FALLOUT FROM JOURNALISTS’ HANGOUT ON APPROVED $1B DEFENCE FUND, LOOTERS’ LIST, EKITI GUBER ELECTION: FROM SOCIAL MEDIA

By Prince Ade

If there was any day that I enjoyed journalists’ discourse on national issue it was Thursday April 5, 2018 on the TVC programme, Journalists’ Hangout. The three senior journalists including Editor of The News, Mr. Jide Kolade-Otitoju, did not just thrilled me. They argued well in the expected manner patriotic journalists should do. Tagged by a caller-in as a man with capability to talk truth to powers that be, Kolade-Otitoju told Nigerians that he was not one of those who believed that the Boko Haram had been defeated saying “Those who say Boko Haram have been defeated are liars and they do not fear God. I am not a liar because I fear God and so I have to say the truth as it should be”, my quoting of him may not be precise. He therefore returned to the question of whether the $1b approved for military equipment was justifiable and said yes, it was justifiable considering the expensiveness or cost of procuring each of those military hardware.

To me, what Editor Jide Kolade-Otitoju and his other two colleagues did was exactly what is expected of journalists. They did not even find it difficult to acknowledge the positive things the government was doing for as long as the constructive criticism lasted. Many journalists today want us to believe that because “we have to balance” we must not be seen to be saying anything positive about government. It is their belief that doing so means being pro-government. And I have argued it many times that being pro-government can never in any place be a breach of any ethic of journalism since journalism are supposed to be partners in moving the society forward. How then can journalists be in conflict with the government, especially the government that is seen to sincere and prudent as the current one of President Muhammadu Buhari? And I referred to a statement credited to Barrack Obama saying to love and be supportive of your President is patriotism, especially a sincere and non-corrupt President.
But to tell lies or allow lies of politicians with which they cause confusion get through you to filter the space of the society as journalists place you a question mark as to how patriotic you are to your Father Land, considering the fact that you are first and foremost Nigerians before you are journalists. This is the issue and I give it to the anchor of Journalists’ Hangout and his guest contributors for the good job they are doing weekly about this country. They are the ones who have rekindled my hope in the nobility of journalism and I thank God for their and my lives.

Having said that, back to the three major issues they raised: $1 billion defence fund, released looters’ lists and Ekiti guber election, frankly I see through the arguments questioning the justification of the approval by the President of that huge amount to fight a Boko Haram insurgency that has been declared as defeated. I see all the argument as good and great with the exception of the babbling by Ayodele Fayose, the outgoing Governor of Ekiti State. I was even disappointed that televised address of the governor that we all know has many allegations of impropriety was allowed to get prominence in the public space. I blame it on our judicial system which says someone we have every evidence to nail as thief can never called a thief until the court has said so. I also blame it on democracy, according to the understanding of some operators, who believe that even a plot to collapse a country while politicising the security of the country is mere expression of rights under democracy. I was even told that Evans the king of kidnappers has the rights to sue government and the Nigerian Police for arresting for killing and kidnapping for ransom. One most painful, I gathered, was a kidnapped case that he already collected money for and yet killed the victim. So, Fayose owes his rights to criticize the President for approve the defence equipment fund to “democracy” but I don’t even believe that democracy would have thrived for this long in United States of America where we borrowed it from if American system had allowed lawlessness and politically plotted conflicts to characterize their brand of democracy. So, people who allow Fayose and his cohorts like Femi Fani-Kayode into continued rabblerousing in our public life must take responsibility for the negative effects that come as a result.

Starting from the $1 billion defence hardware fund, I would like to queue behind the Journalists’ Hangout argument that the President and his team should come out clearer in assuring Nigerians, who because of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP government failure to give account for how he spent the $1 billion he took till the time he left appear not to want to trust the government any more. The people want to be assured, one, that there is need for the $1 billion for the military fight against Boko Haram. Why should be fight a defeated terrorist group with $1 billion (N360 billion)? They want to know. Two, the people want to be assured that if the need is actually there, what measure has the President and his inner monitors put in place to ensure that the money will not end up in the pocket of politicians around him like it happened during the Jonathan era when tens close to a trillion dollars security fund went down the drain and he still defended that as “stealing is not corruption”.

Three, the Nigerian people want to know be assured that it is not only Boko Haram that government’s focus should be directed to but also those touts and cultists that are the instruments of politicians in a way that have almost drifted the country into the kind of conflict that, God forbid, would make Somalia a child play. These are the things Nigerians people need to know about that money. Nothing else! Not even the reckless talk by Fayose about the approved $1 billion going to be spent for Buhari’s re-election. Fayose, let me digress a little, should control his speech and go and know that the current government is not like the government that installed him as governor (forget about whether Governor Kayode Fayemi’s arrogance made Ekiti people to deliberately take drink poison in voting for Fayose). Recall the now proved allegation of how former President Jonathan gave Fayose $35 million to execute his gubernatorial election campaigns and all others? Recall also how the government that installed Fayose with money disguised to be voted for security (blood money) gave Femi Fani-Kayode N850 million to carrying out spread of fake news, information, dangerous rumours, hate speeches and conduct many ethnic and religious divisions among Nigerians? Recall how for the same reason Chief Raymond Dokpesi went home with N2.6 billion to broadcast damaging programmes against General Muhammadu Buhari, the innocent opposition presidential candidate? Recall how they were all happy to see Buhari bombed in Kaduna in what Asari Dokubo was later fingered by an arrested Boko Haram suspect to be the one paying them on behalf of PDP government for the operations? Recall how Niger Delta Avengers confessed to have been created by Jonathan government in event Buhari won election so as to destabilize Nigeria to prove the point that they make the country ungovernable for him? Recall that key government officials in Jonathan era boasted publicly they would make sure Buhari would not be handed over to: the Doyin Okupes and the rest? All from which pocket if not from the treasury loots that they did?

