Re: Femi Aribisala and his Campaign of Calumny against Buhari: A Rejoinder Olumuyiwa Amao

Very recently, precisely on 21 October, 2014, Mr Femi Aribisala, a self-styled apostle of hate against members of the opposition party, most notably, the All Progressives Congress wrote what could be best described as a fictitious and maligning piece on Rtd. General Mohammadu Buhari (GMB). In the said article which he captioned: “Muhammadu Buhari: Running for president with an anti-corruption bank loan”, Aribisala attempted unsuccessfully to paint Buhari as a man whose anti-corruption claim is questionable.

In justifying his rather bizarre accusations, he premised his argument on Buhari’s declaration that he had to seek the support of his bank to purchase his party’s nomination form. Aribisala went on to refer to a series of issues which he inferred or presumed as indicting on Buhari’s anti-corruption credentials. For the purpose of this rejoinder, I shall attempt a summary of Aribisala’s vituperations before presenting a defence to each of his unfounded accusations. To be sure, let me state for the avoidance of doubts that I am neither of member of the APC as a party, nor the ruling PDP.

To the best of my knowledge, none of these parties has the capacity to bring Nigeria out of its present quagmire, given the calibre of individuals holding sway at both ends. Nevertheless, as a student of Politics and history, I owe it a duty to my conscience and to my ethos to always set the records straight when facts are intentionally manipulated to garble history. I shall come back to my interpretation of Mr Aribisala’s character later, but let us first consider a summary of his aspersions on GMB.

Aribisala argued so feebly that (1) “Under Buhari’s watch as Petroleum Minister in the late 70s, the sum of $2.8m (worth billions of naira today) was missing from the NNPC account and that the matter was subjected to a Senate investigation but before the report could be dealt with, Buhari conveniently ousted the Shagari government in a military coup d’état in 1983. (2) That one “Vera Ifudu, an NTA newscaster, revealed that the late Olusola Saraki, (the then Senate leader) had told her in an interview that the missing money was traced to Buhari’s account at Midland Bank in London.

(3) That GMB “claims to be an anti-corruption crusader; but served as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under the late Sani Abacha, and that GMB failed to curb the rampant corruption that prevailed in the organization. (4) That—in year 2000, the Obasanjo administration set up an Interim Management Committee to look into the affairs of the PTF, under the chairmanship of Haroun Adamu. The Committee discovered that billions of naira was stolen under Buhari’s chairmanship”. (5) That—“the same Buhari who would not or could not curb corruption in the PTF wants us to believe he will fight corruption as president of Nigeria”.

(6) That “despite all the noise about anti-corruption coming from Buhari and his cohorts; he has failed to fight against corruption in the APC. “We did not hear him raise a voice against the incongruity of a so-called progressive party demanding a cynical nomination fee of 27.5 million naira for its presidential primaries”. (7) That “If Buhari is truly ‘anti-corruption’; he should begin his crusade in the APC. And lastly, that Buhari wants us to believe that he cannot afford 27.5 million naira. Nevertheless, he rides around in a bullet-proof Jeep and maintains a convoy of Land Cruisers.

The summary of Aribisala’s epistle is that GMB’s much touted anti-corruption posture is a farce, which in his opinion only exists in the imagination of his followers. While I agree that Aribisala has every right to voice his opinions whichever way he considers necessary, I do however feel particularly saddened that the opinions he expressed in what I argue as a sponsored campaign against GMB is a little off the mark, and one that is devoid of facts.

First, he claims that GMB while serving as Minister for Petroleum in 1970s misappropriated a sum of $2.8 m and that GMB made frantic attempts to cover it up. Perhaps we should ask Aribisala how come GMB was not indicted in the report of the Senate committee. I find it particularly libellous for him to say that he has always known GMB to be corrupt without any real proof. Not only do I consider Aribisala’s claim as utterly baseless, I am equally appalled by the shallowness of these accusations.

I am as a matter of fact constrained to believe that Aribisala does not understand the value of $2.8m in the 1970s. Where on earth would GMB have hidden this sum? Mentioning the tracing of the money to a particular bank in the United Kingdom, which he claims belonged to GMB is the highest amount of disservice anyone could do to an individual who in my personal estimation have continued to live a modest life more than 3 decades after leaving office, an individual who is inarguably the poorest among the leaders who have presided over the affairs of this country.

If Buhari was actually complicit as suggested in Aribisala’s paid advertorial, he would be competing in the league of the IBB’s and Abacha’s of this world right now. I hope Mr Aribisala still remembers that it was during GMB’s headship of the Petroleum ministry, that three new refineries were constructed: one in Port Harcourt, one in Warri and the other one in Kaduna. During this period, Nigeria was refining her own oil, exporting oil and not importing petroleum products.

It then leads one to wonder how a man who supervised the construction of three refineries within a span of two years could have embezzled such a huge amount of money under one of the most disciplined regimes Nigeria has ever had. Does Aribisala understand the value of $2.8m in the 1970s at all? Or did he just choose to turn a blind eye? I think it may be useful to challenge Mr Aribisala to provide his reading audience with documentary proofs of GMB’s ownership of a foreign account at Midlands Bank in the UK as he claims.

