#BRINGBACKTHEFIRINGSQUAD

Babs Ajayi
Babsajayi@yahoo.com
Gatineau, Quebec, Canada

 


lease bring back the firing squad. If Nigeria and Nigerians need anything now it is the return of the firing squad. The firing squad will at least rid the land of looters who have no honour, it will get rid of errand boys and fronts who are holding the nation to ransom and spreading poverty like wild fire in the midst of plenty plundered by a few. When the firing squad is brought back everyone will sit up, wake up, shape up or ship out. The looters will be long dead and their loot recovered to rebuild the nation and restore our honour as a people. Anywhere and everywhere your Nigerian nationality is a huge source of embarrassment. Even a Canadian passport that notes that you originated from Nigeria still expose your Nigerian background and you never escape the shame and humiliation that bad governance, horrendous and criminal leadership and a clueless Jonathan is noted for around the world. Nigerians are terribly embarrassed today than during the days of Sani Abacha. The other day it was the Washington Post that humiliated Goodluck Jonathan by pointing out the dumbness and insensitivity of Jonathan and his Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) messengers and their doomed #BringBackGoodluck2015, a parody of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Jonathan and his errand boys needed an international newspaper in faraway Washington, DC to point out their wanton insensitivity and the lack of wisdom they demonstrated. Woes betide the man who has no shame, no integrity and no honour.

How foolish, how insensitive, how selfish and how hopeless can Jonathan and his sidekicks be? How unfortunate is a nation that gave an upstart a chance and hoped that he will do right by them! How far will Aso Rock and TAN go? How much damage will they do and how desperate is Jonathan to succeed himself after four nightmarish years laced with looting, failures and inaction? What else is Jonathan looking for and what more can he add that he is so desperate, hopelessly desperate he will do anything to succeed himself? He said the signs and banners were put out without his knowledge but did he close his eyes or were his eyes too heavy to see the bill boards and banners? Is he not the one who is paying for the bill boards and campaigns around the nation that are aimed at bringing back looting and maintaining the status quo? This is the very Jonathan who has not been able to bring back the Chibok girls! Or are these TAN people and Jonathan mocking the poor girls from Chibok and the families? I say shame to you the purveyor of bad luck and scandalmonger. You are worse off now that you have shoes, because you are desperate to make up for the months and years when you never had shoes. Your behaviour is that of someone who is determined to go on and on until he reaches Armageddon and self-destruction, the similitude of the curse of Ola Rotimi's King Odewale in The Gods Are Not to Blame.

Bad luck has now become the common denominator in the affairs and dealings of Jonathan. He is now a laughing stock in many more ways than Sani Abacha was in his time, and it is not difficult to conclude that his end may be more painful and brutal than that of Abacha. He has been endorsed for a second term by the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP; Africa's most criminal and most corrupt political party. It was also reported recently that the governors of this same PDP, the Come-and-Chop, Come-and-Loot party have also endorsed him as the sole candidate for the 2015 presidential election! No one should be surprised if the people of Chibok also endorse Jonathan because of the wonder that he is doing for them and their girls. We must not forget so soon how the five political parties Sani Abacha established during his reign of terror and thieving, the ones that were well described by Chief Bola Ige as five fingers of a leprous hand, went on to nominate Abacha as their presidential candidate! Even Chief Ebenezer Babatope stood up on behalf of one of those Abacha parties to nominate Abacha! Badluck may suffer a worse end than Abacha's. The group of lowlifes and hungry men and women, cash-driven nonentities put together by Jonathan, the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) are as bad as Kanu, the Million Man March of Sani Abacha contraption.

The acronym TAN could easily stand for Touts and Area Nuisance of Nigeria. They are already holding rallies all over the nation in pursuit of their mission, and paid with funds from the nation's coffers. They have a budget that no university or research centre in Nigeria can ever get. They have money to pursue their criminal project and enough to steal and loot at the pleasure of Jonathan. Sadly, and I will not confer any importance to the people involved, some old men who ought to know better are the patron louts of the TAN group. These old men have never been on the side of honour all their lives; they have played despicable roles in the past and are ever willing to serve any paymaster for as long as some loot will end up in their pockets. Ghana-must-go is their choice of business transaction and the only language they speak. By the way, how far with the effort to recover the hundreds of millions of naira in campaign funds Jonathan said he sent to Kano State governor via Ghana-must-go bags? The bank inside Aso Rock must be so robust now as Jonathan continues to use money to pursue his political agenda. Groups and organizations are now springing up all over the nation in support of the Jonathan Agenda, all of them very anxious to get their hands into the cash pipe flowing from Aso Rock through Ghana-must-go. I cannot blame them but no decent human being should join them, because you are thief if found or seen in the company of thieves.