That is what Fayose strong feels Buhari will do with this $1 billion he has just approved for defence. But he is just a mere fallacy brewer because without the $1 billion, Buhari has been buying equipments and has been supporting the Nigerian Armed Forces with good welfare package unlike during the government that installed him as governor when soldiers were crying to us journalists to help raise their plights to the public about how they were suffering. Fayose’s party never paid allowances to soldiers talk less that it would renovate their barrack buildings. Now under Buhari, all of these have been done for the soldiers and it is at this time that the same Fayose and his colleagues like Ike Ekweremadu are calling for military to come and rescue their corruption from Buhari. How would the military answer such a call, no matter how heated they think they have made the polity to be?

So, back from the digression to Fayose’s vituperations, I have raised three areas that President Buhari need to clear for Nigerians to key into his war against terrorism with the money he has just approved.

On released looters’ list, I had never seen the point being made by those critics about the released looters’ list until I listened to Journalists’ Hangout on TVC on Thursday April 5, 2018. Those brilliant journalists agreed that the list excluding members of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who defected to All Progressives Congress (APC) only after they loots had taken place is the reason people seem expressing skepticism about the list. They agreed that the President needs to impress Nigerians that the released looters’ list idea is not only to select a set of people of a particular party to punished.
I think there is a sense in that, and it is no wonder people like Uche Secondus, National Chairman of the PDP, who himself was the major cause of the looters’ list release is having the gut to talk after his name has appeared as number one on the list. Recall Secondus was the one, backed by his party, who challenged the Federal Government to name those who looted under the watch of PDP government or they stopped talking about how PDP caused Nigeria’s economic downgrading. It is not expected that a man with commonsense, who asked for something, would be the one to get angry when he eventually got what asked for. That is what happened. So, to me, their (PDP) list of 55 APC looters do not materialize as there was no APC in PDP government of 16 years.

Yes, there are PDP people who are in APC government right now who only defected after the election or at the tail end of the general elections. They include Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye, etc. Observably, those PDP in APC government are the same people who have connived with PDP senators led by Ike Ekweremadu and those officials still working with the Executive in sabotaging the government to the detriment of the Nigerian people since June 2015. Each time Buhari had taken step arrest or arraign them, those of us particularly in the Journalists’ Hangout would remember vividly how we nearly collapsed the system saying the government was gaggling the Legislature. Many of those PDP in APC government they want their names appear on the looters’ list are in the Legislature and in due time, since the lists releases are said by Alhaji Lai Mohammed to in batches and continuous, their names will be released.

Where the critics goof is that, once they talk of PDP in APC government they are quick to mention Rotimi Amaechi. It means you are yourself guilty of what you are accusing Buhari of. If Amaechi was a looter of national treasury, how possible? A governor of Rivers State that was the singular person that was fighting the most powerful person in the country, President Jonathan, in the impunity-happy PDP era? How possible? How much of Federal allocation did they even allowed to get to Rivers for the long time Amaechi fought Jonathan? Then where is the Nigerian money to be looted by him? Again, these critics to tarry a while, give us a break and be rational in their accusation. PDP looked for many incriminatory things to hang Amaechi, they failed. They then resulted to killing his people and that was what happened. Much as they rigged their Minister of State for Education (at time Nigeria had its worse ASUU strike) into office as governor and the major work he did coming in was to organize questionable probe panel that tried and indicted Amaechi unopposed, their fallacies came to bare when they tried to use panel result to stop Amaechi from becoming Minister under Buhari and their Senators staged a walk out at the State because of that. Why then should we the sane members of the society allow the huge jokes of these unpatriotic critics (and we know they are) to affect how we live our lives?

They went on to Tinubu, Fashola, NHIS, etc. What they expected Buhari to do with NHIS DG is what they used to do in their time when once someone was accused of wrongdoing, in a country where many people just tell lies without fear of God, he was as good as having committed that crime. They had wronged many souls as a result of that. Chief Bode George was one of the victims of his party. He was sent to jail only for him to be acquitted after he had spent two and a half years in Kirikiri. What manner of people are they? So, Buhari is not like them and so he personally investigated NHIS Yusuf, found him not culpable and restored him. Why are they not asking questions why he did not restore the DG SEC sacked by the Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun. Is Adeosun not the same Southerner like Adewole the Minister of Health? Are they both not working for Buhari? Trivial issues like this the PDP thrive in and it will be unbecoming of us to allow them waste our time, therefore.

The last one the Ekiti Guber Election where about 41 candidates are interested form APC; I am not one of those who believe that the APC candidates or party should just sit down and pick one person. No. It should be voluntary by each individual candidate to step down and not be forced to step down for anybody. After all, delegates who will vote at primaries will be more than 41. If one candidate has one delegate to him, it means that the man that gets the remaining number is the winner. What we should all advise all those APC candidates to do now is to know that they are facing a monster that has used amala joint, ponmo cutting and toutism tactics establish himself in the land of Ekiti and so, they must be united and not allow hatred for one another to deny them the opportunity that Ekiti people are waiting for to free themselves this time from the stomach infrastructure that never filled stomach since 2014. They must fight against their individual souls to be able to achieve this. It is s great task.