- As Gov Yuguda shot himself in the foot
Prior to his appointment in 2010 as FCT Minister, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed was a wretched senator loitering the corridors of FCT ministries in search of non-existing contracts for his quest to get rich quick no matter how. Even though I personally didn’t know him very well then I bluntly told my elder brother, the Bauchi State Governor Mallam Isa Yuguda, that he has insisted on a wrong person to become the senator of their zone and I saw Bala’s unflinching ‘loyalty’ to him (Yuguda) then as not only fake but highly questionable and one that will fade over time because certain overzealousness and loyalty by aides and associates are often questionable and fake especially the type Bala has been demonstrating to Yuguda then. But I really don’t know why politicians generally fall into such deceptive and fake loyalty. Do you call it a nemesis too on the part of the masters may be for betraying the electorates or for performing far below average? Certainly for every evil or it’s like there must be divine nemesis one day. That is why in states like Borno it is the political godson that hitherto cannot seat in the same chair with Sen. Ali Sheriff or his wife due to ‘respect and loyalty’ that eventually became his political nemesis and literarily ousted him prematurely from politics after being at the helm of who becomes what in Borno for over a decade. But unlike the case of Bauchi, Governor Kashim Shettima has actually sacrificed so much including Borno’s resources to show ‘gratitude’ and extreme loyalty to Ali Sheriff but because Allah has resolved to teach Sheriff a lesson for always playing God and behaving as if he holds the key to life and death, the ‘little’ Shettima eventually became his nemesis.
From my analysis even then and because I saw how he (Bala Muhammad) was doing to win Yuguda’s favour and support by all means to be elected as a senator, Bala’s behaviour looks exactly the type of person that can worship his fellow human being even against Allah’s wishes to get what he wants. That was in fact exactly what he did to convince the skeptical Yuguda that he is indeed very loyal and will never betray him. But the rest is now history as events of the last few years and the recent embarrassing PDP presidential campaign in Bauchi and its aftermath between the two gladiators has proven some of us right.
Bala Muhammad took same advantage of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s health controversy, knowing very well and craftily too that Jonathan will be the end beneficiary if the then vice president Jonathan was given full presidential powers and if he eventually became substantive president because it has became clear to all that Yar’Adua’s sickness was indeed terminal. Bala went against the north targeting what he is dreaming of. And eventually it worked well for him because Jonathan did not only become the acting president with full presidential powers but also the president after the anticipated demise of Yar’Adua. As he demonstrated to Governor Yuguda over the years and won his innocent heart so he used the same method of deceptive loyalty and the use of sorcerers deployed to Jonathan and his powerful wife, Dame Patience to win their heart. At a point insiders say he became the spiritual consultant of the First Lady because of his alleged ability to play ‘miracles’ to her. Some say there was even a time Bala remove his head from his body and placed it on the table for Mrs. Jonathan and since then he was not only a spiritual consultant to the bewildered Mrs. Jonathan but one she took as a dummy god.
The ‘shrewd’ Bala has done his home work very well. He knows that Mr. Jonathan can be easily penetrated through his overbearing wife and that all he needed to do was to be a good ‘son’ to her and to love her and Jonathan more than his own biological parents which he did albeit mischievously and deceptively; the same strategy done to Yuguda in the past. And he succeeded because eventually as we are gradually seeing today and with the admission of Jonathan himself, the likes of Bala can eventually become their nemesis despite the undue favour they got while in power.
Eventually and even though Dame Patience Jonathan was the de facto supervising minister of the FCT under Bala (because he got the lucrative portfolio at her instance), the ‘shrewd’ Bala and his Director of Treasury Operation, DoT, Ibrahim Bomoi, got more billions for themselves in the FCTA than what Patience collectively got during the period even though the FCTA became one of her major conduit pipes as the First Lady and the de facto minister of the FCT. It is now becoming very clear to Mrs. Jonathan but regrettably too late that the housing estates, the multi billion naira farm etc Bala siphoned for her through the massive loot of the FCTA treasury is just a tip of the iceberg compared to what he and Bomoi craftily got for themselves for being good and loyal children. That is why the likes of Yuguda and a retired federal perm sec, Alhaji Abubakar Mamu, who played significant role in the life of Bala and the billionaire he was today are no longer his bosses. In fact, time will soon come when Bala will challenge both Mr. Jonathan and his wife just like what he did to Yuguda especially if Gen. Buhari will play alone, God forbid.
