THE WRONG FOUNDATION

They are the most elite of bourgeois. Conventional wisdom rates them as our nation's grim reapers. It's acknowledged that Nigerians are burdened and belaboured with layers of them. Larger than life immoral graffiti announce the sad activities of this lecherous cabal. Our compatriots are cursed and covered with multitudes of them.

Various and vociferous, they are sore pains and serious plagues afflicting our peace and polity.

Numerous and nimble, they have for decades maintained a ceaseless, wicked suzerainty over Nigeria. An occupation, ossifying and ostentatious force, their stranglehold remains a tight rein. Across the architecture of public life and private pursuit, nothing within and in-between is sacred before these misbegotten and mischievous devourers.

From the bedroom to the boardroom, people consider them to be coarse, crude, criminal and cantankerous. Religious but remote, gorgeously attired but naked, materially rich but morally poor, Nigeria to them is one unfortunate cow that must be milked to death.

Vicious and vengeful demagogues, they sponsored musical jamborees and generously gave out naira laden Ghana Must Go Bagsto help two military dictators to rule Nigeria forever! Malevolent and malcontent, they also walked the canvass of the National Assembly hawking oil blocks for an Ogun State born military-politico pseudo democrat who dearly wanted an unconstitutional third term coronation. But disgrace and disappointment waylaid them!

The baleful activities of these agents of darkness span across military and civilian dictatorships. A few of them are decorated with Ph.ds [Doctor of philosophy} while many of them wear garlands signposted with Ph.d {Pull him/her down}. These bootlicking mockers wash the bleached feet of First Ladies and bribe their hubris husbands with billion naira libraries and village churches. Extortionists and executioners, they are hard of hearing and hazy of sight. Men and women of beastly mien, they are echeloned in every strata of our national life.

Representatively, I call these predatory Brahmins My Oga At The Top! Heartless and hellish, they are a catastrophe tormenting millions of “suffering and smiling” Nigerians. Years after Fela's seminal best seller of the same title, majority of Nigerians now live on less than one US dollar daily! Given the magnitude of poverty, inflation, unemployment, homelessness and hopelessness in the land now, the Abami Eda spoke too soon.

These indecent oppressors of Nigerians have a locust mentality. Hordes of spendthrifts, these grasshoppers darkened the sunlight of democracy, constitutionalism, good governance, merit, due process and accountability. The magisterial St. Augustine prophesied about them when he reasoned that without good administration, “the state is but a band of robbers, enlarged.”The tragedy of my beloved country is the absence of good administrations.

These My Oga At The Top constitute our nation's leadership which the late Professor Chinua Achebe vilified as “The Problem With Nigeria.”In effect, they are soul mates of Pietro Aretino who remained unrepentant: “Even when I'm railed at, I get my quota of venom.” These venomous scourges of Nigeria are the traditional, religious, military, political, cultural, industrial, financial, governmental, occultic and whimsical power brokers.

They posit as northern elemental powers, South-South principalities, Odua ultra nationalists, mercurial money loving Igbo businessmen, the proverbial, but discreet Kaduna and Langtang mafias, top political party apparatchiks, highly placed civil service bureaucrats, yesterday's resource control activists now transformed into emergency billionaires, hard drugs shoguns, prostitution and human trafficking gurus, beneficiaries of oil blocks, faceless refinery TAM contractors, leaders of the national and state houses of assemblies, all the president's men, Oga Madam in the N4 billion “Mission House” who's also a Permanent Secretary in Bayelsa State and also the First Lady of Nigeria, Her Extra Majestic Excellency Chief, Dr, Lolo, Worigida, Iyawo and Mrs “Pepe” Her Goodluck Jonathan. Cluster bombs of selfishness and gross corruption, they have covered Nigeria with filth. Everything: Schools, churches, mosques, public service, governments, political parties, the “creative industries,” public and private sectors have been scarred by their inferno.

These evils have no idea that no pillow is softer than clear conscience! If viewed as sermon or homily, the life of a typical My Oga At The Top is a terrible disaster. His/her disposition in secular or ecclesiastical office is miles away from his profession of fidelity while seeking that office. Because he has no better model or assurance than himself or his political party or godfather, he has no incentive to better his morals and conduct. As a result, Nigeria is leaning on crutches.

