastage are exposed and possibly made to make account of their wicked deeds against these youths of the Niger Delta who of their own accord have chosen to self-actualise by facing their academics and wanting to become doctors and not vagabonds. I promise to assist you in any way I can from my position as someone close to the students.
Thank you,
With God the rest thieves will face justice one day, this shows that you crimianls can only run but you can’t hide, BODE the bobo is regretting now that corruption does not pay, the money involved is just too much for 6 people, that is the whole burdget that nigeria use to budget in the 30 and 40s,what a shame, even if this bastards stay in jail for a night they are prisoners for the rest of their lives.My advice to the judges in Nigeria is once you have started to send the corrupt criminal to prison , please do not stop, I know t hat some to the big guns will like to inflence you to back out, but you too should bear in mind that ourGod is there washing all what we are doing, and he will judge evebody accordingly, you may be the past head os state or president, these post are for the world, so judges take care and be careful, the day of judgement for all of us is very near.
Dear Uncle Dele,
I was very angry when you defended your friend Bode Gorge but I chose not to rain abuses on you like the others because I have been reading your column for more than 2years every Sunday now.So I can understand where you were coming from.But PLEASE stop defending any of this politicians in your column.Whether is Tinubu, Attah or who ever it is,as long as they are in Nigeria politics.This people do the unthinkable,ask their personal assistants first.
I know you were wrong on Bode Gorge because I am sure his father did not teach you guys how to keep more than 20young girls as girlfriends while married.He did not show you guys how to buy cars for these girls;some of them students.Bode Gorge learnt all these while you were trying to make Nigeria a better place.
Gorge deserve more than he got.I hope they add more years to the two he got.
I can never trust any Nigeria politician who became a billioniare overnight.
Where did they get all this billions from?.We know how much a Governor is paid etc.
So please avoid this politicians.They are all corrupt Attah and Tinubu included only that they are not yet cuaght.
Dele…it is public knowledge that bode george was involved in election malpractice at jaji military school. It was covered up. His course mates are alive. People do not change in old age. The fact that you have not been sent to jail in nigeria is not an achievement, our system does not work. Why have you decided to embark on these whitewashing of stories. (We are still waiting for how profit was made in the mobile deal, and since profit was made, the siphoning off of proceeds should not be questioned story on attah, tinubu and ibori you promised) stick to your economic writings…this pattern would make you lose standing amongst area boys
The stolen billions in the hands of a few would have provided education and general well-being for the average Gala Hawker on the Nigerian streets and the many who cannot feed. The young man or woman who could not have an education because there were no proper schools would most likely end up on the lower rung of the ladder of life and provide ready hands for the vicious crimes of robbery and prostitution which continue to plague the sociey. One robber may kill ten persons and end up with a hundred thousand Naira. But a greedy politician or public office usually would steal billion and end up destroying the lives and general wellbeing of millions of people. They are worse than the deadliest robbers and should be properly dealt with.
This is just the genesis to all the looters in this our dear country. Very soon every currupt leaders would be brought to book. Nigeria is no place for hoodlums to walk freely and the patriotic citizens are living in sufferation and penury. Evilous men in our society are being awarded chieftancy titles from day to day, I mean what is wrong with us? It is high time for the masses to stay awake and fight for their right.
Change is the only constant thing!
It’s Not Over
My Presido, I do not think there is a jail sentence yet!
This can only be confirmed after the case must have
reached the apex court of the land.
Subsequent courts (Appellate & Supreme) may withhold
the earlier verdict, discharge and aquit the man!!!!!!!
He may then become ambassador explenipotenciary.
So, Presido, stop shedding tears as your childhood friend
can bounce back, a la Nigeria way.
MEN OF HONOUR ARE STARTING TO OPENLY CONDEMN GREED & CORRUPTION
At last the unthinkable is happening. For ages, I have named and shamed these criminals on the pages of our newspapers; and requested that they account to us how they have suddenly come about their astronomic wealth. Without mincing words, I have called them unspeakable names from my base, in London and in Lagos, Yet, Tajudeen Oladipo and these shameless thugs still believe it is their right to loot our treasury. Now, so that there should be no doubts as to the origin of this accusation, I have always signed my name in full whenever I condemn.
The public outcry against greed, corruption, indiscipline and blatant and unabashed stealing by people who no longer deem it worthy to have their family name sanctified is getting its long-awaited undisguised backing from men of honour.
It is therefore encouraging to see the following names joining the roll of honour. Men like Balarabe Musa, Ayo Adebanjo (an Old Grammarian ) Lateef Adegbite, Bishop of Mainland Lagos (Prof) Adebayo Akinde, Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa, Tanka Yakassai, Ayo Fasanmi, Joseph Evah and Yinka Odumakin are indeed honourable men. They and others like them should collectively address those other vagabonds in power, and should next tell Obasanjo to his face that he is not an emperor dressed in golden toga, and he is not God; I say he is just a Nigerian like the rest of us. He is also a retired military soldier, who if he knows his onions should best understand the leadership principle of accountability. But alas, he does not.
Here is someone who , like most of these thugs and by his own admission never wore shoes to school, who was lucky enough to get into the Army, scrapped through Mons, but could not make it to the best military academy in the western world; Sandhurst (whereas the likes of Benji Adekunle did) but somehow, as a treasonable felon, he managed to amass, in a comparatively shorter period of time than even Bill Gates, an incredible amount of personal wealth from our Petro-dollars. How did he magic all this wealth to his pocket ? How come ? We are not stupid !
Is it then unreasonble for reasonable men to ask how he got about this money; if it was not stolen or corruptly acquired. The time has come for us to demand that he should account to us how he came about this wealth, in as much as he was neither printing the money nor was he an entrepeneur, and money, we know, does not grow on trees, It is our right to ask how it came to pass, and indeed we have a need to know.
No one in his right senses will wish to claim immunity, from accountability when such a nauseous odium hangs around what he proclaims as his right to adulation.
If only David Mark, as Co-Ord had exposed the crimes committed at CSC, Jaji by the likes of Bode George and Mike Akhigbe, this nation might have been saved from having to go through this rotten episode. Our people should go and revisit the origin and consequences of the French Revolution. From the pages of our daily newspapers one gathers that the angry mobs are getting ready to storm the Bastille.
Dr Buki Morgan MBBS psc., Colindale, London. & Surulere, Lagos.
It was obvious your Bode was no longer with you ; ie no longer the boy you grew up with when he aligned with Obasanjo. As an area boy, you should have realized that you’ve already lost your childhood buddy. Indeed, that is why you received all the insult when you went public with your defense of Bode.It shows area boys can also be conned. And agan you got it all wrong. Bode George has been in politics and has been involved in corruption and embezzlement of public funds long before PDP was formed. He was a member of the worst political party in Africa; THE MILITARY PARTY. There no EFCC asks you to account for the money you stole.Ask our ex-generals and military governors. Anyway he only perfected his skills in PDP as is usual when one is working with many years experience in certain field. With these type of people still calling the shot in Nigeria, how can Nigeria ever survive.