In the final waiting room before one is ushered in to see Nigeria’s brand new President, Umar Yar”adua that faithful day in September 2007 at the United Nations New York hotel in New York three of us waited patiently for our turn for audience with Nigeria’s new “big man”. Once you made it to that room, you were sure to see the man. It was barely four months after President Yar’adua was sworn in as President and he was attending his first ever UN General Assembly in New York. Apart from myself who wanted an exclusive interview with the president in Hausa and English, the two other persons in the room were Bode George and Mike Adenuga. While we waited, Bode George was up and about, walking around with a swagger and exchanging banters with the president’s close aides who hung around the corridor.
In my mind, I wondered why Bode George was still hanging around power after his benefactor and “baba-sale” had left office and returned to the farm. It was apparent he was bent on hanging on to the coat tails of the new President as a party leader, I noted with a tinge of sadness. From that day, I followed Bode George, the self acclaimed generalissimo of PDP in the
South-West. I recalled the empty boast he made to deliver Lagos to PDP only to be trounced by the political bull dozers of ASIWAJU Tinubu and Action Congress.
The rest is now history. But he was a man always in the news for the wrong reasons. He played smart. Injecting himself into the mainstream of the PDP and the Yar’adua administration. He knew he needed the president’s ears and needed protection too. But he also wanted to continue to “chop” notwithstanding that he was yet to pay for what he “chopped” while he served as the NPA Chairman. He thought justice had gone on a long vacation. Wrong. Justice was just on a short walk.
And when justice returned to base, BODE IBIYINKA GEORGE and his gang of five got a taste of justice. And for Bode George, it was a day of reckoning; Known for his bluster, swagger and loud talk, Bode George was cut to size when he least expected. For him, such a judgment was never on the card, after all, he had served dutifully and he expected to be rewarded and protected. Well, the protection he banked on failed at the door of justice. Justice was thirsty for blood to satisfy the hunger of millions of Nigerians who because of one man’s greed battle grinding poverty daily. Justice found enough blood in Bode George and his gang of five and it did not hesitate to strike its hammer. The sword of Ribadu which hung over his head had not disappeared and if for a moment he thought it would go away, that was blown into oblivion when he was jailed for corruption.
When the hammer of justice struck sentencing him to about 2 years in jail, the bell of victory rang out loud for the anti-corruption crusade. Though it was long in coming, it came all the same. In one singular moment, Musa Yar’adua’s administration got a mark up in its fight against corruption.
However, the sentencing of Bode George though a positive development is tokenist in many respects. Too little victory in an ocean of corruption and brazen waste of public resources. For one Bode George hammered into jail, there are over one hundred on the loose rampaging through the public coffers.
Nigeria bleeds from the wounds inflicted on her by corrupt lords of the manor. The nation has been driven aground and there are tell tale signs all around. Is it the calamitous state of our major roads, the lack of basic services and infrastructure or the enduring nightmare of blackout from lack of electricity? Yet, our leaders continue to fiddle, pre-occupied with lining their pockets and fattening their bank accounts. |