My Oga At The Tophas no idea that the best room is the room for self improvement! When it suits him, he invokes unity at the expense of truth. At his convenience, justice is sacrificed on the altar of togetherness. Depending on his mood, blithe may replace respect. For a morsel of bread, nationalism is overlaid with tribal considerations. Nigeria instead of being bonded and bounded by morality, nationalism, merit and constitutionalism has been overthrown by banditry, terrorism, graft, nepotism and lawlessness.

Finally, My Oga At The Top has a rich template of funny characters: Boko Haram terrorists, OPC diehards, oil theft vandals, kidnapping kingpins, armed robbery syndicates, human sacrifice practitioners, hard drugs specialists, counterfeit and fake drugs elites, smuggling barons, political patronage system beneficiaries, apostles of Any Government in Power {AGIP}, renegade men and women of God, collaborating foreigners and their companies, corporate treasury raiders, judicial rascals, sellers of black market injunctions, serving military top guns, fuel subsidy thieves, chairmen of political parties and their BOTs, police pension fund rogues, certificate forgers, vote riggers, well endowed southern Kaduna and Shuwa Arab girlfriends/concubines of rich and powerful men.

Additionally, there is a Madonna sized First Lady's Empire staffed with sheepish acolytes faithfully liaising with presidential attack lions to protect her power and privilege eternally. In Nigeria, we also have the privileged office of First Son {Ibrahim and Mohammed Abacha, Gbenga Obasanjo}, First Daughter {Iyabo Obasanjo and Aisha Babangida}, First Concubine {Balogun had a prominent Lagos and Abuja hotelier of Itsekhiri ancestry}, First In-law {Yar Adua's daughters married only governors!} and First Assassin {Al Mustapha, Sergeant Rogers} etc. My Oga At The Top are not bothered that violence straddles Nigeria: Of self, group, culture, corporate, class, tribe, sex, religion and gender. It's not his business that the nation is enveloped in poverty, fear, squalor, unemployment and darkness.

1914 – 2013: THE CALIPHATE CENTURY
From the beginning, the Nigeria Project was rigged to fail. This reality still stands. Any scheme for solving today's tense challenges must recognise and employ this prescriptive antidote. From 1914 to this day, the northern, Islamic, feudal and most powerful axis of Nigeria's various My Oga At The Top segment resented and still disdains any idea of unity or equality, but political doublespeak pretends otherwise.

The Sokoto Caliphate didn't and still don't perceive Nigeria as one nation except for revenue sharing purposes from the federation account. Islamization of the whole country by violent Jihad is still the eternal goal of the Caliphate which perceives the South to be defiled. The Caliphate principle is that Nigeria must be an Islamic State governed by the Sharia. Conservative Jihadist Caliphate ideologues resent secular education {especially for females}; westernisation, free press and egalitarianism.

They see these ideals as utopian ideas which foolish southerners inherited from the British colonialists. Nigeria is really a country of mistake, mismatch, misrepresentation and misinterpretation and the past one hundred years has been the Hausa Fulani century of domination by indirect occupation.

The amalgamation of North and South on January 1, 1914, favoured the former. It buoyed its finances just as the South's oil wealth is today controlled by oligarchic northerners. Nigeria got independence on the timetable of the North. The first Republic was on their watch. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, their eloquent spokesman was prime minister. The civil war was their preserve. The post civil war rulership from General Gowon to General “the Gypsy” Sanni Abacha was their era.

From Uthman Dan Fodio's 1804 Jihad to Boko Haram's current terrorist insurgency, zealous Caliphate evangelists have ambushed, maimed, killed, raped, slaughtered, slew, burnt, bombed, hijacked, destroyed and desecrated women, girls, men, families, marriages, houses, churches, communities, businesses, destinies, careers, dreams, visions and aspirations. Uthman bin Fudi, the Suslov of the Fulani Jihad decreed that Nigeria must be attired in the religious and political garb of the Caliphate. Between 1966 and 2013 specifically, they have swam in a river of the blood of non-Islamic northern minorities and Igbos. While the sitting Caliph His Eminence Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar 111, the Sultan of Sokoto and Amir al-Muminum of the Caliphate peacefully opens mosques and Koranic recitation contests in Aba, Abia State, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State and Auchi, Edo State without harassment, Christians are hounded and harried in his Caliphate and churches are burnt under his nose.

