(Being the Press Statement presented on behalf of the Beko Rights Klub (BRK) by its Convener, Debo Adeniran, at the Colloquium in honour of late Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti who died on February 10, 2006 at Beko’s Garden, Anthony Oke on Monday, 10th day of February, 2014)
Compatriots, ladies and gentlemen. We are gathering here today, not to remember a fallen hero but an accomplished giant in the annals of our collective struggle for democracy, freedom and a decent society. Beko was not an ordinary leader, but a selfless, unassuming mentor holding aloft the flag of freedom for the rest of us not only to behold but uphold. Even though a professional of repute, he became an uncommon common man by identifying with the man and woman in the street and their plights.
Since Nigerian’s independence from our Colonial Masters in 1960, the country has passed through the most difficult times in terms of the struggle to transform our political landscape.
Talking about challenges, Nigeria has fought many survival battles including, but not limited to, a civil war that led to the loss of lives of millions of people. In the internal struggle for power and political control of the nation state, the country has witnessed a number of coups d’état.
The struggle for the enthronement of democracy and representative government has been a major struggle since the years that preceded the country’s independence from Britain in 1960. First, it was the struggle against colonial rule, and later it was the battle for genuine independence and representative government. While the first, that is the battle against British rule has been won, the struggle for representative government is on-going. It is a common fact today that Nigeria is yet far from the land of our dreams.
While many countries in Asia have moved from third to first world, a majority of Nigerians still toil on a daily basis to eke out a living.
At the advent of our nascent democracy in 1999, many Nigerians celebrated that the power has now come into our hands to rule ourselves and harness our resources for our growth. It is however unfortunate that the coming of democracy has brought nothing good to us but untold hardship. It is no longer news that our democratically elected leaders have stolen more of our common patrimony than the khaki boys did.
In saner climes, the rule of law remains the most important instrument of democracy but that is not the case in Nigerian democracy. Over the years, our leaders have acquired the notoriety for flouting our laws with impunity. Regardless of the spurious claims by our leaders that they have been fighting corruption, which has been a clog in the wheel of progress of our democracy, the evidence is there that corruption is still endemic in our country. Corruption has become the deity to be worshipped rather than being despised and banished. Nigerian institutions become weaker while corrupt elements get stronger enjoying the inordinate loot while the government and its agencies watch with the aura of helplessness. It is so unfortunate that we are still repeating the same old story after 15 years of practising democracy because of the inability of our so-called ‘democratic governments’ to deliver the dividends of democracy to the masses and rid the country of pervasive corruption.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo kick-started the looting spree that has become a norm in our political class today. Obasanjo succeeded in bastardizing every civilized ethos of democracy and missed the opportunity to put Nigeria on the path of economic advancement and national greatness, and none of his successors has done better either. Most corruption scandals that broke out since the coming of democracy are treated like non-issues in Nigeria. Siemens, Wilbross and Halliburton scandals are treated as issue of no economic significance to Nigerians even when foreigners who perpetrated the wrongs had for long been prosecuted and punished in their home countries.
Halliburton especially, has almost all those who have ruled this country and their spouses as culprits thus donning us with a toga of corruption-tolerant nation. Out of the 80 Nigerian past and present leaders listed as having soiled their hands in the Halliburton scandal, only 0% of them, except the few small fries that were arraigned in court and have since being discharged. Of the $180million dollar Halliburton bribe money, $110million was taken during the reign of former President Obasanjo, yet no anti-graft agency has ever queried the old soldier for neither his role in that embarrassment nor his role in his wastage of more than one trillion naira on power project within his nine years of ruining Nigeria all in the name of democracy.
