The Tragic Mutation Of Nigerian Thieving Elites

By: Ebuka Onyekwelu

Nigerian elites are as predictable as day and night. It is almost certain that they will always regroup either as army officers, civilians, democrats or party men, to continue to inflict untold damage on the society and the people.

This has been the Nigerian story. Nobody cares about the country. At best, they are pretend democrats or advocates. The ultimate focus remains the continuous feast in perpetuity of the commonwealth of Nigeria to the detriment of the Nigerian people, who wait in vain for the dividends of democratic governance.

It has now been sufficiently proven beyond any iota of doubt that Nigeria’s problem is constant. The problem of dishonest elites who thrive on mindless pilfering of public money, is not just a problem associated with the military system of government.

The military system, understandably being dictatorial in nature, is unaccountable to no one and that heightened chances of unrestrained diversion of public monies so notoriously that over twenty years after his death, Gen. Abacha’s loot are still being discovered and returned and then re-looted as latest events suggests.

Nigerian’s elites are not taking any break. They are not slowing down on their reckless bond with embezzling public funds whether in military regime or civilian rule. The trend is much the same.

The centre of attraction is access to public fund. Even under the acclaimed anti corruption czar, Nigeria has taken a turn for the worst in what is looking as the most shameful, embarrassing and catastrophic malfeasance and public dinner on Nigeria’s money.

These people keep regrouping, dropping their military uniforms, joining political parties and moving from one political party to another while the poor masses cheer them on, in what usually looks like a struggle for the liberation of the people from the shackles of backwardness, just like in 2015.

Driven by their own ambition to remain close to the Nigerian vault for continuous fritter of the country’s collective wealth, it was never about the Nigerian people. Very sadly, these are the same pretend heroes and change agents of the Nigerian political class.

Some of them with years and years of perpetuating themselves in power, there is nothing else they can live for aside power and politics. Yet, with so much money than they may require in fifty life times, they are still unsatisfied.

They are still looting and still stealing more. There is no more awful situation than the subsisting fact that the Nigerian thieving elites never gets tired of stealing Nigeria’s public funds.

In the past few weeks, the Buhari’s government has come under some kind of public scrutiny, principally instigated by collusion on account of colliding interests, possibly ahead of the 2023 Presidential election.

Magu the EFCC acting chief has been removed from office in a most dramatic way. Somehow, Malami the Attorney General of the Federation who wrote the memo that nailed Magu lately has some of his own questionable deals all over social media.

Malami’s kids, it has been serially reported are living large, driving exotic fine cars even though they are supposedly jobless and without any known source of income.

Then, Akpabio the Minister of Niger Delta is on the news for grievous allegations of wanton corruption and impunity, abuse of power, office and due process.

Godswill Akpabio

Akpabio a former Governor of oil rich Akwa Ibom state who served as Commissioner in Akwa Ibom, then as governor under PDP for eight years, and as Senator for four years, but suddenly joined the APC and when his bid to return to the senate for the second time failed, he was appointed the Minister for Niger Delta.

Akpabio, conceivably one of the most successful Nigerian politicians with access to public funds and luxury sponsored by public funds for a period of not less than 20 years, is apparently still scrambling for Nigeria’s commonwealth, as allegations from former MD Interim Management of NDDC suggests.

The once uncommon transformer, may have been stricken with uncommon greed. Such is the tragedy of Nigeria’s ruling elites.

Akpabio like most Nigerian elites in a swift maneuver joined the ruling APC, from the PDP and is now a serving minister. A man who once declared that what money cannot solve, more money can solve. Apparently obsessed with access to more money in the believe that money has the solution to every problem.

This is perhaps how their minds work. No matter the privilege, they just want more and more. Like Akapbio, like Amaechi who also served as Speaker of Rivers state Assembly and then later served as governor of Rivers state for eight years under the PDP, he is now serving as minister. Same with many “change agents” under the Buhari administration, including Bayelsa’s Timi Silva whose corruption charge by EFCC, has since been dropped.

Not one of these men is about to sacrifice his greed and desperate ambitions for the common good. More disturbing is the persistent order in which Nigerian elites so perpetuate themselves in power that despite the humongous wealth in their vault, they still live almost free at no cost at all.

With free accommodations in the name of official residence, free cars in the name of official and status vehicles, garnished with all manner of allowances and overhead costs that completely settles all their needs that money can afford. Yet, some of these elites have their children as their official aides.

In the National Assembly for instance, many senators and honourable members have their children as their official aides who get paid the money and allowances given to aides. But they look for some people who do the real job and negotiate to pay them far less than the official pay.

Many Nigeria’s public officials mandate their aides to share their official payments and allowances with them, despite all the soft life given them freely by the state. Some of them have their kids enjoying one scholarship or government sponsorship of their education.

The Nigerian elites have saturated everywhere and there is not even a breathing space, for the vast majority of Nigerian people.

As the drama unfolds, even more is the fact that whatever is going on is not about the Nigerian people. It is the Nigerian elites trying to regroup again as they always do, under a different platform or under the pretext of some ongoing reforms to continue to share among themselves, the commonwealth of Nigeria while the masses wallow in terrifying poverty and deprivation. This has been the pattern and there are no signs it is about to change now.