By Tunde Abatan
It is an understatement to say that Nigeria has been moving in circles.
In fact, it is more appropriate to say that in spite of it’s perceived development,Nigeria is a country permanently unstable either because of its inherent diversities or because of constant degeneration of leadership.
Since the end of the First republic through military coup,the country has moved from one level of instability to the other and in it’s wake, threw up incompetency as succeeding leaders that always emerge either to draw the country backward or arrest it’s development as we are witnessing now..
But for the flashes of progressivism of the Muritala/Obasanjo era, the country has been steadily going down both in the management of it’s diversities ,the level of economic deprivation of it’s citizens – the larger part of which are perpetually poor, and the throwing up of leaders that’s has always been inept and this has manifested through bad governance.
For us, the last few weeks have seen the unravelling of why the rot in the country in all sectors persisted and have defied solution.
Two ‘commrades’ Hushpuppi and Kyari
Nnamdi Kanu in court
Sunday Igboho
This is clearly manifested in the latest compromise of the nation’s ethical values revealed in the Hushpuppy/Abba Kyari affair and it’s international dimension.
The revelation of and allegations of graft,money laundering and compromise of the nation’s security system by top cop and probably the most decorated police officer in recent times, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, is mind-blowing.
That the nation’s most decorated officer is caught in the web of alleged connivance with a ring of international fraudsters is also to say the least unfortunate and a case of misplaced trust.
By inference, revelation of the racket involving Kyari with Ramon Abbass aka Hushpupy,the notorious kingpin of international fraud ring is also nauseating and a tragic turning point in the later’s celebrated career.
It is, because the fact that months after his arrest in the United States,names of Kyari came up among his secret accomplices calls to question the genueity and basis of the many laurels and decorations he has received from the police high command and from the innocent public who had one way or the other applauded his ratings and efforts as an outstanding intelligence officer .
From the latest developments and unfolding scenario, it is either he has compromised his bosses to earn the rating while silently aiding ‘ choice ‘ criminals or that the assessment system of the police itself is defective.
Today, going back to history, Kyari’s case is similar to the case of then notable socialite and businessman, Alhaji Isola Ejigbadero in the early 1970s.
Ejigbadero had on a fateful day in 1975 – invited top police officers in Lagos to his house for the naming ceremony of his new baby,smartly executed a strange plan.
While the police chiefs were enjoying assorted food, choice wines and dancing to music blaring from a top juju maestro, Ejigbadero, took his gun and murdered, Raji Oba, head of one of the families in Alimosho and owner of biggest land in the then local suburb.
Before that date, Ejigbadero, a businessman had been keen on expanding his real estate with eyes on the choice land in Alimoso but he met stiff resistance from Oba.
Hence,on the fateful day and in the cover of darkness, Ejigbadero fired several gun shots to Oba who was relaxing in front of his house and fled in his car with his aides.
Thanks for wife of the deceased who was a living witness and a relatively strong judiciary, which judiciously saw to it that justice was done. Ejigbadero would have escaped high murder and continued his atrocities aided by his cahoot within the police force.
Similarly, Kyari on his part, apart from facilitating and closing his eyes to the many shady deals of his many high net worth friends, also had a good company in Obi Cubana, another high flyer who threw a big party where hundreds of millions of naira was expended in giving ‘befiting’ burial to his late mother,in his native Oba town, -a town reeking in abject poverty in the bowels of Anambra State.
Kyari enjoyed the day, took photographs with his friend, Cubana while the display of wealth in the town was on, with dignitaries supported of course by highly kitted police outfit.
Such protection of individuals with ‘unknown’ sources of wealth has thus become the past time of ‘trusted’ police intelligence officers who choose to look the other way while virtues are been destroyed with display of I’ll gotten wealth by their friends and protected by state actors.
Had the international police and Federal Bureau of Investigation,FBI of the United States had not blew the lid last week on Kyari’s connivance with Hushpuppy in his notorious activities across the globe, Kyari would have continued to enjoy the ‘fake’ accolades from an ignorant public while rogues and social misfits are shielded by his failings in his duty for his love of money.
He could even have one day become the Inspector General of Police.
What is more, the government and assisted by police establishment would have ignorantly continue to celebrate his ‘notoriety’ in the name of gallantry while he also continues to receive badges of honour and accolades .
In another breadth, President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to ensure that justice is allowed to take it’s due course and procedure, in several of Nigeria’s civil issues, calls to question on his government:s handling of Nnamdi Kanu’s and Sunday Igboho’s secessionist agitations.
Perhaps,this promise would have had a listening ear, had the federal government follow judicial process, in bringing Kanu to justice in Nigeria instead of his gestapo abduction in Kenya .
If such gestapo activity is not the style of the regime, the lawless and murderous reign visited on Igboho’s household without a search warrant and murdered two of his aides and declared him wanted wouldn’t have occured.
Let President Buhari walk his talk and stop a surreptitious compromise of the security and judicial process.
By doing so, he would’ve rekindle the hope of the ordinary man in street on justice, equity and consequently nib in the bud, social disorder we have all over the country that is threatening it’s continued existence.
Again, but for mother luck, Kanu’s fate too would have befallen Igboho but for the vigilance of Benin security operatives two weeks ago.
Today, with two abductions on its neck, the Buhari government has successfully re-enacted a failed scenario it initiated and plotted 36 years ago, an action,which painted the nation’s image black among the comity of nations .
As things stand today, it is not out of place to draw a connection between federal government gestapo philosophy and activities with the mind set of it’s trusted security officers who had also surreptitiously compromised the nation’s security system and by extension the government by hob-nobbing with criminals they are supposed to expose, for obvious personal gains.
You ask yourself how does an intelligence and security operative got so close and enamoured to a character of shady life and still boast of having the capacity to checking criminals and their activities.
This evidently posed a real threat to the life of tax payers sustaining him in office.
Perhaps, the boldness of Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba, in setting up a four- man Special Investigative Panel,SIP, to unravel the Kyari’s ‘riddle’ in the Hushpippy’s affair may help to throw light on the depth of compromise of our virtues by state actors employed and empowered to fish out criminals whose activities are inimical to societal control and stability.
Again,this could happen, if IGP Baba and the Police Service Commission,PSC , which has endorsed Kyari’s suspension, would not be subjected to powers from above, breathing down their neck thereby making the exercise a nullity while our societal rot continues unabated.
The weeks and days ahead would determine the shape of things to come vis a vis governments position on repatriation of Kyari to the United States to face charges levelled against him.û
