By Rev Fr Gerald Nwafor
I heard the government of Nigeria saying that the government of Ogun state embarrassed the country because of the business they had with a Chinese company to develop a free-trade zone. The company called Zhongshan said the Ogun state government forced it out of the deal and now they are claiming $74.5 million in damages.
The government of Nigeria was saying that the Chinese company was embarrassing the country by trying to seize their properties abroad. Odika odi kpoba Odika odi egolu (fraud begets fraud). Of all the companies in the world building free trade zones, why should the government of Ogun State go for an unknown little Chinese company? Nobody knew of the business, from the time it was signed, to the time it was canceled, to the time the case went to court, to the time judgment was given.
It was only when the aircraft which was bought surreptitiously by the government of Nigeria was seized in France that the story broke into the public arena. Thanks to the Chinese company the Nigerian public could not have heard about the new plane. It could have been a bigger embarrassment that the father of the land went to France and bought a new plane which the public has said “no” to the purchase.
If the government thinks that the action of the Chinese company is an embarrassment, what do we call the presidential election of 2023? What do we call the charade in the oil sector? What do we call the appointment of Judges into high courts and appeal courts by a father who was the Chief Justice of the nation? The Chinese action is not an embarrassment at all because they are following the words of the Nigerian government which said that if you do not feel satisfied in your dealings with them you should go to court.
Hence the popular language of “Go to court.” The Chinese company has gone to court and the court has given judgment and the government turned around to say it is an embarrassment. They thought it was a kangaroo court, the type they had filled with their cronies as judges.Embarrassment abounds, the embarrassment given to you by a person is less important than the one you gave yourself (Nke madu melu onwe ya ka njo).
Looking at the national embarrassments we gave to ourselves as a nation the one from the Chinese company is moi-moi case. Is it not in the Senate that the Senate president said that he has sent something into the accounts of the senators for Easter break without knowing that the microphone and the tape were still rolling? When he was in court, he boldly said that it was prayers that he sent into the account.
What kind of embarrassment would you call that, maybe local embarrassment? Moreover, the same senate president was the one who embezzled all the money given to him to help the Niger Delta people, when he started mentioning the names of the government officials involved in the scam and fraud the national assembly members started shouting “OFF-THE-MIC.” If this is not an embarrassment, I do not know what it was. Therefore, to come out now to say that the Chinese company is giving Nigeria a national embarrassment is a joke.
We have been embarrassing ourselves since God knows when. Is it not in the same country that a governor who came fourth in a gubernatorial election was declared the winner and the people who took first, second, and third were all sidetracked to mention the fourth person as the winner? A country that has crude oil but imports petrol and gasoline.
A country that has 4 refineries but none of them is working and they still have workers in those refineries being paid monthly and money being allocated to the refineries as TAM (Turn Around Maintenance) since 1999, that is, for 25 years? A country where non-state actors are more reliable than the state in guarding national assets such as oil pipelines.
If you delve into security the embarrassment would be metastasized because some part of the country has been occupied by non-state actors since 2010 and billions of dollars have been spent without proper accounting and no recorded success. The embarrassment of national, international, and local magnitude is very palpable in Nigeria today; the only people who do not see them are the political class and their praise singers.
The Chinese company has earmarked two Nigerian houses in London for sale. They have earmarked a plane in Canada belonging to the Nigerian government for sale. They have got a court injunction to sell the two planes they got from the Nigerian government in France. Agbusi gbaa otule omulu ako (When the stinging-ant strikes the butt, next time the butt would be more careful where to sit). All those Chinese companies moving in and out of Nigeria in the name of business should be investigated before the Chinese people would get an injunction on the Nigerian citizens and start selling us in the name of assets recovery.
I do not want to be sold in place of a reckless governor in Nigeria. If the whole truth about the business between the Chinese company and the Ogun state government would be revealed in the public domain, I can tell you for sure the two governors involved in that business should be ashamed of themselves (if they still have any shame left in them), and the Chinese company exonerated.
I can tell you that a governor in Nigeria would not take time to read the details of the contract, except the part that would put dollars inside his private pocket the way Gandollar did in 2018. The governor did not care about the embarrassment but walked around the country canvassing for a political position which he eventually won. Now he is the chairman of the political parties in Nigeria, and nobody is saying anything about embarrassment.
The government of Nigeria has nothing like embarrassment in its dictionary. The people of Nigeria have learned how to live with the missteps of the government. It would be strange if the government of Nigeria started doing things the normal way. It would be normal if the government of Nigeria continued to embarrass themselves.
