By ANIEBO NWAMU*
If you don’t have upwards of N100billion hidden in banks or assets, you dare not step forward to run for governor in Nigeria. Want to run for president? You’ve got to be worth at least N2trillion. Plutocracy with kleptocracy has been institutionalized in the country, and mainly criminals are now able to run for elective offices.
About 2010, the INEC led by Maurice Iwu prescribed ceilings for campaign funds, the amount of money a candidate was allowed to spend during campaigns: figures like N1bn for president, N200m for governor, N50m for Senate etc. [A dollar exchanged for N120 at the time.] That rule or law was not enforced for one day. No violator was caught or punished.
That electoral law or INEC guideline was not meant to be implemented anyway. There were no monitors, only observers. [Iwu had to exclude the former in elections!] It’s the same way INEC chiefs regularly swear on their fathers’ graves to organize free and fair polls but proceed to compile fictitious results, declare their client-candidates winners, and urge losers to go to court. The right to elect our leaders has since been taken from the Nigerian electorate and given to corrupt INEC and judicial officers. [His partisanship having been exposed, INEC chairman Joash Amupitan should resign tomorrow!] And only a candidate with deep pockets can bribe their way through the electoral officers and judicial bandits.
Shouldn’t we begin to tell ourselves the truth? Or should we accept the fact that we no longer have a country?
When a country forces office seekers to part with Nbillions for elections and yet pays them less than N10m as legitimate income per annum, what does it encourage? Plutocracy (government by the wealthy) and kleptocracy (government by thieves). Consider the humongous amounts demanded by political parties for nomination forms. Those who scale the nomination hurdle are required to pay even more to INEC before they could be considered candidates for elections. When a governorship candidate had to buy forms with N50m or more and spend N100bn on electioneering (including vote buying), when they get into office they would first recoup their “investments” through overinflated contracts or direct stealing from the public purse. Meanwhile, the legitimate income of a governor in four years is less than N50m.
Today, some LG chairmen acquire hundreds of million naira worth of private assets within their first year in office. Even some people working in agencies pretending to be fighting corruption — EFCC, ICPC, CCB, DSS etc. — as well as judges and officers of state and national electoral bodies are known to have become Nmillions or Nbillions richer after each round of elections.
One of my readers in my heyday as a columnist, Abubakar Tsav, a retired commissioner of police, now deceased, once stated that any policeman who built a house was a thief. He explained that a policeman’s salary for his entire career, 35 years, couldn’t build a decent house. But he knew serving police officers who owned landed properties worth billions of naira. I myself once met an ASP buying a N6m car (in 2011) which he intended to gift to his superior so he could be attached to a governor from an oil-rich state. The police are in politics, though; many are used to rig elections.
What are the sources of the money thrown at our impoverished people during election times? A close examination would reveal a few:
* stolen public funds
* drugs
* 419 or yahoo+
* armed robbery
* bank robbery
* kidnapping for ransom
* human or organ trafficking
* ritual murders
Money politics stands condemned! I’ve asked my people in my home state Enugu to ensure that crooked characters do not get near the Lion Building or the legislative houses in Abuja in 2027. Let us interrogate the sources of the funds donated to parties, churches, thugs, sycophants and other interest groups by political office seekers. Certain aspirants for governor paid for the nomination forms of all party office seekers during the ongoing or concluded party congresses and conventions. Across the country, supposed leaders and their agents have been sharing rice, noodles, salt and a few naira bills in the name of “poverty alleviation”. The politicians do so to sway prospective voters or justify their anticipated rigging of the vote.
The beneficiaries of such tokens shouldn’t tell us that “goats follow anyone with palm fronds”. That’s slavish mentality. That’s an admission of helplessness and extreme poverty. Our people deserve to live in dignity, please. They won’t enjoy the little gifts for longer than a few days, but they will live with high fuel and electricity prices, joblessness, hunger and malnutrition for four years — or longer, if they refuse to abandon their folly.
Since those charged with screening political candidates often fail to stop certificate forgers, drug barons, treasury looters and other criminals in their tracks, we the people must now do the job ourselves. We should ask the candidates how they made the billions they spend.
Over the years, we’ve seen candidates and their minions struggling to answer that question on radio and television. What offices did they occupy as civil/public servants? What lucrative businesses did they do as business people that yielded the Nbillions they now use to hire sycophants who lie on their behalf as TV guests?
I’m still rooting for Peter Obi because his story is most believable. He started trading at teen age. Even as a student he was already partnering with businesses overseas. He made money from imports and invested in more businesses in blue-chip companies including banks. And he achieved all these before running for governor in 2003. As governor he was frugal with his state’s resources, thus achieving feats in education, health, security, human capital development and other sectors, an uncommon thing with Nigerian governors. I consider him the most qualified presidential aspirant for Nigeria at this time.
We either choose life or choose death in 2027. We must not enthrone anyone with a criminal past in an executive or legislative position at the state or federal level; they would inevitably use the acquired power to steal public funds, to persecute opponents and to destroy life and property. Flaunting of money is a red flag! Anyone with an iota of dignity left in them shouldn’t accept dirty money or tokens from politicians.
Our people need water, food, electricity, jobs, security, feeder roads and transparency in government. They don’t need a government of thieves run by propaganda. States like mine need competent, compassionate and capable leaders, not those who oppress the poor or who care only for their villages, friends and cronies. I believe Peter Obi will, as president, reset Nigeria. And when we find a candidate like him running for governor or Senate, we shouldn’t expect them to buy our votes with their hard-earned money.
*Nwamu, author and editor, lives in Abuja.