Although President Goodluck Jonathan promised the Nigerian masses fresh air at his coming, raising the hope of many, that the dividend of democracy would get down to them. It is however unfortunate that the reverse is the case. Though Goodluck Jonathan would want Nigerians to believe his government is working assiduously to combat the endemic corruption, but a closer look shows that the government’s romance with people of questionable character constitutes the major form of corruption in the country. As a matter of fact, the government has penchant for condoning corruption without recourse to the feeling of an average Nigerian.The cabinet of President Jonathan is replete with many individuals that have been accused or indicted of corruption. The Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah was indicted of corrupt practices over her purchase of two bulletproof cars at a whooping sum of N225million. Many well meaning
Nigerians urged that she be relieved of her position before she could cause more damage to the comatose aviation sector and already corruption-smeared image of Nigeria. This is because her actions and pronouncements after the Associated Airplane crashed on 3 October, 2013 showed that Ms. Oduah is only out to trade the safety of Nigerians for her parochial and selfish interest. It also showed that she aids, abets and protects perpetrators of corruption in the Nigerian Aviation Industry instead of leading the crusade against the menace.
Despite the public outcry, the indictment and the recommendation of the National Assembly that Ms. Oduah be relieved of her duty, it is unfortunate that the woman still oversees the Aviation Ministry while the government pretends as if nothing has happened.
Her Petroleum Ministry counterpart too, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has been accused of reckless abuse of office, wastage of the nation’s resources under the guise of performing her official functions, engagement in questionable deals, connivance with some oil and gas multinationals to rob Nigeria of large chunk of money, direct stealing of the nation’s money, using her position and siphoning the nation’s earnings to foreign lands for personal interests to which the country is reported to have lost billions of dollars. So much noise has been made from various quarters which even include that of the House of Representatives, without any significant response whatsoever. An invitation from the hallowed chambers to the minister was not honoured. This confirmed the insinuation that there exists a clique of the “untouchables” in Jonathan’s government to which some of these people probably belong.
As if that was not enough, it took the Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido to expose some shenanigans being perpetrated by the cesspit of official corruption in Nigeria otherwise known as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). It was Sanusi’s revelation that forced some of the agencies under the watch of Mrs. Madueke to render some accounts that were hitherto concealed from the radar of the apex bank, albeit without being able to convince Nigerians that the money made from the sale of crude goes into the national treasury.
More so, what kind of democracy is it where a police officer, Joseph Mbu, is pampered to the extent that he equated himself to an elected sitting government? It took agitation by the opposition and the civil populace to reverse the insanity which has put democratic experience in the reverse gear.
The government has failed the mass of Nigerian people plunging many into chaotic situation. Sincerely speaking, the democracy we tout is more of mere civil rule with the Nigerian elites putting their cronies in power to serve their selfish purposes. It is preposterous that the government at the centre and in some states in the country run elitist government. This is at the detriment of the Nigerian masses. The apathetic attitude of our so called democratically elected leaders to the plights of the common man is worse than the military boys’. Our youths have taken to crimes because of lack of gainful employment. Many are living from hand to mouth because of penury foisted on us by our leaders’ kleptomaniac nature.
It is so sad that our government both at state and federal levels have lost focus completely. When the Federal Government should be chasing and prosecuting elastic criminals that steal in hundreds of billions, it is busy chasing most feeble Boko Haram and militant who took to crimes because of the wickedness of our leaders, both past and present. The government in Lagos State is busy destroying people’s means of livelihood and ensuring that mass of the people are driven away from the city to the hinterlands. I wonder how a government that cannot provide good jobs could have the temerity of destroying what people created themselves.
As we congregate today to celebrate our departed hero, the Beko Rights Klub unequivocally condemn the unbridled corruption that has characterized the democratic process since 1999.
This was not the democracy that Beko thought of, hoped and died for. The greatest tribute all of us can pay to the memory of Bekololari Ransome-Kuti is to destroy the power base of the political buccaneers of this country and make it impossible for them to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth in our desperate faces. The fight must continue but has to be fiercer and more daring. Mass organizations must arise, mobilize and dismantle the organized political brigandage in this country. In this onerous task, we stretch forth our hands of fellowship to collaborate with all selfless, patriotic individuals and organizations that are willing and determined to set Nigeria free from leadership-inflicted backwardness, underdevelopment and penury. We seize this opportunity to call on all Nigerians of means and conscience to actively support us on this noble agenda. Because we cannot perpetually depend on external benevolence in the name of grants to fight a battle that is totally ours.
Long live Nigeria!
Long live the great masses of this country!
Long live the memory of Beko!