We must all take note of the only clear heavenly message that has been sent to the thugs at TAN. This was the collapse of the pavilion at their recent rally in Minna, Niger State. The disasters and endless bad luck that will follow TAN and the man who sent them will outnumber the calamities that befell Sani Abacha, his agents, errand boys and sidekicks. The podium caved in and all hell was let loose; the gates of hell are opening up to swallow the thugs, area boys, and the puppet master driving the TAN objective, and they will all end up in the Red Sea. These people must not fail to see the warning from God in this pavilion calamity because more calamities are on the way. Disasters will always follow a gathering of thieves, looters and their errand boys, and they will have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to. Abacha could not run, Aso Rock could not protect him, and he was cut down like a chicken. The wise and sensible must stay away from the train of bad luck already derailed and running off the rail tracks. They are all dead on arrival.

Just the other day, the South Africa government seized the sum of $9.3 million that was illegally smuggled into that country by Jonathan and his sidekicks. When was such a big money withdrawn from our bank(s) and which bank(s)? How many times have they used private jets to smuggle state funds overseas? Why is it difficult to transact such business directly through the banking system? We are dealing with a case of looting here and there is no excuse and story that this government can tell anyone about the stolen cash. The good thing for Sani Abacha was that his loots were never discovered while he was alive, but not so for Jonathan and his minister above the law in the petroleum ministry. How many other things have these people bought from around the world and paid for with cash? Are the two/three hired planes being used by the petroleum minster also engaged in such cash load errands? Planes are now the bullion vans of this criminal government. A government that prefers paying cash in today's world of easy funds transfer and business transaction is a worthless, dishonest, dishonourable, and criminal government. Obviously, they are trying to hide a lot of things and they are engaged in a lot of criminal activities with the nation's funds. They are trying to ensure that there are no paper trail, no records of the funds they stole, the dirty deals they carried out and are still doing, and the illegal acts they are committing. Goodluck Jonathan's asset as a subdued vice president under Umaru Yar'Ardua in August 2007 was N259 million; that much he declared under pressure from his boss. You must wonder how Jonathan came by a quarter of a billion naira in asset considering his work and wages up till that point. Not many people were surprised when he disobeyed the law of the land relating to asset declaration and refused to declare his asset as president.

Only looters, thieves, criminals and the mafia prefer doing business in cash. What can the Central Bank of Nigeria tell our people about the $9.3 million cash? Did the funds come from the CBN and was the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele privy to this cash transaction? Can the nation be shown the purchase order and related documents about the supposed arms purchase? When you have seen a thief, you have also seen a liar and a criminal. Lagos lawyer Festus Keyamo summed up Aso Rock reaction and lies about the $9.3 million looting very well:

"Is it just a wicked coincidence that it is the aircraft belonging to a personal friend and unapologetic ally of the President in the person of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor that was used to smuggle the cash?

"If, contrary to the above posers, the transaction was contracted out to a private company in Nigeria, does it not amount to the offence of Money Laundering under our laws for the Federal Government to have allowed that company to attempt to pay for the equipment by cash to the tune of that amount without passing through a financial institution?

"It is an illegal transaction or a transaction for an illegal purpose that is meant to be untraceable. This was a covert, illegal operation that went horribly wrong.

"The position of the Federal Government is a cock-and-bull story meant to be shoved down the throat of Nigerians, but some of us are not fools. The hard fact we must all accept now is that billions of our hard-earned monies are being smuggled out of the country on a regular basis under the guise of security matters and with the active connivance of security agencies, little wonder then that the insurgency, rather than waning, is gathering momentum because certain persons somewhere are feeding fat on the situation whilst innocent lives and limbs are being wasted."

It is very clear that the only thing that ought to come back in Nigeria is the firing squad. We need the firing squad to clear the filthy stable that governance has become in Nigeria. We will not make progress, we will not get anywhere and our people will remain poor and hopeless for as long as the stable is filthy and in the hands of thieves and looters remain in the till. A thief must not be brought back to anywhere beside the firing range and be held to account. The firing squad is not recommended lightly but in view of the fact that people have been killed directly and indirectly through the action and inaction of the looters and their co-travellers.  Many have died in hospital wards because basic drugs and facilities are not available due to the looting being perpetuated by the criminal elements among us. Many of our people are being denied basic social services and are suffering untold hardship as a result. The outcomes have been poverty, hunger and diseases, and ultimately death, thousands of untimely deaths. Officers of state must be held accountable and responsible for their actions and inaction where such actions and inaction resulted in mental, physical and/or emotion hardship for the people. Former Virginia State governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife were found guilty of corruption by a federal jury early this month and both will spend up to 20 years in jail. The couple accepted loans and lavish gifts from a businessman in exchange for promoting his company. They were not accused of looting state funds or of stealing oil blocks, the crimes of choice in Nigeria, yet the punishment is considered commensurate to the crimes committed, and this is why facing the firing squad is the most appropriate punishment for looters in Nigeria. Bring back the firing squad now. Rid Nigeria of looters at the next election and bring back the firing squad to hold them accountable. This is the only punishment that will deter looters and thieves considering that some ex-convicts and looters still have the temerity to speak in the public space and the audacity to insult you and me.