The mannerism and message of Boko Haram, a whizkid of Al Qaeda and the Taliban massages the libido of Hausa Fulani irredentism, imperialism and occupation. Amnesty International may call for compensation for victims of the sect's destructive Islamization wars, but the Sultan didn't. General Muhammadu Buhari, Dr Junaid Mohammed, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Emir-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other Caliphate bluebloods didn't. And this correspondent isn't surprised because when the leopard is the judge, the goat will not get a fair hearing! Boko Haram, the striking arm of the Caliphate has in mind Osama Bin Ladin's Fatwah of February 23, 1998 which commanded an eternal Jihad against Christians and Jews.

At the beginning of Nigeria's history, it was so! In 1942, the Council of Northern Emirs warned the West African Student's Union {WASU}: “Holding this country together is not possible except by means of the Prophet. If they want political unity, let them follow our religion.” The students wanted to throw away colonial overlords, but the Caliphate offered them another chance at slavery! In 1944, the stubborn students called on the Sultan and he reiterated that the only path for political unity was for every Nigerian to become Muslims. During a 1948 legislative session, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, later to emerge as the Caliphate's prime minister of Nigeria spoke to all people who were hard of hearing: “Nigerian unity is only a British intention for the country. Many deceive themselves by thinking that Nigeria is one, particularly the press people.

This is wrong. I am sorry to say that this presence of unity is artificial and it ends outside this chamber.”From reading Balewa's lips, it's certain that amalgamation was a failed project, ab initio! You may update the Hausa Fulani megaphone to mean that President Goodluck Jonathan's “presence of unity ends outside this {his Aso Rock} chamber!” The Parrotnewspaper truly lived up to its name in its October 12, 1960 edition. In it, the Sardauana of Sokoto, Premier of Northern Nigeria and the de facto prime minister of Nigeria growled: “The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to have control over their future.”

The coming of Dr Goodluck Jonathan to the presidency upset the north greatly. Consciously and concertedly, Boko Haram Islamic group which was hitherto not on a terrorist mission was hijacked and re-designed by northern politicians to pulverise “the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to have control over their future.” Before his unfortunate assassination in 1966, the Sardauna vowed: “The father of enlightenment and good in this land was the Prophet, Uthman Dan Fodio and the work of salvation for all the people which he so nobly undertook has now been handed to me.

I dedicate myself to its completion.” In other words, he inherited from Uthman Dan Fodio the mandate of subjugating the South. This is why Boko Haram is a dedicated living cell working on this resuscitated joint desire of Uthman Dan Fodio and Ahmadu Bello. Many conclusions are evident from this revelation: 1. Caliphate princes see Nigeria as their patrimony. 2. Regime change from the North to the South is a Haram, an abomination, a forbidden fruit that must never be allowed. 3. Northern Christians and non Hausa Fulanis are seen by the Caliphate lens as indentured slaves, wood breakers and water fetchers. 4.

A Nazi occupation with an Islamic flag should be foistered on the troublesome southerners eternally. 5. The Boko Haram terrorists are the true heirs of Uthman Dan Fodio's spirit and the Sardauna's philosophy. 6. The nihilism of the murderous sect is actually a fulfilment of a long cherished, still dominant Hausa Fulani agenda: Enthronement of Islam as Nigeria's only official religion! The Caliphate's My Oga At The Top wants to return us to the Uthman Dan Fodio status quo and rule Nigeria till the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Power and privilege, not merit and fairness, is the currency of their perception especially with regard to public office. There's a strong streak of snobbery and gargantuan conceit in the average Hausa Fulani blueblood.

