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From Colonialism to Reckless Looting
(A reaction to ongoing parliamentary looting)-By
Eskor Toyo Newsdiaryonline Sat July 9,2011
I have invited you to address you on the ongoing looting of the
country by the National Assembly. It is true that now it is the
case of the House of Representatives that has
attracted the attention of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission. However, the Senate is no better. There is
abundant evidence of collaboration in looting by the two houses
of the National Assembly.
The EFCC is concerned with crimes but an economy and its polity
can be guilty of scandalous looting of the population that the
nature of the law permits. My invention is political. I am
speaking as an economist, a scholar in all aspects of society, a
socialist and a patriot.
1. In the current crisis of
parliamentary looting, evidence before the EFCC says as follows.
Huge funds are passed by the budgetary process to each arm of
the National Assembly to use as it pleases. In 2010, the budget
for the House of Representatives alone came to a whopping N60
billion naira. The
English billion is 1million, million. The current uproar
involves a loan of 38 billion naira taken by the speaker of the
House of Representatives contrary to the advice of the clerk of
the House who knew that the act was unlawful. The so-called
running cost of each member of the Assembly rose from a
fantastic N27 million per member per quarter to a staggering N42
million per member per quarter. Some of the loans taken came
from banks. Loans were taken without the authorization of the
management of the House. Members of the House themselves
pressurized their speaker to incur the debt to meet their
so-called welfare claims which has increased
phenomenally.
In some reports by the press the arrested Speaker had been
knee-deep in corruption right from when he was elected Speaker.
This was stated by eleven members of the House. It is alleged
that Bankole’s preying started when he purchased 380 Peugeot 407
cars 42 days after his inauguration at the price of N2.3
billion. Six months later, the former speaker bought bullet
proof cars at N333.5 million and office equipment at the
inflated cost of N1 billion naira. To the EFCC Peugeot
Automobile Nigeria stated that N380 million naira from the deal
was converted into Euros and
dollars and handed over to the former Speaker. Bankole is said
to have employedproxies for this operation. In 2010, the EFCC
declared wanted two of the proxies.It is said that
the former Speaker took a N10 billion naira loan from said
the UBA and this led to that bank’s refusal to pay the 2011
second quarter salaries,allowances and emoluments of the
legislators as at when due.
Following Bankole’s arrest, he has revealed the names of the
beneficiaries of the loans all of whom are past officers of the
House. This significantly, includes the Speaker elected after
the recent election and his deputy. These last two benefited to
the tune of N327 million naira and N330 million naira
respectively. Yet, the last election was noised about by
government propagandists and the shameless leaders
of the so-called People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as free and
fair.
Other scandalous aspect of this affair may exist and not cited
by us. The EFCC may throw up more facts about the National
Assembly looting as the investigation proceeds.
However, the world has long known that Nigerian law makers earn
the highest salaries among law makers in the world. This country
is also known to be one of the poorest in the world. A recent
World Bank survey of Nigeria reports “poverty is on the increase
in Nigeria”. It was also revealed to the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) that the Federal Minister of State in
Pakistan earns only one-third of the salary of a University
Professor there. In Nigeria however, a professor earns
only a fraction of what a Federal Minister of State earns.
2. Looting by Nigerian Legislators actually started in
1954. Up to 1953 the country had a Legislative Council
whose members were paid a sitting allowance for each day they
sat. When the British Colonial government created a new
Legislative Assembly in 1954 a salary for the first time was
fixed for them. It was a very handsome salary judged by the
earnings of salaried people at that time. The very first act of
that assembly, however, was to jack up their salaries to the
tune of nearly three times what the British Administration had
fixed. Everyone else was shocked and there was a loud out
cry. The assembly men went on as if nothing had happened. This
set the pace for irresponsible earnings by politicians. After
so-called independence in 1960 the gate was thrown open for
unlimited outrage. Today
not only Federal Parliamentarians and Ministers but also
Governors, Commissioners and Legislators at the State level and
Local Government Councilors earn scandalous amount of money.
