Emmanuel Aziken
26 July 2008
interview
Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi is one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State. A criminologist and an executive member of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Gbagi, after his quest for the PDP's 2007 gubernatorial ticket foundered in the wake of the intrigues that enveloped the exercise in Delta State, has since been politically mute, devoting himself to his business concerns within and outside Delta State.
In this interview in Abuja, Gbagi opens up on reasons for his silence, asserting that the nation has been hijacked by gangsters who have taken up the political space and nurtured examples that could well destroy the nation. Gbagi's solution to the problems of the nation is simply the erection of the altar of justice in the nation and the incarceration of all treasury looters who he claims are now the dispensers of favour in all levels of government! Excerpts:
SINCE the 2007 elections you have largely been out of circulation. Where have you been?
As you know, a sensible lawyer cannot be out of circulation. If you build a house and some wolves because they have more rascality to their favour say that they have taken over your home and by home I mean the PDP which of course was my baby which I developed in the State.
Having participated in the election and this situation has arisen, what do you do? You go into your profession proper and, as a lawyer, you will agree that I am saturated, my hands are full. So, I have been doing all of that, doing what my profession says I should do, running my businesses, providing legal services to my clients and all that.
I am a very careful person which means that I wouldn't just talk for the sake of talking, I wouldn't just make comment because I want to make comment. With both the electronic and print media having been hijacked and taken over to a large extent by people of questionable characters as it is today in the country, people whose sources of wealth, people whose conduct in government, people whose activities in appointed office have been to use (public) money to take over the print and electronic media.
So, you have people who hitherto believed in the rule of law using the president's comment, people who hitherto believed that Nigeria should go in the proper place are gradually being pushed to take a back seat allowing people without pedigree to take Nigeria hostage indirectly as leaders.
To me, Nigeria has been hijacked. In a situation like that, what do you do? You will have to look very carefully before you speak. Since 1999 when we founded this party in Delta State, we have had police, we have had EFCC, we had the SSS and all the security apparatus (working) and yet this nation has been robbed to its knees in what I consider the most ravaging situation of any nation in the world, yet nobody has been (jailed).
It is a charade of irresponsibility. I have not seen the situation where somebody who has stolen money has been arrested, prosecuted and is in proper jail for children to visit him and in that way you will be driving a message. So, what happens is that people are now rejoicing in the fact that the more you steal, the more you will be able to put these apparatus of government under your feet.
So, what they now do is to steal more and divide about 30% or 40% of the loot for some people, and they are free.
A nation like that cannot be trusted! We are not trusted here because all the secrets known to market women, school children we pretend as if they do not exist.
This is the first time when you have a government official moving in a convoy from Abuja towards Sokoto, but you say no, that they should say that you are going to Lagos! You get the media to say that you are in Lagos whereas you are in Sokoto and everyone knows you are in Sokoto!
That in itself has brought disrespect, disunity, inequality, apathy against the state of Nigeria. Nigeria is a fatherless state, unlike the case of Singapore which has a founding father in its first prime minister.
You cannot be a governor, you cannot be a minister, you cannot be a local government chairman without going through a medical examination in Singapore. What we have today are miscreants in virtually all the arms of Government.
They don't know the definition of a political office holder; that is why they go there and loot the place naked. That is why anywhere you go in the world the country is a laughing stock. Every money you steal from here is now being taken to Ghana and Ghana economy has now been turned around positively because of Nigerian loot!
There is no policy towards running a nation called Nigeria, so everybody is frisking the state called Nigeria. So, I have been quiet because it is very painful that this is happening and there is no leadership that has come to correct this situation. Unless this is corrected, children will develop hatred towards the leadership and it would only be a matter of time before the people will rise.
Are you saying that the expressions of hope from the Yar'Adua administration does not touch you?
There is no minister selected by this administration based on merit. There is no political appointee in this administration selected on merit. We know people of unquestionable character in this country. Do you now want me to subject myself to a governor who himself knows who I am?
Of course, he knows I am above him, so he won't do it. That again has locked progress for the nation. In the last nine years, Obasanjo became the foreign minister, education minister, science and technology minister, in fact, he was representing virtually all the ministries anywhere in the world. Why? This was not Nigeria as we knew it? Are we saying that we don't have brains? Must you cede your nation to political patronage?
Political patronage
Why not look for the hot brains? Why not look for those who can move this country forward irrespective of political leaning?
What is your assessment of the future of this country under the present leadership?
The president has made certain comments and if you watch NTA, the president said that a corrupt leader is a mad person. They are brainless to be corrupt and stealing tax payers money. But we must move very quickly, it is a do-or-die affair and we must immediately bring to book criminals and looters of Nigeria treasury.
We have men and women in this country who have the sagacity, to bring it about. If we bring all those looters to book and put all of them in a particular jail cell, that will send a very quick message across the nation. But if we cosmetically say things and we are something differently, we would be heading for a crash.
The police we want to use, the soldiers we want to use all have wives, brothers and sisters in the local market. We are toying with the nation and you don't toy with a nation the way we are going. How do you want any government in the world to do any credible business with you if you have people in government at the highest level, people who have been certified as known criminals eating with the leaders?
Are you saying that there are wolves around Mr. President?
They are political influence holders or people no longer in cabinet office, some of them with warrants of arrest waiting for them across the world. This puts a question on the credibility of the nation. A nation that cannot prosecute its criminals is not a nation. It is not done!
