“Let the poor breathe” is a slogan that has come to capture the suffering of the majority of Nigerians with increased fuel costs and the collapsing value of the naira since the regime of Bola Tinubu came into power in questionable circumstances in May. While the poor are “suffocating” under the yoke of costs rising beyond meagre incomes, no expense is being spared maintaining the ruling class in conditions they have become accustomed to.
Nothing epitomised the Marie Antoinette-like brazenness of stolen wealth in the midst of poverty more than Senate President Godswill Akpabio announcing live on national TV a “token” alleged to be in millions of naira being sent to the accounts of senators to enjoy their holidays. No such luck for their constituents.
As if this were not enough, the Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) is suing Akpabio and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abass over their plans to spend 40bn naira on bulletproof SUVs for national assembly members. Akpabio has multiple corruption charges from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) related to stealing 108.1bn Akwa Ibom State funds from his time as the governor. This hasn’t stopped him from being elevated to the third highest office in the land, emulating Tinubu’s rise to the presidency with all manner of fraud, ranging from identity theft to money laundering, hanging over his head.
Tinubu, like the fabled Ali Baba, has surrounded himself with more than 40 thieves – a trend that even the foreign media have picked up on. The UK’s investigative journalism magazine, Private Eye, noted that another ex-governor and Tinubu crony, James Ibori of Delta State, is likely to be protected from further prosecution in the UK by Tinubu. Ibori was jailed for 13 years in the UK for money laundering and fraud in 2012 and now faces another eight year stretch if he doesn’t pay up on a £102m confiscation order. According to the magazine: Ibori is now to be found living under a new president, Bola Tinubu. Should Ibori not cough up the nine-figure sum the UK courts have asked for, extraditing him to serve the eight-year sentence that would ensue might not be simple. Tinubu has been lately allowing Ibori to breathe the rarefied air of the presidential villa. There is no shame in their thieving game.
Another thief that has found favour with the president is Atiku Bagudu, the former governor of Kebbi State. Bagudu helped former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha launder billions and Tinubu has put him in charge of the country’s budget! Bloomberg magazine were astonished by it all.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has appointed Atiku Bagudu, who the US has accused of helping a former dictator loot the country of billions of dollars in the 1990s, as his budget minister. https://t.co/Sm4HTBEtHE
— Bloomberg Africa (@BloombergAfrica) August 23, 2023
None of these should come as a surprise to anyone. Tinubu had to forfeit $460,000 in the 1990s in Chicago that was deemed proceeds from the heroin trade. When he reinvented himself as governor of Lagos State in 1999, he developed a partnership in crime with the Chagoury brothers, who were also partners in looting Nigeria with Abacha.
The guy in the picture above in dark glasses is Dapo Abiodun, another Tinubu crony and governor of Ogun State. Abiodun was jailed in Miami in 1986 on charges that included credit card fraud, cheque forgery, petty theft, fighting and injuring a police officer while resisting arrest. This type of rap sheet earns you “respect” in a mobster’s gang.
No list of Tinubu’s band of thieves would be complete without his chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, who has been reportedly handed over the reins of the regime due to the physical and mental incapacity of the president. Gbajabiamila, an attorney, was found guilty by the Supreme Court of Georgia of stealing $25,000 from a client in 2007.
With a bunch of thieves running the country, Nigeria more than ever before has solidified its kakistocracy credentials – a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. It’s a gangster’s paradise. Gregory Isaacs sang that “a rich man’s heaven is a poor man’s hell”. Tinubu has created a heaven for thieves with serious breathing difficulties for Nigerians.
