Today, let's talk in plain street language. It is either we are all mumus in this country or we have the smartest crop of politicians in the world. The whacking has never been sweeter and easier for our politicians. Declaration of assets before office is the best way to blindfold Nigerians and eat them like sharwarma; it is like Joseph's coat of many colors. It gives the politicians a carefully cultivated image of honesty and probity to deceive us while bidding for time to chop with both hands.
How is it that in Nigeria, a politician only declares his assets before entering office? I have heard of great miracles, the bible recorded a number of them, but I guess even Apostle Paul whose sight was restored by God himself would be shocked seeing a man from his neighbourhood who was struggling to get by becoming a billionaire in every currency in the world over-night because he was S-elected into a political office.
There's this tout in my neighbourhood who was always seen eating noodles and tea every night at the mallam's shop across the road, and after his gallant performance in helping a political party rig and win election in the neighborhood, he was taken to the number one political godfather in the country who was very impressed by the tout's performance in the election and compensated him with a seat in the House of Assembly. Now this elevated tout is lounging with babes all over the state and dining with both hands like king Solomon.
This tout like most Nigerian politicians are from poor and average background but become stupendously rich immediately the get office. You can imagine the assets of a tout who was always seen eating noodles at the mashai's shop every night before becoming a "Member of the House" and what he will take out of the system when his tenure is over. It looks more like the mandate of the code of conduct bureau is restricted to only verifying assets of politicians before they take office.
When former president Goodluck Jonathan and his vice Namadi Sambo were sworn into office, they put the same asset declaration cloth over our eyes and we saw them as people with good intentions for the country. It makes no sense whatsoever that President Jonathan and everyone that served in his government are yet to be asked to declare their assets after leaving office. But trust Nigerians, we are always scared to ask questions.
In President Buhari's case, his asset declaration was dressed in boju-boju to hoodwink the forever gullible Nigerians. It was laced in so much inconsistency that starkly contrasts with what he said prior to his election and still no one is asking any question. All we keep hearing is "sai baba", even with the contradictions in his previous declarations and what we later got from the code of conduct bureau.
We all had a picture of Buhari as so poor that he had to borrow money from his bank to buy the presidential nomination form. Few months later, we learnt he has close to N30 million in his account.
The president had also said he owned only two houses, one in his hometown in Daura and another in Kaduna. His landlord had reportedly kicked him out of an apartment in Abuja because he could not afford to pay the rent. But in the space of time the Code of Conduct Bureau took to disclose his assets, it jumped from two houses to five. Can someone define miracle for me please.
When these are added to the acres of land in Port Harcourt that was also previously not disclosed, the shares in three banks that weren't also disclosed and the number of cows that have jumped from 150 before the campaign to 270 and his inability to tell us how many vehicles he actually owns because they are too many, you should get the full picture of how asset declaration is being used to scam us.
My question here is what did the president do to push his cash stock from one million as declared previously to a huge thirty million in the space of weeks? Hmmmmm — or are we not supposed to ask about that too? With what is obtainable in Naija politricks, even if the president's houses jumps from five houses to two hundred houses scattered all over the world after leaving office, no one will say jack. Well, we are here to do more counting when he checks out of Aso villa.
Please permit me to ask one last question; shouldn't the asset declaration of politicians include those in the name of their wives and children?
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