If he cannot do this, Aribisala needs to go back to God and apologise for spewing lies on an individual who has done him no wrong, and I pray God forgives him. Aribisala in his second ranting claims that GMB’s acceptance to serve under Abacha is a stain on his anti-corruption credentials, and that under his chairmanship of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), massive corruption took centre stage. Again, Aribisala goofed here, or maybe he just chose to distort history. Yes, Abacha exemplifies corruption as evidenced in the billions of dollars that have been recovered from him and his cronies since his demise, but has GMB ever been caught wanting in this regard?

To the best of my knowledge, the PTF under Buhari fared better than most other intervention schemes we have had in this country in the past. I can still recall with precision the Mass-transit buses, Medical laboratories, and buildings which bore the inscription of “PTF Assisted” in my University at that time. I want to believe several other institutions of higher learning in Nigeria got intervention projects in the area of physical infrastructures and social amenities, some of which are still standing.

Perhaps, Aribisala could do well by visiting some of these institutions, or if has evidences of Buhari’s alleged corrupt vices during this time, why not bring it out for the world to see? Why write based on insinuations motivated by hate and what François Bayart identifies as politics of the belly? Our friend (Aribisala), who obviously appears to be dancing to the tune of his paymasters, also argued that, Buhari has failed to curb the unsubstantiated claims of corruption going on within the APC fold.

As tempting to believe as this accusation sounds, the simple truth remains that Nigeria is in a deep-seated decay that an individual like Buhari cannot repair without any instrument of office. Maybe Mr Aribisala should tell us how he wants Buhari to curb an allegation that is not yet proven? I will only agree with him if there has been a fraud allegation against any serving APC stalwart without Buhari raising his voice against such an allegation.

In fact, I am one of those who unrepentantly believe that there are many individuals in both the PDP and the APC who will be languishing in jail, should GMB have the opportunity to govern this country again, and this perhaps explains why he may never get there. But more importantly, and as my people do say, “If the sword is not firmly in your hands, you do not ask for the type of death which killed your father”. Would it not be better for Buhari to follow this dictum until he has the opportunity to ask questions? I do honestly hope Aribisala can decipher what this means.

Lastly, Aribisala claims that Buhari’s acceptance and willingness to purchase his nomination form with a bank loan is an indication of what is to happen if he gets into office. Aribisala is simply saying GMB’s immediate target will be to recoup the monies he has spent while campaigning when he gets into office. This assumption for me is the most absurd out of Aribisala’s hallucinations. Does he think that Buhari given the low-styled life he has lived ever since he left office would still be struggling over wealth accumulation like most of Aribisala’s Pay-Masters do?

That GMB could openly say that he struggled to pay for his nomination form through a credit facility should tell the likes of Aribisala that the man simply does not have a large pocket like most of the political predators that have fed fat on our ‘Commonwealth’ over the last five decades do. To be sure, these characters are in both the APC and the PDP, and they are the same individuals who will be praying for a sane character like Buhari never to emerge.

These are the same set of individuals people like Aribisala and his other partner in hate, Femi Fani-Kayode now appear to be working for, through their plethora of campaign of hate against GMB. I find this development disturbing for two main reasons: first, Aribisala on his profile in the Newspaper outlet he writes for describes himself as “a scholar and international relations expert”, if the quality of what Aribisala’s spews is anything to go by, then we may have to redefine the true meaning of scholarship. His writings are not just filled with hate; they are in my opinion tell-tale signs of a man who has been paid to do a hatchet job, and an individual desperate to remain in the spot light. I could be wrong though!

Secondly, Aribisala, (as well as his friend, Femi Fani-Kayode) claims to be a “Pastor”, again we may need to reflect on the quality of pastors in our present Nigeria. Or is it part of their pastoral responsibilities to lie without recourse to objectivity? What happened to the biblical “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free doctrine”? Or did Aribisala choose to follow the ‘devil’ in this regard? I guess only Aribisala can answer all these.

May I add that I have been observing with keen interest Aribisala’s previous writings, and I have never seen him write on the mis-governance and corruption-like activities which this PDP led government has undertaken under this dispensation. Not even the missing $20b, “Corruption is not stealing hypothesis” or the very recent $15m combined (failed) arms deal saga has drawn the interest of Mr Aribisala. How more parochial and sentimental can one’s writings be?

This particular hypocrisy of a write up only shows Mr Aribisala’s resentment for a man who is simply incorruptible. Under this administration, corruption and has been made a legitimate instrument of statecraft, and reduced to mere public stealing, we have watched countless number of probes without any of them getting to a logical conclusion. Under this administration, we have watched many corrupt politicians repatriated home only to be given state pardon.

There has never been a time in our history as a people that we have had this division and mistrust as we have had administration; Yet Mr Aribisala has never found it ‘scholarly’ enough to write on any of these issues! If this is the ‘present or future’ of journalism in Nigeria, then some us must tarry a little why outside the shores of this country, otherwise, writers like Mr Aribisala will present Nigeria to us as the United States of America through their distortion of facts and sponsored (but woeful) attempts to re-write history.

Olumuyiwa Babatunde Amao is a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. All comments are welcome on @talk2smat and talk2smath@yahoo.com