The result is that Nigerians are now sacrificial offerings in a political battle of wicked, prurient, diabolical, political Boko Haram murderers. For challenging the dream of Hausa Fulani domination, for obstructing the vision of Alhaji Ahmadu Bello to conquer and subjugate the South, President Jonathan's government has been made redundant by Boko Haram, the Caliphate's striking force. An Arab proverb has it that “victory is not gained by the number killed, but by the number frightened.”

And millions of Nigerians and foreigners are very frightened: Nigeria's First Family, his Aso Rock office and residence, state governors, ministers, commissioners and the Sultan of Sokoto. HRM Alhaji Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano is surely afraid today. The revered, old monarch was bombed on January 26, 2013, as he left a Quranic graduation ceremony in Masalacin Murtala area of the famous metropolis. Three valiant palace guards and his driver died to save his life. His first son, Sanusi Ado Bayero was gravely wounded in the terrorist attack.

The Shehu of Borno who by grace survived a surprised attack in a palace mosque lives in fear of Boko Haram insurgency. General Mohammed Shuwa, a much decorated soldier and hero of the Nigeria civil war was killed by the Islamic nihilists last year. On May 2, 2013, Alhaji Shettima Ali Monguno, an ex-petroleum minister was kidnapped by the Jihadist crusaders. The nation in general and the council of Borno Elders particularly are sore afraid about the health of the venerable 92 year old elder statesman. Millions of northern and southern Christians, NYSC corps members, military men, security personnel, foreign diplomatic personnel in Lagos and Abuja, construction workers, tourists, artistes, writers, journalists, businessmen and businesswomen, parents and their children, our West African neighbours plus the international community are afraid. The presidency is afraid which informs President Jonathan's frozen melancholy after each episode of Boko Haram bombing.

The nation heard from the president's lips that there are “Boko Haram members within the cabinet,” which makes his assertion of Boko Haram facelessness a farce. Nigerian security and military chiefs are afraid which was why the JTF levelled Baga town with the loss of many innocent lives. The stunned lethargy of Aso Rock is the real nightmare of Nigerians which was also why this correspondent's Facebook note of December 31, 2012, voted Boko Haram as the MAN OF THE YEAR 2012.The revelation by the voluble Dr Doyin Okupe, the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity that security and military agencies foiled Boko Haram's plans to bring down the presidential plane during his visit to Borno State in March 2013 unnerved the nation.

1960 – 2013: THE UNCASHABLE PROMISSORY NOTES OF My Oga At The Top TO NIGERIANS

The Nigeria Project has been one hundred years of gross ineptitude. Continuity as a nation has not necessarily graduated into developmental, political, industrial, commercial and technological progress. In the beginning of the 21st century, My Oga At The Top assailed our ears with promises of food, housing, jobs, health care, education, water and security for all by the year 2010. It declared that the MDGs will be met. Later, it realised that it spoke too soon and the target date was shifted to year 2020.

With just seven years to the adjusted date, any affirmation of meeting the MDG targets will be a mockery of the laudable efforts of serious minded nations dedicated to attaining them. Shortage of power; road, rail and water transportation, gender inequality, lack of transparent political process and honest representative government, convoluted educational system, jaundiced judiciary, run-away corruption and lack lustre leadership are issues that bedevil our attempts at development. Nigerian elites never heard Mahatma Gandhi's advice: “We must become the change we seek.” Consequently, our country is not a worker's paradise or a petroleum subsidy thief, Islamic terrorist, kidnapper or embezzler's nightmare!

Fortunately for My Oga At The Top, President Goodluck Jonathan is indeed lucky in incoherence, incompetence and indecisiveness. Instead of bringing an iconoclastic fresh perspective to the cloistered world of Nigeria's corrupt politicians, he's in bed with “Mr Fix It” Anenih, DSP Alamieyeseigha, Doyin Okupe etc. President Jonathan closed his ears to the admonition of Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16thcentury Florentine statesman and scholar.

This wily observer said that “the first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” Many occupants of President Jonathan's inner sanctum will fail this test. Chief Tony Anenih, the PDP's taciturn “Mr Fix It,” a master tactician may not have flair or colour, but he has a very essential know-how: How to win elections before voting commences! The pardon of Alamieyeseigha, President Jonathan's Oga At The Top and ex-governor of his Bayelsa home state who was convicted in the UK for money laundering and was impeached in Nigeria made people to throw up.

