$67 BILLION AND OTHER MATTERS
It is so easy for anyone to refer to Jonathan as a thief and a shameless rogue.
The end Jonathan craves is surely going to be sore and rough, nasty and
unpleasant, because a thief cannot go unpunished and a looter's case should be
worse. Where is this couple coming from? Who do they think they are and why do
they think they are at liberty to squander the resources of the people of
Nigeria on themselves without a care in the world for the hardship the people
are going through? How can there be so much oil boom and yet so much poverty,
unemployment, misery and diseases in the land? Because people like Jonathan and
the legislooters at the National Assembly are flushing the nation's oil wealth
down the cistern of greed there is very little left the nation can use to create
wealth and create employment. I will be shocked if Nigerians fail to come
together to challenge the budget allocation to Patience Jonathan, any budget
allocation to her - even N1.
Looting and state corruption as crime against humanity
The magnitude of looting and state corruption in the Third World,
particularly Nigeria is pushing more people into poverty, hopelessness,
diseases, disasters and generational dependence on hand-outs. An economic
genocide is happening right before our eyes despite and in spite of abundant
state resources and huge state prosperity; economic genocide in Nigeria is
heavily exacerbated by state corruption, looting and blatant stealing of
government funds. It has been estimated that more than seventy percent (70%) of
the wealth of the Nigerian nation in the last thirty-three (33) years cannot be
accounted for, mostly the crude oil income from the hugely corrupt and rotten
state oil corporation, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). More
than $1 trillion has been stolen and looted from oil revenues in Nigeria during
that period. Funds that would necessarily have been used to create
opportunities, build and develop the nation and advance social services and to
put into the development of local industries around the crude oil operations of
the nation have ended up in the hands of current and former Nigerian leaders,
their ministers, sidekicks and fronts. The funds are predominantly held in
secret bank accounts at home and abroad, and not being used or allowed to
generate employment and opportunities for the nation and its people. It is from
this perspective that we need to consider state corruption and looting as a
crime against humanity, as a genocidal crime.
Looting is denying our children the medical care, good early education and
access to clean water. It is denying our women decent prenatal and antenatal
care, access to good health care and social services. Looting is denying our
young men and women qualitative higher education opportunities that will endow
them with the knowledge, skills and abilities that are comparable to what their
peers in other nations of the world have access to. It is making the lives of
our young graduates miserable with exposure to unemployment and a dearth of job
opportunities. Strangely, the looters are demanding that the unemployed pay to
seek and apply for employment! Looting is sending our retirees to early graves
and denying them their pension benefits and gratuities. Looting is killing
Nigeria's economy because hard work no longer pays, and opportunities to work
and work hard are few and far between as the capital to create wealth, build
factories, develop local industries are being stolen and looted as I write.
There are so many young and middle-aged people in our nation today who are
depressed, struggling with mental instability because they have been pushed to
the limit in an environment that has no doors to knock on and no room to
accommodate their dreams.
Corruption is the new scourge devastating and ravaging the world,
particularly in the Third World with Nigeria being the most corrupt of those
nations and Nigerian people the worse for it, and this is in view of the
trillion of dollars of oil revenue that is stolen every year by political office
holders at the Federal and State levels. The anguish, misery, debilitating
crush, and poverty that are the direct result of state corruption are just
unbelievable. The huge wealth of Nigeria is not getting to the people and there
is no investment in infrastructures to show for the disappearance of the oil
boom beside the fat bank accounts and stupendous wealth of current and past
office holders. The Niger delta, where more than 80% of Nigeria's crude oil is
exploited has remained in abject poverty when the people there ought to be
living in splendour and wealth like you find in the US state of Texas with
prosperous cities such as Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth,
Lubbock, Bastrop, Laredo, Brownsville, and tens of several small cities, many of
them benefiting from the wealth that Texas oil brings.
To stem the spate of state corruption, which leaves the people at the mercy
of thieves holding political offices and whose absolute power and control comes
with impunity, there is the need to classify state corruption and looting as
crime against humanity, which should be tried by a special International Court.
The only time a Nigerian official has been successfully prosecuted and punished
was in the United Kingdom when a former state governor was found guilty of
stealing funds from the state where he was governor for eight years. A corrupt
state is never willing or able to prosecute anyone because the cancer is right
from the top. The prosecution of war criminals and the perpetrators of war
genocide became important in the 1990s and now is the time to prosecute corrupt
state governments and officials for bringing poverty, diseases, instability,
misery, and hunger to their people in the midst of plenty. The time has come to
establish an International State Corruption and Looting Court to "end impunity
by the perpetrators of the most serious" financial crimes against the
international community, which are crimes against humanity and the people whose
national wealth are being squandered and looted by state officials and political
office holders. The twenty-first century is going through very serious yet
avoidable global financial and economic crises as a result of state corruption
and treasury looting. The result of state corruption, money laundering and
looting is abject poverty and heavy dependence on food and economic aids from
the West. Those who steal funds from foreign aids can and should also be
prosecuted by the International State Corruption and Looting Court. The recent
discovery by the UK government that millions of aids dollars meant for poverty
alleviation programs in Botswana were stolen would qualify for trial in this
Court. The mind-boggling looting of national treasuries in Nigeria, Equatorial
Guinea, Uzbekistan and several others will also qualify. Corruption is king in
these three nations and many others.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Drop your comments