Dele Sobowale
11 January 2009
opinion
THE PDP must have an endless supply of people without vision or leadership potentials. Just after we discovered that a vacancy might already exist in Aso Rock, we find that a more urgent vacancy needing to be filled swiftly. Nigeria might actually be better served if we have an empty chair instead of the current occupant of the position of Senate president.
By the time you are reading this the Senate which he leads had passed the 2009 Budget which everyone knows was hastily drawn up and is in many respects defective. The drivel, because that is what it can be called, is now being worked over by a more serious House of Representatives. But permit me to digress a little and present a testimonial to David Mark - the visionless leader.
Those old enough to remember would recollect that he was the minister of communications under the regime of Babangida. His lasting legacy as a minster was his pronouncement that "Telephones are no longer for the poor." One of the reasons I am happy to be alive today lies in the fact that David Mark is also alive to witness every vulcaniser, market woman, and even beggar, who wants a phone holding one; some even have more than one.
The lack of imagination that made NITEL a basket case under ministers like David Mark is one of the chief reasons we are as backward as we are today.
Abacha took over after IBB and had no use for people like Mark. The latter indeed, took to his heels instead of fighting to help reclaim the country from that brutal monster. David Mark's return to the lime light occurred when the courageous but misguided men who were called G-34, led by Dr Alex Ekwueme, decided to form an "all-inclusive political party."
That was to me a prescription for political suicide because it meant that the principled people like Bola Ige, Victor Attah, Balarabe Musa, to mention a few, were going into the same party as political predators. It was like putting chicken, sheep, foxes and lions in the same barn yard.
Then when the PDP was sold to serving, retired and just plain tired generals at a fund raising on November 11, 1998 for N130 million donated by a nearly bankrupt Obasanjo, I wrote on these pages, on February 21, 1999, that the PDP, called, "my baby" by Ekwueme would be snatched from him by the political predators. Today not a single one of the G-34 remains in the corridors of
power. It has been taken over by scavengers left behind by the "Garrison commanders".
The current major beneficiary of the sale of the PDP in 1998/99 is David Mark. From 1999 to 2007 he served in the Senate and just as if to prove that the shortsightedness he demonstrated as minister of communications was ingrained, he sat in the upper chamber of the National Assembly for all those years without a single bill to his credit. He was not known for anything that benefited the people of Benue, who "elected" him or the people of Nigeria on whom he was foisted through the jiggery-pokery called elections in Nigeria.
His only claim to contribution in those years consisted of his support for the discredited third term agenda of Obasanjo. Like most self-deluded people Mark could not see that no African leader serves three terms; once they succeed in getting the constitutional amendment to serve the third, they become another Mugabe or Arap Moi or Mubarak - presidents for life or until a coup topples them.
In the meantime they make life hell for their fellow citizens. The David Marks of this country cann
ot see a simple thing like that. But Nigeria is nothing if not a tolerant country in the grips of the unfittest to rule. The failure of the third term proved to be a harbinger of good for David Mark. For his loyalty to those promoting the lunatic idea called third term he was rewarded with the Senate Presidency when again "elected" to the Senate.
The senators who elected the man as their president might as well have elected an empty chair. For starters, a The Punch newspaper report on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 informed us that "Only eight bills out of 120 considered by the Senate went through the mandatory three readings before being passed". That is leadership David Mark style for you. Now you know why the Senate of Nigeria is not performing. As Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, has reminded us, "Every organization is the lengthened shadow of one man". What if the man is a midget? Can a Senate led by a visionless person serve a country badly in need of leadership?
To be continued.....
When genius fails
0705-729-8010: If you are not an idiot tell me how Onyiuke's support for Obama was a mistake? Your concessions qualify you for the fate of the prophets of Baal. -Duro.
0805-595-3150: To quote Dele Sobowale, in the article Dragging the NSE into disrepute dated March, 30, 2003 p 7, ...posited that "she runs the risk of being remembered as the lady who destroyed the stock exchange instead of carving her name in history as its greatest builder"....Chidi Ndubuisi
DEAR Duro, of course am an idiot. Haven't you heard, "No matter who you are, you will always be fools", said Dr. John Arbuthnot, 1841-1920. If I am not an idiot, why should I be slaving for peanuts writing columns instead of arranging a swindle like "support for Obama" and raking in millions? I feel sorry for "Madam Obama" because you will now force me to write what I withheld the first time around. She will have you to thank for it.