Mr. Jonathan certainly knows those from his cabinet he is referring to when during a recent Church service he emphasized on betrayal and abandonment from friends and close aides. And certainly it serves him right in view of the blood of innocent Nigerians that were lost due to corruption under his watch. “But I used to say that worse statements will come. If you take certain decisions, you should know that those close to you will even abandon you at some point”.
Jonathan rightly said “And I tell them that more of my so-called friends will disappear. When FW De Clark took the decision to abolish minority rule in RSA, even his wife divorced him. I hope my wife will not divorce me”. I am sure Jonathan too will be later surprise if he discovered the billions that were stolen by the likes of Bala, Diezani and the ‘experienced’ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala whom from Jonathan’s perspective are the best brains and materials that can handle the job they woefully failed to deliver in six years.
I’m sure in view of what many of us have Bala’s recent ranting that he is ready to stand trial or to be probed by the Buhari government is just for public show because I am very much certain that after or before May 29th, Bala and the likes of the Gombe State born minister of transport will be amongst those that will disappear from Nigeria. But wherever they go insha Allah they will be extradited to face multiple cases of economic crimes against the Nigerian state which the current EFCC under an equally corrupt Ibrahim Lamorde ignored or downplayed.
No doubt Bala was adjudged the worst senator ever elected from Bauchi State and about to be recalled before President Jonathan for the same reason stated above appointed him a minister for exploiting the opinion of others when Jonathan was desperate to replace the late President YarAdu’a.
Bala assumed office with a prepared mindset not on how to serve Nigerians to justify the appointment and trust but on how to amass wealth through dubiousness and other criminal ways alien to the FCDA, including serving the personal interest of Jonathan and his appendage, Patience Faka Jonathan.
He, however, forgot the day of reckoning to every misdeed. Many opine that had Jonathan directed a drug test on most of those he appointed as ministers and other aides, probably majority could not have qualified for the positions offered.
To perfect his stay in the ‘good’ books of President Jonathan, Bala was seen to have steadily moved closer for executive protection to his like mind, Patience Faka Jonathan, for unabated corrupt practices and abuse of power with his new discovered friend, Ibrahim Bomoi, who holds a first-class in executive pilferage, forgery of official financial documents and perfection of corruption. Bomoi is one individual in whose dictionary the word decency has been deleted also from in his way of life. With the aid of Bomoi, Bala suddenly acquired wealth suspected to be from dubious source(s) including direct extortion from genuine FCT land applicants. As a village tyrant, he foolishly started to rate himself as an accomplished personality that was qualified to aspire to govern Bauchi State. His first target was to curry favor from the Muslim community (Izalah sect) by investing part of the acquired filthy wealth on places of worship displaying his ignorance on what the Almighty God says on illegal wealth. The Almighty God forbids investing anything illegally acquired on Islam or Muslims. Bala thought he could deceive the Almighty through investing in places of worship to achieve his hidden agenda of fronting for Patience in Bauchi state as her stooge-governor. He invested same in Darika mosque vintage Kaduna.
Not satisfied, he moved to please the Christian community in Bauchi state by redeeming a 2012 pledge of a vehicle to Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The Christian community had earlier requested for his assistance with an 18-seater bus and seats for Jerusalem in his capacity as minister. While Bala was fooling himself thinking he was pleasing the people in preparation for his aspiration, the man who knows his antecedents and saved him from poverty (Yuguda), was also planning how to save Bauchi State from falling into his hands.
There was a time Governor Yuguda personally called to sympathise with me after the FCT Minister instigated and bankrolled my arrest and detention for 16 days by the police. I’m not surprise that the governor also lamented to me how Bala betrayed his trust but I was quick to ask him before the short conversation ended that “Your Excellency I hope Bala will not succeed you as the governor of Bauchi State?” His reply was emphatic and almost immediate. The governor is alive today. He told me he thank Allah that the true colours of Bala has emerged otherwise he will never forgive himself even if by omission or commission he helps Bala to succeed him as Bauchi State Governor. ‘It will be disastrous for the state,’ he said. And I’m happy that even though most people did not know Yuguda played the key role in frustrating the gubernatorial ambition of Bala and he ensured that despite his initial spending, Bala remains irrelevant and disqualified himself out of frustration and lack of hope from the guber race. That to me even though is silent and many more that Yuguda has done behind the scene to stop the likes of Bala, he deserves the credit.
The FCT minister started his aspiration under the aegis of a tribal union which was rejected by majority of his tribal folk. He quickly changed style to use religion which also failed to support him.
