Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Still on Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello

I had wanted to blog on this matter long time ago, but choose to watch events as it unfolds. One would have thought that a Chairman of a House Committee who was SENT the sum of 10 million naira which she use officially to travel for a retreat in Ghana should be some case the EFCC will treat with kid gloves because the amount involved is a paltry sum compare to billions of dollars case file the EFCC has on its desk. However, small amount as it was, the truth is, the case deserve the seriousness of EFCC but not with huge publicity and tenacity it is presently giving it. But perhaps because the principal officer involved is the daughter of the former president. While watching the whole drama, and the rate at which the masses will ignite their anger on Iyabo, because she is the daughter of the former president who had seemingly inflicted a lots of hardship on the masses as most Nigerians would now think of Obsanjo, the candid opinion of this blogger is that, there are more pressing matter for EFCC to deal with than the Iyabo case because the money in questions was sent to her committee and it was collected by a member of the house and transfer to another member of the house, it was not directly paid into her account and the house confirm that the cash was use for a retreat in Ghana which is officially approved. Even if two members did not attend the retreat out of over ten then that does not make the trip illegal, those members may be indisposed during the trip period. It is also customary for all the Senate committees to source fund for travel overseas, and mostly provided by the ministries or parastatals under them, but Iyabo choose to use the money for a retreat not directly into her own pocket. There are cases of majority of the former governors who stole billions, none has been arrested or the cash collected back from them during this new regime. I am tempted to believe that Iyabo may be right that some people are using the EFCC to get back to her and that her life is in Danger, all these may be to get back to her father or to remove her as chairman of the health committee, which is a lucrative committee as most committee in the house. Some of the men in the house may even be jealous of her, as I know that most Nigerian men dont like to serve under a woman. This is more like another Ette saga, and to me, Iyabo seems to know how to deal with it, not only as a daughter of a former president, (a president who had stepped on powerful toes and those whose toes he had stepped on are ready to get back at him by any means), but also as a politician who knew her right and how to fight back no wonder she has gone to court. Let the court decides then.
Everyone blames Obasanjo for everything, even while he is no more in the office, all blames is still on his head, Nigerians are known to blame somebody for all their problems. Truth is Obasanjo has done his own, he had rule us the way he thinks he can rule us, let us put that behind us and move forward. Let posterity judge him, let us learn from his rule and move forward. People shouted more than this during the demise of IBB regime, nothing comes out of all the noise, we should learn to move forward.
Has anyone ponder how long this Vendetta in the name of probe will continue? Let Mr President suspend all these probes and campaign of calumny as a matter of urgency and begin a way forward. Experience in the past had shown that nothing tangible comes out of probes except the noise during the period of the probe, and to me, that is not what we want!

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