Balarabe Musa and Linus Okorie’s Amnesty Bill
Our elders sometime get it right. They say for instance, that when someone promises you a new Christmas or Sallah dress; before you grovel in thanks, carefully check what they are wearing. If the late Tai Solarin made such a promise, it would be foolish to expect anything less than a calico short shirt and a pair of shorts. If the late famous Indian moneylender, Datta Phuge made such a promise, one should expect an adornment worth its weight in gold. Mr Phuge, hit the Guinness record book in 2013 by becoming the first Indian (after Ghanaian Kings) to wear the most expensive shirt made entirely of gold. The shirt was worth $250,000. Assassins bludgeoned him to death in 2016.
These explanations became necessary after reading Balarabe Musa’s disappointment that a bill has been introduced in the House of Rebels to pardon benevolent treasury looters. Some of us have followed the unenviable public career of Balarabe Musa. For those who do not know him, Musa is a Kaduna-based Spartan politician who sauntered into the world of political infamy by becoming the first governor of post-independent Naija to be impeached.
Any reporter who has ever interviewed Musa knows that compared to other ex-this and ex-that who constantly abuse our sensibilities with their air of importance, this peculiar politician lives like a hermit. Even his white beard reeks of austerity when compared with that of General Abdulsalami Abubakar whose beard flourishes from luxuriant care. When my beard goes gray, it’ll imitate the General’s.
Musa has never been conferred with a chieftaincy title or a honorary degree anywhere and his most treasured garment is integrity. As Kaduna residents would tell you, take the currency of integrity to Kasuwan Barci, and it wouldn’t buy you a loaf of bread. So who listens to what a man with integrity has to say on an important issue as corruption when those who are feeding on the fertilizer of corruption are luxuriant in physique and weighty in status and words?
Musa’s children have only one career - assist their father on the farm because while money is a magnet, integrity is like halitosis – it loses you valuable friends across generations. People shy from hiring the children of men of integrity except they have clean hands. In these days of hunger and starvation, who eats with clean hands when tables are laden with the dripping oil of grit and graft? Those who hire the siblings of integrity know that their secrets are not safe. This is what honourable Linus Okorie sought to redeem us from.
It is on record that Balarabe Musa was impeached for refusing to appoint people with talents in looting the treasury. He wouldn’t loot the treasury himself, and was standing in the way of those who are gifted in that time-tested science.
The bill on amnesty for treasury looters, introduced a month ago by a computerage Naija politrician member of the Green Chamber, Linus Okorie has flown through its first reading on the floor of the house. If ever there was a popular bill, this one is. Okorie is from Bayelsa, the heartland of oil production where the governor commissions a wooden footbridge with pomp and fanfare. It is the home of President Jones and the adopted abode of dollarized Mama Peace who earns the accolade as the most harassed first wife of the federation by her own admission.
Bayelsa is one of the states where poverty was eradicated long ago because even the wicked know that corruption is the palm oil with which the business of governance is eaten here. This bill intends to stop the unending war between the sinnate and the presidency over the appointment of Magu and its capacity to lead to Sai Baba’s impeachment. It finally recognizes the talents of treasury looters to turn Naija into Africa’s new Malaysia. Simply put is privileged and gifted enough to loot the treasury should not be investigated, provided they declare their assets (no apologies to Bukola Saraki) and willingly forfeit a chunk of those illegally acquired assets.
When; (not if), this bill sees the light of day, there would be no need for EFCC or Magu. Only lawyers can complain that their jumbo briefs could be jeopardized if this bill becomes law and they are not, so what is Balarabe Musa’s grouse?
Check this out, since 1981 when Balarabe Musa was impeached, and even denied the courtesy of getting pension for the trouble he caused Kaduna State, who has named their children after him? The answer is nobody. When this bill becomes law, many Naija politricians would marry new wives just to make new babies to be named after Linus Okorie. Don’t mind those who say that oil, the primary source of all these dream bills is losing its relevance just because Volvo is switching from fuel guzzling cars to environmentally friendly ones. If Europe and America dump their exotic fuel guzzlers, Naija is always a willing dumping ground. As sinnator Melaye!