David
Bonaventure Alechenu Mark, Nigeria’s Senate President, is one of those
extremely wealthy rogue soldiers produced by Ibrahim Babangida’s
settlement philosophy. Fate has blessed him with an illustrious looting
career.
He
has been stealing money from the Nigerian people for a very long time.
When he got tired of stealing money, he graduated to loftier
preoccupations: stealing elections. Thus, in one of those only in
Nigeria self-destructive travesties, the occupant of the third highest
office in the land actually never won any of the elections that got him
to the National Assembly. Like others, he is a beneficiary of the PDP’s
phenomenal rigging machine. He is openly pretending not to eye the
presidency in 2015 but, deep down, he won’t mind adding tenancy in Aso
Rock to his personal legacy of rigged elections. In the meantime, David
Mark has graduated from stealing elections to being lucky.
Luck,
for David Mark, is not about your head auspiciously making you the
number two man to bosses destined to run into trouble or die along the
way. Luck, for the Senate President, comes in the shape of a succession
of overwhelming national tragedies which makes the personal
transgressions of Nigeria’s political rapists pass unnoticed. Such has
been the harvest of corpses lately in Nigeria, from Baga to Bama to
Nassarawa and counting, that it would have been politically incorrect
for anybody to pay attention to the regular but less violent ways in
which the political class continues to kill more Nigerians than Boko
Haram or armed robbers combined.
With
Boko Haram, a hundred lives, two hundred lives, go out in a bang and
photos of calcified bodies go viral on social media to remind us of the
tragic errors of our national rendering. With every billion looted by a
politician, thousands of lives go but not in a bang. They go smiling to
their graves. They go installmentally. For every billion looted
translates to hospitals and roads not built. There are no calcified
images to show us that these thousands of slow, installmental,
shuffering and smiling deaths are directly linked to the billions looted
by a particular politician.
Hundreds
of lives taken weekly in the blitzkrieg of Boko Haram, armed robbery,
and our other national demons are more newsworthy and have more
spectacle value on social media than the somber reality of hundreds of
thousands walking deads on our streets, all candidates for the grave,
because a politician has looted the money meant for hospitals, roads,
and clean water provision. This is why luck shined on David Mark and
another recent evidence of his brazen looting of our commonwealth went
grossly under-reported and totally ignored by Nigerians.
Like
most Nigerians, I nearly missed the news, partly because only one
newspaper (Nigerian Tribune) considered it newsworthy and partly because
I was distracted and anguished by other national tragedies associated
with Boko Haram. Although, somehow, the editors of Nigerian Tribune did
not consider it front page material, they still displayed enough
critical acuity to give it an appropriately ominous headline in the
Sunday, 12 May 2013 online edition of the newspaper. “3 Policemen, 5
Others Injured Over Proposed David Mark University”, screamed Nigerian
Tribune.
Now,
that caught my attention. Wait a minute, I thought, David Mark, a
sitting Senate President, is building his own private University? How on
earth did Sahara Reporters and Premium Times miss this story and the
attendant necessity of investigating how David Mark is funding his
University? The opening paragraph of the Tribune story confirmed my
worst fears. Says Tribune: “No fewer than eight people, including three
policemen, were said to have been injured in a clash between youths in
Asa community area of Otukpo town inOtukpo Local Government Area of
Benue State over the location of a private university owned by the
Senate President, Senator David Mark.
The
youth were said to have converged on the Otukpo-Oju federal highway
mid-week to protest what they described as unlawful acquisition of their
land by the Senate President, while the policemen drafted to the area
were said to have received stiff resistance from the youth. Efforts by
policemen to disperse the youth were rebuffed, which reportedly left
eight people, including three policemen, injured.” Like most things
Nigerian, this piece of bad news comes in tangled layers. Tragic trees
always fall on tragic trees in our situation and it is always a very
difficult task determining which to remove first. So, we shall pretend
not to notice that David Mark is also apparently involved in a messy
land grab that has now caused injury to fellow Nigerians (poor Benue!
When they are not robbed blind via contract rackets by Doyin Okupe, they
are robbed silly by one of their unelected representatives in the
Senate) and focus on the more sinister news of a salaried Senator
funding a private University.
