Dear Malaysia, please keep off our corruption

I confess that the only reason I listen to global news is to see who is competing with the black race on things that are reserved for Africa only. Diseases, famine, malnutrition, ethno-religious violence, ethnic cleansing – the whole nine yards! There was an inner joy when Turkish soldiers attempted to reverse global advancement by […]

I confess that the only reason I listen to global news is to see who is competing with the black race on things that are reserved for Africa only. Diseases, famine, malnutrition, ethno-religious violence, ethnic cleansing – the whole nine yards! There was an inner joy when Turkish soldiers attempted to reverse global advancement by staging a coup in 2016. The French overthrew their Queen because she hiked the price of baguette.
African soldiers cook up coups to torpedo elected governments until someone showed them the manual for perpetual leadership – the uniform, a license to brutalize bloody civilians and civil dress a passport to perpetually ruin lives while living like kings. Africa has them in loads, the Babili Mansa Yahya Jammeh, commandante Yoweri Museveni, Come-raid Bob Mugabe, prince Eyadema and Kabila and from Naija Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari.
It’s a shame that other nations are jostling for first positions with us over things that naturally belong to us. Even new research doubt that primates; Darwin’s ancestors (not mine) migrated to Africa from Europe. How I wish they knew this before they discovered the home of HIV/Aids. Even Egypt’s role in spreading civilization is not Africa’s pride but Arabian conceit!
One was hoping that corruption; the lubricant that oils the wheel of governance would remain ours for keeps. America created technology but China copies and perfects it. It has Silicon Valley but Indians are the masters of chip technology although some would uncharitably add poverty! Our brand of corruption is good – the powerful launder our patrimony abroad but reserves a little to ‘mobilize’ us through sham elections to legitimize their right to keep looting. Colonialists set up this fool-proof system and returned home certain that they would enjoy its dividends from the prodigals.
The only people against corruption are the likes of Sai Baba in times when the return to power was nothing but a pipe dream. Those sad days when there was no money to pay Abuja landlords or pick nomination forms because the 130 cows were sterile; when Zahra and siblings could only dream of graduating if ASUU let them and parties in Camp Buhari were pipe dreams. Those were the days when it was the height of abuse of state funds and privilege for President Jones’ to give away his adopted daughter in opulence.
How could anyone fault the criterion under which a modest Theodore Nguema Mbasogo appoints his own son vice president while modestly retaining the name, Equitorial Guinea and not Republic of Nguema? How could anyone fault the source of wealth of an industrious first daughter, Isabel dos Santos when her net worth is a humble fraction of her hard-working president father? How could anyone compete with Robert Mugabe’s leadership style without facing charges of treasonable felony? African ruiners bask in the occasional scandalous headlines knowing that it changes nothing and the motorcade of news moves on.
So when I heard that Malaysia’s Riza Aziz Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stepson is being investigated for alleged $1 billion funds belonging to the Malaysia Development Berhad, or IMDB I shouted – et tu Malay! Alhamdullilah, this has nothing to do with the Prime Minister. Razak should not take the position of the late Sani Abacha that even Sai Baba canonizes as a saint. Trouble is, there are banks in the world that constantly seek to tarnish the bad reputation of this saint by exhuming newly discovered funds from the estate of the man who did nothing but save government money abroad for rainy days like these. Is it his fault he couldn’t disclose it before death took him nearly two decades ago?
At a time when we were virtually angling to verify if Malaysia’s reputed wealth and political transformation came from the palm kernel it reportedly took from Naija, they are trying to compete with us in an area reserved for Africans only. This is evidently not acceptable.
As I was completing this, Donald Dumb was giving his acceptance speech as Republican flag bearer. He could have lifted his speech from a book without attribution just because he can. He has promised to eradicate crime and violence from America. We should pray he doesn’t send those ills to Mexico or Africa. No electoral promise beats that except the fictional portrayal in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross where ruling party stalwarts planned to bottle every ounce of oxygen in circulation to  asphyxiate none establishment members. However, African politricians have been known to promise to rebuild the Tower of Babel and tar the rough staircase to heaven provided God gives them their kingdom here on earth.
The Trump presidency promises to be a great one. Melania his wife; (no relation of melanin) copiously lifted chunks from Michele Obama who also lifted her ideas from another politician. Her husband, our brother Barack owes a huge chunk of his witticism to other people’s captive sound bites. Thanks America for teaching us that plagiarism has no consequences in the political arena.
Could I just ask that whatever happens in Malaysia or America, nobody should steal our corruption from us. We are simply not sharing without a fight!