But his 2015 presidential ambition fuelled the clemency of Alamieyeseigha, the Governor General of the Ijaw nation. Fundamentally flawed, insensitive, duplicitous characters; poverty, hopelessness, maternal and infant mortality, decay, division, frustration, crises, shame, stagnation, backwardness and strife are the reward that Nigerians have received from the tenuous hold on power of My Oga At The Top.

There's no foundation for any traceable transparency and genuine success in our polity because integrity has not married the rhetoric and pronounced intention of these elites. Jonathan's shinny biography, political career and experience have shown that a well prepared CV is not necessarily evidence of leadership skills. Because the federal government is in dysfunctional capacity, Nigeria is on a “one chance” journey. But choice, not chance, determines destiny.

The destiny of the nation can be gauged from the ways and manners of the First Family. On September 3, 2012, a national newspaper reported that Her Excellency the Permanent Secretary plus First and Missionary Lady Dr. {Mrs}“Pepe”Jonathan had travelled to Horst Schmidt Klinik, Wiesbaden, Germany, the same facility where late President Umaru Yar'Adua was a patient for kidney related challenge.

A day later, online portal Sahara Reporters agreed that she had been in Germany for four days and was being treated for “food poisoning” which she allegedly contracted in Dubai 11 days before. A swift rebuttal came from the presidency that she was only resting abroad. Presidential spokesman Dr Reuben Abati termed the story “a rumour and there is nothing like that.” Her spokesman Ayo Osinlu claimed that her German trip was a “moment's rest,” adding that “in the course of this week, she will be back home.”

It was not to be. Mrs Jonathan only returned home six weeks later to a great airport carnival featuring federal ministers, special advisers, Aso Rock staff, her hangers on, presidential spin masters and amused, vigilant newsmen. At the airport reception, a joyous Mrs Jonathan rejoiced that “God has given me a second chance.” Her so-called rest period was in her words a “trial time.” She was disturbed that some “bad people” claimed that she went for plastic surgery or stomach operation. Innocent journalists who rightly reported the situation were blamed for hoarding essential information that the presidency and her office mismanaged. Some of her trusted allies turned traducers and hurriedly sold off some of her choice assets.

A sultry, sordid, sumptuous multi-million thanksgiving {task giving?} service later hosted by the First Family in Aso Villa revealed the devious nature of the nation's First Family and the can of worms in the presidential press corps. In an inglorious somersault, the bosomy lady admitted that she literarily died many times over in a German theatre table! Her Excellency revealed that she actually passed out during surgery! For seven whole days, the First Lady was unconscious! Double speak never had more eloquence in the First Family! This correspondent can't tell how Aso Rock attack lions feasted on her admission.

The lead lion, Dr Doyin Okupe is a heady, cross bred bulldog of misplaced knowledge, nebulous expertise, soured continuity, devilish sophistication and false pretence to accountability. This tour de farce with many unanswered corruption charges ought to be very far from every avenue of public office.

The headstrong impetuous naivety of presidential attack lions and governorship press minders has hamstrung the nation. Dr Reuben Abati, President Jonathan's chief press secretary was the chairman, editorial board of the Guardian newspapers whose motto is “conscience nurtured by truth.” Does Abati's conscience prick him now? In our looking glass world, simple but unpalatable truths are washed away.

President Jonathan has surrounded himself with vile men of inessential ideological weakness, immorality, insensitivity and inhumanity. The same denial drama happened in the life Stella Obasanjo. In 2005, the First Lady stole into Spain for a tommy tuck job, a bewildered Nigerian public learnt.

Things went awry and an incompetent Spanish physician was later jailed for placing a tube in a wrong place that resulted in her death. While President Yar' Adua was dying, his press handlers and Rasputins proclaimed him to be the healthiest Nigerian alive! While he dissolved into invisibility, his kitchen cabinet announced him as the clearest star in the heavens.