In addition to their extravagant pay, it is well known by every
one who has observed Nigeria that stealing and all forms of
corruption are of scandalous proportions in Nigeria. I say
nothing here of the vicious looting that goes on in the name of
business in the private sector.
3. Nigerians and others wonder when and why all the
reckless and inhuman spoliation came to be in Nigeria. One
reason is that self-government was not handed over in 1960 to
the patriots who had fought for it from the 1930s. The British
Colonialist carefully by –passed the patriots and handed over
the self-government to only those who feigned to be
interested in politics from 1953/1954 when it became clear
that the British Administration was inclined to give self rule
to Nigeria. Political opportunists then poured into the National
Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), the Action Group (AG), and
the Northern People’s Congress (NPC). These new breed
politicians were most unpatriotic. They were regionalists,
ethnicists, opportunists and ruthless grabbers. It is this breed
of politicians and their politics that the country has inherited
since 1960. The Military intervened clearly because of their
irresponsibility, but even long years of Military
rule have done nothing
to change them.
4. They can not be changed because they
are completely absorbed in Primitive Capitalist Accumulation.
This is a social process by which a capitalist society and
economy emerge. In this process people interested in politics
and economic activities fix their gaze on great wealth. A nation
ceases to exist except simply as a source of great wealth of
greedy individuals who engage in all forms of plunder to ‘Make
it’ to use their idiom. This is the initial process of the rise
of capitalism in all capitalist countries.
The focus of capitalists is infinite monetizable wealth. The
process by which so-called successful individuals concentrate on
making as much money as they can by any means however
inhuman and detestable, I call ‘Moneyism’. I contrast ‘Moneyism’
with ‘Manism’ which is the use of all available resources in
the society to Minister to the needs and comfort of all human
beings. This concentration on human needs rather than the needs
of gods, rulers or so-called great nations, or to Minister to
the greed for money is often called humanism.
5. The discussion
throws up the question: “who really owns this country? Chiefs,
the elite and the money grabbling class, who see themselves as
rulers, think they own the country. I say they do not. In fact,
the money grabbers own no country populated by people. Money
from any where is their country. This country is actually owned
by peasants, artisans, petty traders, and wage workers.
These are the working people. They own the country for two
reasons. One reason is that peasants grow the
food which we eat and others do the rest of the essential work
which keep all of us
alive and without which the elite and other rulers can not
exist. The second reason is that if there is any trouble like a
foreign war on this country when the going becomes really
difficult to bear, the elite etc have enough means and money to
fly out like Vultures. They are, in fact, saving up a lot of
money in Western Europe, and the United States for this. They
did it during the Military coups. They can run to other
countries. The people who must stay in Nigeria and die because
they can not run else where and can not live else where are the
working people.
6. The money mongers value Nigeria only
because they can plunder this land for money which they can
covert into any foreign money they like such as Euro or dollar.
It has been repeatedly said by many of the so-called rulers or
politicians that Nigeria is not a nation but is a detestable
concoction due to British Colonialism. Such people scamper into
politics mainly through the PDP where they can exist without
policy other than to enrich their individual selves. The time
has come to decide whether we have a nation or country that we
can call our own or not. If Nigeria is not a nation then to
pretend that we have a national constitution, national
sovereignty, national flag, national citizenship, national
anthem, and
national assembly is preposterous hypocrisy. Those who think
that Nigeria consist only of mineral oil money indeed have no
country or nation. The place for them to live in is not here.
During the American Revolution (1774 – 1783), those who did not
want to be citizens of the United States of America called
themselves United Empire Loyalists. The citizens of the USA
expelled them to Canada which was still a part of the British
Empire where they wanted to live. After the revolution in Cuba
in 1959 an option was given to those who did not want to
continue as citizens of socialist Cuba to leave for any country
of their preference. Most of them left to Florida in the
USA where they could continue to make money by the plundering of
working people. When the
Union of Soviet. Socialist Republics (USSR) existed and Israel
became a State with a Jewish majority those Jews that did not
want to continue as citizens of the USSR were permitted to
migrate else where. Many of them migrated to Israel where they
could practice their capitalist grabbing without limit.