The beauty of it all is that the people whom he tried to govern like Yuguda also know his source(s) of sudden wealth and were not prepared to support the extension of corrupt practices to their state. Most movers and shakers of the state polity played him for their share of the loot while strategizing to cause his defeat.
As a political novice, he was quick to embark on indiscriminate allocation of plots in the FCT to his would be ardent supporters and coordinators. Selected members of the out-going 7th National Assembly from Bauchi State were allocated plots without requests so also selected members of Bauchi State PDP executive council members apart from some self-appointed major stakeholders in the PDP.
While the criminality was on-going, Yuguda kept silent watching how the game could be played without his endorsement. Selected miscreants with criminal records were on Bala’s payroll and made regular visits to Abuja for directives on how to overheat the polity through indecent behaviors while hired wand writers were supported to heap insults and abuses on the person of Yuguda including portraying him as anti-Jonathan as if Jonathan has any special stake in Bauchi State.
To insult the intelligence of the people and in the absence of any tangible achievement of the chased-away Jonathan administration in Bauchi State, Bala said at a public function that, “one of the achievements of the Goodluck administration in Bauchi State is my appointment as a minister for five years, the appointments of Dr. Musa Babayo and Professor Suleiman Bogoro as chairman and executive secretary of Tetfund. That statement clearly shows the level of sycophancy Bala has attained apart from equating Patience with his maternal mother.
Today, the day of reckoning is approaching. Plots allocated to fronts, commandeered, stored in AGIS etc shall be exposed. Contracts awarded without tender, EFCC connivance, the manipulation and highly technical diversion of funds that are being generated internally by the Bomois etc shall be exposed. Public funds stolen and stashed in foreign accounts shall be exposed. Mansions donated to the likes of Edwin Clark and some security agents, shall be exposed. Nigerians are waiting for May 29th to kick-start the call for retrieval. FCT plots of land and contracts were the targets.
Whatever will be done to the likes of Bala Muhammad, Ibrahim Bomoi etc for their various roles in corrupt enrichment and abuse of office by the incoming government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari cannot be a persecution as President Jonathan wants the highly educated nation to believe. Any serious government that will close its eyes and just draw a line from some of the most massive and insensitive atrocities committed against Nigeria and it’s poor people by some officials of the outgoing regime because it doesn’t want to be seen as vindictive or ‘persecuting’ former officials to borrow the words of Jonathan, cannot be seen to be serious in either fighting corruption or bringing the change that brought it to power. After all, going by well documented records, Jonathan’s six years misrule is the most vindictive, authoritarian in dealing with oppositions and having the highest records of official impunity and persecution. To mention just a few recent ones, the treatment of Speaker Aminu Tambuwal for the ‘offense’ of dumping the PDP, the Amaechi treatment in Rivers, the pain suffered by Governor Kashim Shettima in the hands of Jonathan’s puppet, Ali Sheriff, the impunity deployed to stop Emir Sanusi from assuming the mantle of Kano traditional leadership and how he was sacked as the CBN Governor, the Ekiti election saga and the role of Jonathan’s minister of state for Defence, the Murtala Nyako impeachment saga and many other acts of impunity and persecution committed by the same government that is now afraid to be subjected to public and official scrutiny.
So if the statement of President Jonathan and as he rightly stated too that, “So for ministers and aides who served with me, I sympathise with them, they will be persecuted. And they must be ready for that persecution”, is anything to go by because he knows that the time of reckoning is fast approaching, the much that was hidden by the likes of Bala Abdulkadir Muhammad over the last six years will be revealed and be made known to Nigerians to establish a clear case of treason against them and to repatriate for Nigeria as much as what the new government can from their looted wealth for the purpose of repositioning Nigeria. The Buhari I know is certainly capable of doing more than that for the country he fought with his blood to ensure it is one, united, good and prosperous.
I will for now allow the likes of Bala Muhammad and Bomoi to prepare their ‘defences’ to the incoming government so as to justify the assets and billions they and their wives, children, brothers and relatives amazed in the last six years, and will resume shortly after May 29th if Allah wish we are alive to justify to the world too that as public servants or civil servants in Nigeria or anywhere in the world there is NO emoluments or entitlement attached to their office(s) that will make them that rich perhaps richer as individuals than many states in Nigeria today. But I want to say lastly for the record that my staying in Dubai up to this moment is not because I am afraid of any of them but is out of genuine respect for many of our elders that feel my life is no longer safe under these desperate criminals and that since they see me as a threat and with the desperation they have shown to implicate me by all means they will stop at nothing to do more once they get the opportunity. I thank them for all their support.
