Leaders and shameless lies

PEOPLE lie for many reasons. Some lies are claimed to be benevolent, when they bring no harm in particular, to the hearer. For example, when you asked to go and tell your eldest brother, that his beloved father is dead, you look at him in the face and tell him to come home urgently.

He asks you if everything is alright ? You respond ‘ Yes mama and papa are all well’. You lied to him, but they say that is a benevolent lie, because it was calculated to help the recipient cope with the reality waiting for him. A benevolent lie is told in the best interest of the hearer.

In Nigerian politics, there is no benevolent lie. Our leaders lie to us day in day out, with impunity, and we don’t seem to hold them accountable. Some conduct themselves in such lies, while some choose to do things capable of shattering the unity of the nation, on top such lies. Let’s look at few of the lies told by leaders in recent times.

Section 40 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution as amended states “ A person elected to the office of the President, shall not begin to perform the functions of that office until he has declared his assets and liabilities as prescribed by this constitution, and he has taken Oath of Allegiance——–“

What do they do? They get into the office, start performing, and much later declare their assets and back date the whole forms.The Assets Declaration Forms ought to have been given to the elected official the same date he received his Certificate of return from INEC, so that the man understands that he must neither lie to the people under the constitution, nor take any portion of the constitution for granted.

The result of this lie against the constitution is we have a president like Goodluck Ebele Jonathan,GEJ, who said he would not declare his assets, while another like President Muhammadu Buhari, PMB, does so 100 days after, and in so doing lie again! In December 2015, during the presidential campaigns, Buhari told his audience, that he had only one million Naira in cash, and my reaction was; here is a good man, who is relatively poor, and may indeed stand for the common man. My friends told me how he returned excess monies given to him as a member of the Council of State, it could have been rumours, but  I was moved.

Last week, newspapers screamed that he had N30 million in cash meaning he was also a rich man. He may not be super-rich, I honestly did not expect him to be, but right now, I do not know what to believe. As if to hit me blind and blank, he then made his recent appointments into his kitchen cabinet.

Section 171(5) of our Constitution states “ In exercising his power of appointment under this section, the President shall have regard to the federal character of Nigeria, and the need to promote unity. PMB flagrantly breached this provision in his recent appointments of key officers of his administration, which skewed to overwhelmingly,  in favour of the north, to the chagrin of other regions of Nigeria.

He did not consider the need to promote unity in these appointments, talk less of federal character, whether this is a gross misconduct in the performance of the functions of his office or not will be left for the opposition politicians to consider and decide on what to do.

I prefer a peaceful, united Nigeria, that fights corruption, than a fractionalised, atomicitic, highly incensed people at war, in a nation that is corruption free.

At the States’ level, Governor Oshiomole of Edo State, told the world from his high office, that N140 billion had been expended on consultancy services for the second Niger Bridge project, and that $700 million was surreptitiously moved from the Sovereign wealth Fund for the same bridge. Last week, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority declared that it had only spent about N14 billion on the project and that the money includes N10 billion as part of the N18.3 billion so far released by the Federal Government for the project, which had been disbursed for early construction work on the bridge. It had also spent about $2.2 million as consultancy on the project, including feasibility studies, legal due diligence, environmental impact assessment, traffic studies, and engineering design.

His Excellency looked Nigerians in the face and deliberately misinformed them! He lied against everybody concerned, from the project managers and coordinators to the target society, Ndigbo! Oh, I am sorry, I forgot that he has immunity to talk and do, as he likes.

Last month, the workers in the services of Imo State, went on a peaceful protest against non-payment of salaries from last year. The government came out to point accusing fingers at their opposition politicians, and claimed that they owed only a few months salaries.

But just yesterday, it was announced on the radio, that His Excellency had just approved the payment of salaries to workers from the month of November 2014, to date while the salaries of the workers in state parastatals would be sorted out in due course. It follows then, that workers were actually owed over eight months salaries in Imo State, and they all knew it, but chose to misinform the people, and politicise the livelihood of Imolites !  You just need to imagine what these families have gone through in the past eight months, Christmas inclusive, and some are still swimming in the slurry!

When roads that were built at some huge costs do not last for up to six months before falling apart, someone ought to be held responsible. At present, there is work on a bridge across the Njaba River at Okwudor, and there are no pillars.

It looks like a mere culvert in spite of the heavy traffic on that road, and those doing that job, did not seem to have considered the good one built by Julius Berger at the Awomanma end of the same Njaba River. Our leaders must stop taking us for granted especially this APC government.

Mr  Clement Udegbe, a legal practitioner, wrote from Lagos.