Even as he was ensconced unconscious in King Fahd Hospital, Saudi Arabia, presidential marabouts located him working and sporting 24/7 in Aso Rock. As Nigerians struggled to remember what he looked like, Aso Rock stargazers saw him at the National Mosque, Abuja. Then finally, the man died unseen! Our nation was to see a lesser drama repeated in Sullivan Chime, the Enugu State governor who was out of the country for four months. After filibustering from his office and denial from his commissioner for information, Chime owned up to the open secret of his illness.

The same fate gripped Cross River State for months over the health and absence of Liyel Imoke, the governor. Taraba State governor Danbaba Suntai has been AWOL in a German hospital for about eight months now. The First Family and these governors spent tax payer's funds abroad for many months, sick and dying while the nation and their states were lied to. Thus officialdom's denials and evasion shows leadership oscillation between duty and abdication, between impetuosity and naivety. Men greatly gifted with prodigious appetite for intrigue, deception, lies, propaganda and subterfuge plus its evil results now hold sway in Aso Rock and Wadata House,the national headquarters of the ruling party. According to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur its national chairman, the “PDP is all about entitlements. We compensate those who lose elections.”

CORRUPTION IS NOW A DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLE OF STATE POLICY IN NIGERIA

In the 1960s, corruption was appalling. In the 1970s, it was alienating. In the 1980s, it became appealing. In the 1990s, it became alluring. By the 2000s, it assumed a glorious dimension. Now, the more you steal, the more opportunities for you to get plea bargain, clemency, amnesty, pardon or national award! In Nigeria today, corruption is a celebrity quotient in the public and private sectors, the judiciary, armed, police and security forces, paramilitary organisations, politics, education and religious circles. In the 1960s, many people stole thousands of pounds. In the 1970s, a few people embezzled millions of naira.

In the 1980s, many Nigerians pocketed millions of naira. In the 1990s, a few thieves made away with billions of naira. By the early 2000s, more rogues began to help themselves to many billions of naira. Today, many privileged, politically connected hardened embezzlers routinely and brazenly loot frightening billions of naira from our national purse. Miraculously, a dubious plea bargain smuggled into our justice system ensures that they retire to enjoy this great loot unmolested. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, oil theft was minimal. Today, it's a customized multi-billion dollars enterprise.

According to Babatunde Ogun, the PENGASSAN President, Nigeria loses $6 billion yearly to crude oil theft while another N105 billion leakage occurs from theft of refined petroleum products. In 2012, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Finance and Coordinating Minister {and mother} of the economy wailed before the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives that 17 percent of the nation's 2.4 million bpd capacity or 400,000 bpd is stolen.

The NNPC says that this horrendous theft is far more than Ghana's 120,000 bpd capacity. And what's the response of President Goodluck Jonathan to this colossal theft of our national patrimony? In a pithy interview with CNN's Christine Amampour earlier this year, he asked the eponymous “international community to condemn” it. An innocent man, President Jonathan apparently didn't hear Walter Trohan's thesis that what is called “world opinion is a mythical thing, largely manufactured in foreign offices in various nations to advance their own policy.” The “international community”largely stands for the interests of Europe and the United States. One time Soviet dictator extraordinary Marshall Joseph Stalin would have mocked President Jonathan's misplaced faith in the international community.

Barked Stalin: “A diplomat's words must have no relation to actions – otherwise what kind of diplomacy is it?”The veteran communist leader explained further: “Words are one thing, actions another. Good words are a mask for the concealment of bad deeds. Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or wooden iron. In Nigeria, justice favours the rich and powerful.

In October 2012, President Jonathan directed Mohammed Bello Adoke, his attorney general and justice minister to locate the missing $26.5 million plea bargain that construction giant Julius Berger reimbursed the federal government with regard to the Halliburton bribery scandal.

Seven months later, it's still in voice mail! Two Nigerian senior civil servants jointly cleaned the police pension fund of over N40 billion. While the police and security outfits haven't been able to locate Alhaji Maina, John Yusuf got a black market justice that made him just N750k poorer out of the N27 billion that he stole! On November 26, 2010, Kelvin Ighodalo, aged 31, stole a Sony Ericsson mobile phone of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola during his swearing in as Osun State governor.