There
is a sense in which David Mark’s venture into higher education (my dear
brother, Tade Aina, Program Director of Higher Education in Africa for
the Carnegie Corporation, must be gnashing his teeth in agony over the
new meaning that politicians in his country are giving to higher
education) reminds me of ace British colonialist empire builder, Cecil
Rhodes.Starring at the heavens from his compound in South Africa
onebeautiful evening, Rhodes famously exclaimed: “I would annex the
planets if I could.” Just as Rhodes wanted no part of the solar system
left uncolonized by the British, no part of our national life is left
uncolonized by the loot of the political class.
For
members of Nigeria’s political class, looting the treasury is no longer
just about stealing money to rival the material acquisitions of Arab
oil sheikhs in choice locations all over the world; it is no longer just
about aping the glamorous lifestyle of Hollywood royalty, it has now
acquired a psychological dimension with a tinge of impunity.
Beyond
material acquisition, loot creates the desire in the rapists of Nigeria
to invade and make their odoriferous presence felt in those areas of
national life which still provide some form of psychological cushion for
the people. Thus, when the Nigerian politician or government official
has acquired enough property in Abuja, Lagos, Dubai, Johannesburg,
London, Washington, and Toronto; when he has acquired a private jet;
when his fleet of expensive exotic cars in Nigeria makes his compound
look like a car dealership; when he boasts a permanent year-round
reserved room in Sheraton or Nicon Hilton, agony and restlessness set
in.What to do next? Ah, yes, let me colonize other areas of life of
Nigerians. Let me take my loot into other zones, other spaces that
ordinarily ought to be inviolable.
This
is the point at which they begin to invade and colonize faith. Thus
far, only the traditional religions are safe from their depredations.
They are not building ultramodern shrines yet forBabalawos and Dibias.
Nigerian Christianity and Islam, on the other hand, have been very badly
hit as I indicated in my open letter to John Cardinal Onaiyekan and
Pastor Tunde Bakare.
The
loot of politicians and government officials has invaded Nigerian
faith. They build churches (and mosques but mostly churches) and donate
such glamorous buildings with fanfare. The Body of Christ in Nigeria has
learnt that talking while eating from the hands of corrupt politicians
is bad table manners. Thus, nobody asks any questions about the source
of the funds when a politician builds and donates a church to a
congregation. I am still waiting for the Nigerian Anglican Communion,
especially the Anglican clergy, to ask Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu, where he got the money to build a flamboyant church for the
Anglican community in his village.
When
they get tired of colonizing faith with their loot, they move on to
colonize higher education, mushrooming private universities all over the
place. The University idea ought to sue Nigeria for what we are doing
to it. Just like we bastardized democracy, we are bastardizing the
University idea. Every looter, every crook in Nigeria wants to start a
private University after building a Church or a Mosque. Obasanjo built
Bells University and we asked no questions. Ibrahim Babangidastarted
Heritage University.
His
license was withdrawn by the NUC not because of questions over his
sources of funds but because he delayed admitting students. Atiku
Abubakar bought a franchise of the American University system while
still in office as Vice President and we asked no questions about the
sources of his funds. Now, a sitting Senate President has ventured into
the same terrain and no questions are asked, no eyebrows raised anywhere
in Nigeria. Next, a politician will wake up, create, and privately fund
Nigeria’s 37th state and there will be no questions asked.
This
is precisely what worries me: our transition into a society that no
longer sees anything wrong with the bastardization of ideals and the
violation of national psychic spaces by the criminals in the political
class. Bring your loot into faith and try to buy God and Allah, no
problem, we the clergy will broker the deal for you. Bring your loot
into higher education and try to buy inviolable ideals, no problem, we
won’t ask any questions about how and where you got your money. We have
thus created a society in which there are no institutions primed to
swing into action the moment public servants display expenditure beyond
their determined salaries.
A
US Congressman suddenly buying a Lamborghini or appearing in Congress
in choice Ferragamo loafers everyday is asking for swift and immediate
trouble with the IRS; a Canadian parliamentarian who suddenly buys the
latest Range Rover in a country where most of his colleagues take public
transport to work is asking for immediate and swift investigation by
Canada Revenue Agency.
If
word got out that the Speaker of the House in Canada (David Mark’s
counterpart in Ottawa) was privately building and funding a University
in his village, Andrew Treusch, Commissioner of Revenue and Chief
Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency, would have a heart attack.
However, in Nigeria, David Mark will steal the land he is busy stealing.
And build his private University.
Source: Sahara Reporters
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