First this is not her first involvement in "fund raising" for political offices. And it is not the first time she would express her support by breaking the law. She as you must know, not being an idiot yourself, is not the only supporter of Obama in Africa or indeed the world. But, she had to be more catholic than even the Pope - for reasons only Area Boys know, but you don't.
As Chidi has reminded us (you really because I remember everything on this topic), she was also involved in the Corporate Nigeria fund raising for the Obasanjo-Atiku reelection campaign in 2003. That was another expression of her support for the candidate of her choice. Since you are not an idiot, Duro, I refer you to Section 221 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which states as follows. "No association, other than a political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election or contribute to the funds of any political party or to election expenses of any candidate at any election". What was Corporate Nigeria, Duro? "Madam Obama attended one of the best universities in the world, I attended Jankara university yet she went ahead and solicited funds for Obasanjo and Atiku in gross violation of the laws of Nigeria. There were only three reasons why she was not prosecuted.
First, Obasanjo, the hypocritical president of Nigeria at the time was the beneficiary of this illegality. Secondly, the security forces - ICPC, EFCC and Nigeria Police - treated the matter with the benign neglect it did not deserve. Third, Madam Obama knew she was operating in a country where impunity was the rule not the exception for a few close to the corridors of power.
Non-idiots like you probably never asked the following questions about the contributions to Corporate Nigeria. One, how much was ultimately collected? How much was sent to the Obasanjo-Atiku campaign headquarters? How much went into administrative expenses? And how much went into private pockets? In short, when and where was the accountability for this illegal contribution organized by 'Madam Obama'? One of the donors,( name withheld on request), informed me that none of them knew the details.You probably did not know that there were donations in support of the third term agenda also. After all she openly canvassed for it.
The same questions arise? Where was the accountability or transparency? Of course we all know that she received her "thirty shekels of silver" - chairmanship of Transcorp whose shares she bought at fifty kobo; sold a lot at N7.00 but which are now heading for forty kobo leaving hundreds of thousands of Nigerians in ruins and in tears. Let me stop there for now on that.
Now we come to the American presidential elections and her "support" for Obama which got you so excited you wrote before thinking through the matter. Listen first to her in her own words. "At no time did we say we are raising money for Obama. We are not collecting money for Obama. I lived in the US for 14 years; I am a green card holder and I know the law"...."after the accounts have been done, the money will be used for mobilization"...I am a very intelligent person. I have a Ph.D".
Let me start from the second to the last statement i.e. "I am a very intelligent person". Yes, she is, but not wise. Second, in saying she knows the law, she is stretching the truth. She does not know enough of the US law governing elections otherwise she would not have gone about the fund raising the way she did. Furthermore, while she might be aware that she was not raising money for Obama, many of the donors were not in the know.
In fact, one donor told me that they thought they could contribute directly to Obama's election campaign funds until I told him that there was a US law forbidding foreigners from contributing to election campaigns.
In addition, even Americans have limits imposed on them regarding how much they can contribute and it must be done individually and not as a group. Thus, the over N70 million said to have been collected could not have been sent in lump sum and even individually it could not have reached Obama's campaign organization.
The next question is, "Where would it have gone if the EFCC had not confiscated it?" I also lived in the US for years, and I was in the campaign organizations of several candidates including Robert Kennedy's before he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968. To the best of my knowledge, the money could not have gone legitimately anywhere in the US. And funds that cannot be legitimately transferred might be violating money laundering acts in the two countries -US and Nigeria. The bottom line is this. If the money had found its way into the Obama campaign funds - Nigerian style - and it is discovered, it would have constituted a strong ground for invalidating the man's election.
That was why the Obama campaign organization swiftly distanced itself from the entire scam. Now what sort of crackpot support is that when someone takes measures that could result in the candidate's disqualification? I need not go on Duro, but the subject is not exhausted. I only I hope you have learnt enough from an idiot to make you less of a fool.
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THE MONEY COULD HAVE BEEN USE TO BUY BUTTONS, SHIRTS AND OTHER ITEMS, FROM HIS ORGANIZATION AND WOULD HAVE BEEN LEGAL