On April 28, 2013, he was sentenced to 45 years jail term! In March 2013, Godwin Okwudili, aged 30, was accused of receiving stolen goods. In police custody, he defrocked our nation's morality: “Let me tell you, we are all criminals. We are Nigerians and we have the element of criminality in us.” His ally Garba Sanni, aged 24, refused the charge of armed robbery, but unarmed “break in.” Hear him: “We have many criminals in Nigeria. Senators are stealing money and nobody arrested them.

We too, need money.” This correspondent fears that Sanni and Okwudili may get between 30-40 years jail term, but he doesn't know of any senator or minister jailed in Nigeria for corruption acts. In April 2012, St. Stephen's Anglican Church, President Jonathan's home town place of worship was given a brand new two billion naira building by Gitto Construzioni Generali Limited, a renowned Italian owned federal government contractor. Constitutional lawyers, political opposition, democracy and rights groups shouted themselves hoarse over this illegality. In March 2013, the “Otuoke boy” in Aso Rock decided to up the ante. On that day at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, President Jonathan held a fundraising event in aid of the Deanery and Youth Development Centre of his home town church. Some captains of industry, PDP governors, ministers, members of the National Assembly, Otuoke indigenes and a CBN deputy governor gratefully came to keep a delirious President Jonathan company. And they didn't come empty handed.

Prince Arthur Eze, a prominent government contractor, noted supporter of General Abacha's infamous bid to succeed himself, a tireless field worker during President Obasanjo's third term bid and a member of President Jonathan's 2015 re-election kitchen cabinet doled out N1.8 billion! This I know: Compensating, juicy federal government contracts will surely follow Prince Eze all the days of Jonathan's presidency and he will dwell in the precincts of Aso Rock, for ……….! Bayelsa State governor Seriake Dickson on behalf of his state promised to erect the nursery school and cancer diagnostic centre arms of the project. Governing comedian of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio donated N230 million on behalf of PDP Governor's Forum. Liyel Imoke of Cross River State dropped a miserly N100 million on behalf of his South South colleagues.

When the accountants had finished their tabulations, a giddy President Jonathan had made his home town church wealthier by over N6 billion! Critics painfully recalled that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo also engaged in this kind of extortion when a May 14, 2005 fund raiser in his hometown, Abeokuta, netted him a tax free N6 billion for a library project. However, while Jonathan is building for his town, Obasanjo built for his pocket. Ex-lawmaker Dino Melaye saw the donations as “not only morally wrong, it is an open display of open corruption that has overtaken the entire fabric of this country.”

Human rights lawyer Festus Keyamo saw the whole exercise as “a gross mismanagement of public funds. It is also against the anti-corruption laws, especially a public official like the President soliciting for donations from private individuals and government contractors like Chief Arthur Eze.” Foremost constitutional scholar Professor Itse Sagay denounced the president for “extorting money from sycophants who are unjustly benefiting from government.” ACN chieftain, Dr Usman Bugaje asked a most vital question: “Are the monies appropriated in the budget? If they are properly appropriated, is the donation in the best interest of the public?

It is a height of irresponsibility and insensitivity to spend public funds on such frivolities just because the President is involved.” Chief Chekwas Okorie deemed it “indecent for Mr. President to preside over such a fund raising bazaar in Lagos. It is indecent for him to gather contractors working for government and government officials superintending over state funds, and using his position as president to extract such huge resources for a village church.”

Chief Okorie reasoned that “since no village church would cost up to N6 billion, Nigerians will want to know how President Jonathan will utilise the balance.” This correspondent is convinced that corruption is officially a directive principle of state policy in Nigeria! The Economist is right to conclude that “Nigerians have a sunny disposition towards corruption.” Because Nigeria still exists due to the corresponding grace of God doesn't remove the fact that there is built-in failure in Nigeria's leadership. Pronounced and visible sleaze is hemmed into party loyalty that has placed the nation on life support. And in a grand finale, corruption is crowned winner in a grand ceremony that the House of Windsor will envy.

Historian, freelance journalist and writer, Pastor JOSEPH EMEKA ANUMBOR is the author of THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS, a critically acclaimed discourse on homosexuality published by Author House Inc., Indiana, USA.