I tell you as a criminologist and as a lawyer, the quickest solution to the problems of the nation is for Mr. President to say to hell with crime and criminality, let me pay a price for the growth of our children by bringing to book all the criminals. Once you do that, 60 per cent of Nigerians will take heed.
That brings me to the issue of the Niger Delta. I am a true Niger Deltan, I am a major stakeholder. However, I am sure that the government does not understand, they may have intelligence reports here and there, but intelligence report is different from the actual situation on the ground.
The whole world is aware of how the agitation in the Niger Delta metamorphosed in the last nine years into what it is now today. Should we now saddle the same persons that brought about the problems to come and find a solution? You will never will find one because to all intents and purposes, they are brothers in crime. Some are wearing suits while some are actually carrying the guns but they are all in the same team.
I have had opportunity to talk to a number of the militants and I know that the situation that has put us in this quagmire is because they see government as having failed them. You say, for example, that Governor X is a thief and you check what Governor X stole, you find out that Governor X stole ten thousand naira. They have investigated Governor X and now concluded that he should be prosecuted and sent to prison. Meanwhile, the militants in the Niger Delta knew that Governor X was a houseboy in the street before he became Governor and they know all his loot and all that he has carried from the state. Now Governor X is wining and dinning with Mr. President! So, how do you expect these boys to react? Their hope is gone.
No matter what you do, the cook in Mr. President's house, the steward, they have families, they go to market. That is why a nation's secret is very difficult to keep. That is what brings us as security professionals all over the world that the greatest progress of a nation is bedrocked on the truth. If Mr. President is going somewhere, somebody will pilot him in a plane, somebody will drive him in a car and they all have families. That is why before we urinate in Nigeria, CNN is aware, the American intelligence is aware.
It is not because they are employing witchcraft, but it is because they have used the profession properly. What I am trying to say is that the boys in the riverine areas, having seen some peers of theirs who out of hooliganism got political offices and have now used the same political offices negatively without any reprimand from the ICPC or EFCC and have now become people who now have diplomatic passports and they cannot travel because they were lawful, and you expect them to be quiet?
And they know that what government is saying is the direct opposite of what they are doing, the nation will not grow. So the boys in the riverrine areas who are still urinating and defecating in rivers in this modern day and age, you believe that they should be comfortable and happy?
At the very worst, Mr. President can decide to create a Ministry of Niger Delta and give something for the development of the place. If the monies the are given to the states in the Niger Delta are equitably used directly for the people, the money that is given to the local governments in the Niger Delta is equitably used for the people for which the money is meant, we will then see some semblance of development.
In addition, get the oil companies topartner directly with the people of the communities where they are drilling the oil from. Instead of government wasting time as the rapid looting of the economy continues, government should set up EFCC offices in all the local governments in the Niger Delta and this will compel them to use the money coming to them for development on the ground.
You will then see that the people jostling to become governors and local government chairmen will be reduced because they will now realize that it is not an office from which you can make money. When some of us sought public office, it was not out of hunger but because we had sufficiently looked after ourselves and because we know what to give in.
But what is happening now is that people are going there to loot the treasury. So, I am repeating that the solution to this problem is that people must be brought to book. In fact, if Yar'Adua's Government wants to move this nation forward, it must not pay lip service to the issue of incarcerating rogues. As soon as you do that and everybody becomes aware of it, I tell you, forty percent of the problem would have been solved.
But this arrangement that gives room that the more you steal, the more you succeed and live flamboyantly, Nigeria could be extinguished from the comity of nations. Wherever we go today, no recognition, they are laughing at us. Whatever oil, either smuggled or officially lifted, by the time it gets out of the shores of Nigeria, everybody knows, the spot market knows, the whole world knows. They know who is selling what, they know to what family they are selling, they know to what account it is going, so what secret do you have? What we have today as a country is extremely shameful and we must correct it and what it takes to correct it is before you and me.
So, what is the panacea?
I have said it. In America, everybody knows, whether you are a president, you are a senator or whatever, you are not above the law. If the law catches up with you, you are done for, you are gone! Once we take that into consideration, the nation is on course.
So, the president does not need to do a lot of work. If you are a thief, the investigation has been done, just let justice take its course. With the greatest respect to the judiciary and, as a member of the executive committee of the Nigeria Bar Association, I am going to raise the fact that some of our judges are not helping matters in moving this nation forward. Either by the multiplicity of tribunal judgments or with the way these criminals in some respects have been able to hijack the entire judiciary by inducement calls for concern. What they think they are hiding is known to the whole world. It is on the internet.
The whole world is a global village. We know now that people use other peoples names or form names, fake passports and all of that to loot their country.
We know. The Judges know what is going on. With the incarceration of the treasury looters, the boys in the Niger Delta will reappraise their ways. They know the criminals, they know the thieves. When you see them and talk with them, you will know they are intelligent. Some of them have first, second and even Ph.D degrees! They are not fools. They have lost faith and hope in the leadership of Nigeria because of what they have been seeing.
People are not happy, people are very disgruntled. It is a shame that in this day and age, somebody can just carry his state's N200 billion and start scattering it in African countries, Asia, and some that can get into Europe are getting confiscated and some into America. We are not in a kangaroo nation and unless this government wants this country destroyed, they must take steps.
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