YOUR LETTERS
Let us know the corrupt governors
Not too long ago, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and her junior Minister, Mrs. Nenadi Usman, accused some state governors of siphoning monies meant for the development of their states abroad. President Olusegun Obasanjo confirmed this too.
And as if to confirm that indeed the governors had too much money at their disposal, suspended Plateau State Governor, Chief Joshua Dariye, was detained in London with a huge sum of money. More monies were allegedly traced to his house and account in the United Kingdom. Dariye had been denying with both sides of the mouth that he was never caught at all not to talk of being caught with laundered money.
But one curious thing about this country is that government officials who claim to be ‘clean’ are fond of making allegations of impropriety without providing solid evidence to nail the culprit and following it up by freezing such accounts where the laundered moneyis kept and prosecuting the offender. This is quite annoying. Or is Obasanjo saying that these monies cannot be traced to where they are kept and retrieved with the help of the security agencies in those countries?
One thing is that countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada would never condone such acts. And these happen to be the countries where the greater percentage of laundered monies are taken to these days following the pranks that had been played on some of our thieving public officials in the past by some countries where they laundered monies. Some countries were said to have denied such officials access to their monies after leaving office. And they couldn’t cry out for obvious reasons. So, why for goodness sake can’t our government collaborate with these countries to get our money back and get such public officials prosecuted under the laws of those countries even if ours have rooms for sacred cows?
Moreso, it is not enough to make such blanket statements that the governors are stealing public funds. Do they all do it? Or are those making the statements scared of these governors? Why can’t we name those who do these things? After all, the Abia state Governor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, challenged the Federal Government to name those involved in this act. After all, these public officials filled Assets Declaration Forms before getting into office, a document that could be used to verify what they had acquired after getting into office.
Or are we saying that a Kalu who already had two houses on Victoria Island since 1990 and with over five credit cards worth over $5 million is part of this thieving craze? Are we saying some of the governors like Kalu who are doing genuine businesses both within and outside the country, contributing to the development of the economy are also thieves? For the sake of posterity, we need to move fast to check the excesses of some of these governors and restore the dignity of those not involved. That way, we will respect our elected representatives the more.
Umaru Sambo
17, Tundunwada street, Kaduna, Kaduna state.
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