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The Thief Called Peter Odili
By Uche Nworah
Have
you seen or read
the interim report by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commision (EFCC),
the outcome of their investigations of
Governor Peter Odili of Rivers state and
some of his government officials? If you are
a Nigerian or a friend of Nigeria, I suggest
that you download the report and read it.
Perhaps the accusations Nigerians level
against their politicians that they are
corrupt, selfish and wicked may not just be
as a result of bad belle after all.
Maybe you have been feeling indifferent in
the past because you may be one of those
Nigerians who have made good through
self-belief and hard work and have now
settled into your comfort zone either in
Nigeria or in the diaspora, but the report
which accuses Peter Odili of stealing over
100 billion naira of Rivers state government
money (close to a billion dollars) will not
only shock you but it may haunt you for
days. You will not be wrong if you
helplessly throw up your hands in the air
and wonder the type of god men like Odili
worship.
To
think that Odili at some point nursed the
ambition of becoming Nigeria’s President and
allegedly had the backing of the incumbent
President Obasanjo leaves a sour taste in
one’s mouth. Although Obasanjo was forced to
dump him at the last minute in the light of
the overwhelming EFCC security report on
him, Peter Odili was once Obasanjo’s
favoured godson and was the one chosen from
all the President’s friends and associates
to be the sponsor at the show-stopping
marriage ceremony between the
President’s son Muyiwa and his Dominican
wife Imilse.
Could
the President have known all along? I bet he
did but perhaps he considered Odili’s case
an akamu case. In the land of
thieves, perhaps Odili may have been
adjudged a small timer still operating in
the minor league.
I
watched Peter Odili on television recently
being interviewed by a British reporter and
felt like punching him in the face. The
interview was conducted in one of the
stately rooms in the new Rivers state
government house, a project he counts as one
of the dividends of democracy to Rivers
people. The opulence and splendour on
display in his mansion was later contrasted
in the television programme with the poverty
that his people suffer from every day, some
of them were shown in their shanty houses
wearing rags as clothes. Odili’s Italian
marbled and gold plated furnishings were
also juxtaposed to his people’s patched up
dilapidated living quarters. It was quite an
eyesore seeing some of his people barely
clinging on to life while he was busy
popping £300-a-bottle Crystal champagne for
the white reporter who was in the state to
investigate the Niger Delta crises.
Odili
didn’t quite see the incongruence of the
whole situation and was bent on impressing
the reporter who indirectly mocked him in
the documentary. As I watched Odili in his
flannel shirt parry questions from the
reporter, I simply felt anger and revulsion
at the big fool who answered that he did not
create the Niger Delta situation to the
reporter’s question on what he was doing to
improve the living conditions of his people
living in the shanty villages bordering on
the river line areas. Yes, Odili did not
create the problem but he sure has
contributed to the escalation of the
problems in the area. Had he thought it wise
to invest one third of the money the EFCC is
accusing him of stealing, maybe the lot of
his people would have been improved.
Throughout the interview, Odili acted as if
he was spitting on the graves of his people,
and spotted a wry smile all through as he
sat on his majestic throne sipping a glass
of wine poured from the freshly opened
bottle of Crystal champagne by his royal
servants.
Afterwards the reporter told the viewers the
cost of a bottle of Crystal champagne and
contrasted Odili’s lifestyle with that of
the indigenes of his state some of whom were
shown in their derelict living conditions.
I dare
say that the members of the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta People
(MEND) and other Niger Delta militants may
have been misdirecting their anger by
kidnapping foreign oil workers. If you ask
me, I think that they should storm Odili’s
kingdom and chase him away, he is the one
stealing their money in concert with some of
the so-called chiefs and community leaders
who exploit oil companies in the region and
obtain huge sums of money from them under
the guise that they would be used for
community development projects, such funds
end up in their bank accounts. If the
militants storm Odili’s palace, he may just
be forced to vomit all the money he has
stolen and the next governor would have
learnt a lesson or two.
What
about Peter Odili’s conduit, Mr. Johnson
Arumemi-Ikhide, owner of Rockson Engineering
Company Ltd and Arik Air Ltd, don’t people
like him ever get tired? Would they live on
earth forever? I shudder at the minds of
people like him who lay their state’s
treasury to waste buoyed by their insatiable
greed. People like Arumemi-Ikhide and Peter
Odili make the likes of the dethroned
Inspector General of Police
Tafa Balogun and impeached Bayelsa state
governor
Alamiesegha look like saints. What do
these men hope to do with all the money that
they have stolen from their people when they
only have a few more years to live on earth?
Even the next 10 generations in their
lineages would still not be able to consume
all that many riches. Perhaps the devil has
eaten deep into their souls and blinded them
to the hopelessness and fruitlessness of the
earthly treasures they are busy stockpiling
thus robbing and denying their people life’s
basic necessities.
I have
accused the EFCC chairman, Mallam Nuhu
Ribadu of being selective in his corruption
fight in the past, but I now think that the
man and his team are absolutely right in
their selective prosecution and
investigation strategies. I don’t think that
Nigerians should care anymore, why should
they when these thieves don’t care about
them. They surely deserve whatever selective
justice they are getting, for now I believe
that Nigerians would be happy and utterly
satisfied with half measures from the EFCC
considering that these thieves were once
considered untouchables in the past,
shielded by the immunity granted them by the
constitution of the federal republic of
Nigeria.
The
coming months would be interesting ones in
the lives of some of these politicians who
would be losing their immunity as they won’t
be in government anymore but before then,
they should hear General Oladipo Diya’s
experience in Germany a few years back, as
that might be an indication of the fate that
awaits them. The former number two man to
the late despot General Sani Abacha narrowly
escaped lynching by an irate Nigerian
immigrant mob in the town of Essen, West
Germany. Diya was visiting an automobile
shipping company in the Kettwig area to
arrange for the shipment of his cars and was
spotted by a Nigerian man who had earlier
recognised and tracked him from the train
station. Having confirmed that it was Diya
alright, he quickly alerted his other
friends and other Nigerians over the
telephone and within minutes, these Nigerian
immigrants resident in a nearby immigration
holding facility (Aduro house) stormed the
shipping centre hoping to force Diya to
surrender all the money he had on him to
them which in their calculations was also
their money as it must have come from looted
national treasury. However, on noticing
unusual activity in the premises, the
directors of the company spirited Diya away
to safety and alerted the local police.
Peter
Odili and his associates should not overrule
the possibility of such targeted mob action
in the future once they leave their
protected kingdoms.
January 2007.
info@uchenworah.com
posted 8 January 23007 |
