Jeremiah Gana and his billionaire friends
The military struck a few months later, he was back in the class room until he left the university to join the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) and when MAMSER was created, he became its pioneer director general.I have therefore followed the public antecedence of Prof. Jerry Gana from a relatively young […]
The military struck a few months later, he was back in the class room until he left the university to join the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) and when MAMSER was created, he became its pioneer director general.
I have therefore followed the public antecedence of Prof. Jerry Gana from a relatively young age to date that I am an adult and Jerry is old. I have observed his role as a teacher, a technocrat and a politician and one thing that I can readily say as I said in the beginning is that as a teacher, he was a role model to many of us, as a technocrat, he played his part on the basis of circumstances but as a politician, I think he is disappointing me.
Yes, I am disappointed because I gave all the integrity of a teacher to this gentleman who has since been tainted by the murky waters of Nigerian politics or is it that people like Jerry are responsible for making Nigerian politics assume the very ugly dimension that it has in the last over 15 years?
I want to think that it is forgivable if the former was the case but the latter represents the reality on ground and if anything, we all as citizens know that minor fault lines have been elevated to the forefront of national political activities, that is why we are where we are now and the system is certainly not working.
Despite the huge resources the nation made in earnings, especially from sales of crude oil, the country is backward and the people are poor. Yet, each time it is a sensitive national issue for discourse, they talk about religion, region and tribe and Jerry is a pivot in this antics. Unfortunately, at a time when national revenues are dwindling and the confusion on the part of those who control and allocate the resources is increasingly becoming palpable, the ruling PDP chose to organise a fund raising dinner at which over N21 billion was collected. What is amazing here is not that that much was collected but the dubious cover-ups of who the donors were.
People with no antecedents in industry and commerce donated in billions. I do not know who one Tunde Ayeni is in commerce and business circles in this country but I often hear his name here and there. The guy is said to be so rich that he donated along with his friends billions of naira. In serious societies, the sources of those monies would be under scrutiny. Even here in Nigeria, I am of the view that we have no choice than to do everything to ensure that the truth about such monies is unearthed for the sake of today and tomorrow.
The focus of this piece this week is on Prof. Jerry Gana and his group of friends that donated N5 billion to the PDP campaign fund. Who are those friends? Where are they; and what do they do for a living to have made so much money? It is dubious for anybody to come up in public and make such a scrumptious claim and go unattended to.
These friends must be Nigerians because I want to believe that the electoral laws in this country have always frowned and restricted politicians from soliciting campaign funds outside the shores of this country.
Why would any Nigerian of good conscience refuse to be identified with any cause that he justifiably feels is worthy of dolling so much money out to so that the system can keep running? If the money was truly from Jerry and friends, then we desire to know who these friends are so that we can join the chanting crowd of those saying yes it is good and it shall be permanent.
I am of the view that there is something that is confusing in this circus game of what seems more like laundering than genuine contributions for the sake of a noble cause. Somebody somewhere is telling half-truths and the role of a responsible society is to unearth such falsehood if peace is to reign.
It was Mahmud Jega who spoke about Jerry and his friends at the Department of Geography, ABU. Some of us would like to know how many of his Zaria friends contributed and how much did they contribute in this N5 billion?
It is unfortunate that those who were shining lights in the society have turned liars and deceitful. Dubious if I may say, because if the system was honest and transparent, there would have been nothing wrong with coming up with a list of each person or group and the amount it is contributing for the campaign. Why beclouding in an event that is supposed to be transparent? For your information, campaign funds and how they are sourced must be transparent. This is what the law says and this is what obtains in best practices. Why is it different here?
We deserve to know where and who are these friends that made up the lists of those handsome donors? It is critical and necessary that the PDP must come out with sufficient explanations to Nigerians on this, otherwise a further question mark on their ability to go beyond 2015 becomes visible and apparent.
I remember it was Prof. Gana who told the world on the return of the ailing Governor of Taraba State, Danbaba Danfulani Suntai, that he was hale and hearty and ready to resume work when everyone who watched the return on television saw very well that the governor was critically off balance. We said the professor told a lie and everyone in the country today knows that it was a lie.
I am disappointed that one of those I held in very high regards has degenerated into something else at the tail end of his life. May the truth continue to shine over falsehood! In Nigeria today, people hang on religion and commit mass fraud and other crimes against humanity. Let us know the friends in that N5 billion donation.