Only the working people
when they rise to take their country into their hand as rulers
can send the vultures flying to any country where they can
practice grabbing and plundering with abandon.
7. Since Abacha’s rule, the spearhead of
moneyism, opportunism, thoughtlessness and corruption is the
so-called People’s Democratic Party. As I have said in one of my
writings, that collection of people is only a conglomerate of
businessmen and not a political party as this term is understood
in other countries. In
other lands a political party has an ideological principle other
than mere opportunistic gangsterism to which it is attached.
Many sorts of people have drifted into PDP because of the
general lack of unselfish or patriotic focus among the Nigeria
elite. Babangida even told us that he had no use for ideology.
The PDP is simply a gang of money mongers who want to ‘Make it’
at whatever price to the society. Today it is Bankole and
company yesterday it was Senate Presidents and Obasanjo,
tomorrow it will be some one else. The rot exist at all levels,
National, State and Local Government.
8. The country has just finished an
election. That election was said by
propagandists to be free and fair. However, honest people
know the truth, members of ASUU this time decided to do what
they could to help Professor Attahiru Jega who was appointed
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC). After the election, the National Executive Council of
ASUU listened to a report on their experiences by more than ten
ASUU participants as operational helpers in the election. One
and all they gave a gruesome picture of various kinds of
rigging, corruption, intimidation, falsification and violence
that actually happened in the election. The PDP and moneyist
leopards can not change their spots. Lying is the second nature
of plunderers.
9. Enough of crying, complaining,
setting up of enquiries and blundering from step to step. From
the Fostersurtain and Coker tribunals in the 1950s to many
enquiries in recent years and from newspaper and magazine
reports we have heard enough of the scandals of the looters of
this country and her common people. We have had military coups
because of the irredeemable graft and callousness of so-called
civilian politicians and leaders in Nigeria. Before military
officers carry out another coup to ‘clean up’ the country only
to join in the plunder themselves, the
working people who own this country and are the plundered must
rise and act. The only appropriate action is to take over the
country and manage it themselves in their own interest.
I have called for this again and again before and since 1960.
Each time since 1960 the working class had responded positively
and enthusiastically. In 1989 they responded very massively.
They were betrayed by a few opportunists who abandoned their
rally without even consulting them. No room whatsoever among the
working people must be given to those who want to continue the
betrayed of the people.
10. I have been the National Trustee of the Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for 28 years. I have found
that body of Nigerians to be continuously disciplined,
principled, respectful of integrity, patriotic, very democratic
and devoted to the common people of Nigeria and the salvation of
the Universities from rot. ASUU have had seven presidents one
succeeding the other in a very peaceful way during those years.
One reason for this is that the National Executive Council of
ASUU does not tolerate the slightest evidence of irregularity or
irresponsibility. The point of this reference to ASUU is that
they are all Nigerians. Any one who has
not met a Nigerian of integrity must be very unfortunate or
limited in his contact.
I have met several in town and country side with integrity and
love and Nigeria. The leaders of ASUU do not go to big money
grabbers or a corrupt government to be bribed with money. This I
can firmly say.
When the working people take up the cry to find out fuller
details of what the moneyists have been doing with the country’s
money an enquiry can be set up to investigate all the
governments and law making bodies, Federal, State and Local
Government; the manner of revenue receipt and expenditure of
their money by all registered political parties, and the way
that each party that ran a Federal, State or Local Government
handled the financial affairs of the government. It is of
interest to mention that an enquiry of this kind was carried out
in Italy in the 1970s. Of the more than four political parties
involved, only the Communist Party of Italy, the revolutionary
socialist Party of Italian Working people, came out completely
unscathed.
I call on workers, peasants, artisans, petty traders, students
and other youths, under-privileged women and the very
unfortunate ones plagued by hunger, sickness and unemployment to
rise, organize and act. No one except themselves can listen to
their cry. For many years they have tried soldiers in vain. The
ruling class vultures think that the workers are goats,the
peasants are sheep, and the artisans and petty traders are
donkeys. Enough is Enough. I call on socialists and patriots to
give the
lead.
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