University of Abuja: Of corruption and government complicity

For instance, a pastor may be an unabashed gold digger who luxuriates in crass materialism, influence peddling and power mongering, ingratiating himself to every rich and powerful person in his congregation, denomination, immediate or wider community.  He may even be living beyond his means, but on coerced or induced charity from all and sundry.  He […]

For instance, a pastor may be an unabashed gold digger who luxuriates in crass materialism, influence peddling and power mongering, ingratiating himself to every rich and powerful person in his congregation, denomination, immediate or wider community.  He may even be living beyond his means, but on coerced or induced charity from all and sundry.  He may be the type who zealously seeks financial and material comfort through commercial evangelism and unholy sycophancy, substituting biblical values with hedonistic valuables.  On Sundays however, he mounts the pulpit haranguing members of his emotionally captured congregation to desist from coveting worldly acquisitions and estates because all is vanity.
Similarly, a Governor or President may routinely pontificate on corruption, verbally assaulting unpatriotic acts and tendencies of citizens on every occasion and on all his outings, but openly acts contrary to those public effusions.  His body language or direct official behaviour daily abets aids, or in fact, promotes corruption through the exercise or non-exercise of his authority.  This indeed has been one of the enduring problems of leadership in this country – criminal connivance.
Unfortunately, anytime a pastor or a political executive engages in such vacuous moral pontificating, he is insulated from any direct or instantaneous challenge to the veracity, appropriateness or validity of such moral grandstanding, a function of conventional reverence for his privileged position or protocol of his office.  Otherwise, a number of such speeches are not only hypocritical, but also questionable.
On Tuesday, 17th September, 2013, at the annual conference of the Nigerian Economic Society held in Abuja, President Jonathan admonished Nigerians not to “reward corrupt practices” through their actions.  Indeed, this has become the favourite song of many real or phony anti-corruption crusaders since the days of yore.
I am aware that some Nigerians have responded to the president in various media, questioning his sincerity and the altruism of his advocacy.  They cited the state pardon granted chief Alamiesegha as an illuminating counter evidence of a strong presidential aversion to corruption.
Another piece of evidence worth citing is the blatant refusal of the presidency to release government white paper on the notoriously regular and prolonged crisis at the University of Abuja.  Up till now, the University of Abuja is going through monumental administrative, academic and even financial improprieties.  Many of these have been documented in details by numerous official panels (two Government visitation panels and two Council/Senate investigation panels).  The crises, for a long while, dominated the print and electronic media in this country.  The President, who is also the Visitor to the University, set up an unprecedented 42-man special visitation panel to investigate the pervasive, sustained and brazen aberrations in the University.
For two months, the committee, headed by Dr Osanakpo, worked and produced its report, which it submitted in September, 2012.  The committee’s work allegedly cost the Federal Government some hundreds of millions of Naira.  Today, the white paper of that report is nowhere to be found after the former Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyatu Rufai, had submitted it to the presidency for signature and subsequent release.  Pestered by the press, the Minister publicly declared that she had played her part; the matter was with the President.  In spite of the implication of this statement, the President did not give a damn.
The painful aspect of the UniAbuja example is that the Visitor to the University, who is also the President, took an oath of office to protect national interests, including all National assets.  UniAbuja is a national asset situated within the corridors of federal power.  It does not belong to any political, religious or ethnic kingpin.  The president’s deliberate inaction on the white paper has many implications:
(a) It clearly suggests aiding and abetment, in fact, promotion of corruption,
(b) It implies official complicity in the progressive destruction of the University of Abuja,
(c) It amounts to a complacent waste of tax payers money spent on the special visitation, involving hundreds of millions of naira.
Beyond these implications, the president’s refusal to release the white paper has done violence to the psyche of many Nigerians.  It has done violence to the efforts and spirit of service of the 42 panel members.  It has done violence to the patriotic conscience of staff and students that volunteered information on the atrocious, illegalities in UniAbuja.  It has done violence to the quality of education in the University and the resultant quality of its students.  It has done violence to the expectations of parents and Nigerian tax payers.  It has done, as in the past, additional damage to the ethical values in UniAbuja and the university system at large.
Unfortunately, the Vice-Chancellor, who is squarely at the centre of the crisis, has since the submission of the damning report taken refuge in the Aso Villa chapel, fully protected under the umbrella of political churchianity and state power.  Having been made larger than life by presidential indifference, the embattled Vice-Chancellor certainly has no better or safer havens, in view of the quantum of gross misdemeanour and managerial impropriety credited to his administration.  Thanks to the vigilant Nigerian Press that serialized the contents of the report.  The cover-up of glaring institutional absurdities by Government can by no means obliterate the hard incontrovertible evidence of the tragic destruction of UniAbuja.  It can only widen the scope of the key players involved in its destruction, including its conniving proprietor and agents.
With this level of official impunity exhibited by Government in the UniAbuja saga, most Nigerians will never like to believe or trust their leaders’ habitual sanctimonious preachments.  It is an act of arrant mendacity and irritating hypocrisy.  It clearly justifies the opinion that “the government, which was set for protection and comfort of all good citizens, becomes the principal obstruction and nuisance with which to contend…  The cheat and bully and malefactor we meet everywhere is the government.”

Professor Omole was a deputy vice chancellor, University of Abuja