The aphorism of the goats, yam barns and yam eaters was made popular in the days immediately after the ouster of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as revelations of financial malfeasance by his appointees screamed from newspaper headlines daily.
Apparently, the goats left to watch the yam barn had helped themselves to very sizeable chunks of it. This betrayal of trust effectively drew the battle line between these alleged yam eaters and the owners of the barn in what many believed will be the foundation of Nigeria’s real and diligent battle against the evil of corruption.
The enthusiasm itself was anchored on the celebrated image of erstwhile head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, as an honest, no nonsense Nigerian who no one has ever pinned any label of corruption on. Whether that image and the earlier gra-gra fetched Nigeria any progress in the war against thieving public leaders is a story still unfolding, and I suspect will travel long into the future.
So, when erstwhile governor of Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle, now minister of state for defence in the APC government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, first made the claim that the government vehicles he and his cronies illegally rounded up and hid in his Maradun home were from an earlier car dealership, many Nigerians knew straight away that he was deceitful in a manner that amounts to an insult to the collective sensibilities of the entire nation. The man effectively identified himself as the proverbial goat who did not only eat the yams he was entrusted with, but he now also believes he has the right to corner some, long after his watch had been terminated.
In fact, government procurements are well documented and my first impression to Governor Dauda Lawal Dare’s swift recovery of the cars was and still is that he will not go after vehicles belonging to his predecessor in the forcefully manner he did, if a paper trail doesn’t give him the assurance that the properties do indeed belong to the people of Zamfara state.
One would have thought that having been burst, Matawalle will do the most honourable, considering he now goes about with the title of honourable minister, and simply dismiss the misadventure as a mistake, ask for forgiveness from the people of Zamfara and move on.
Sadly, not only did he cry foul and raise hell, but he also went to court seeking an injunction to compel the people of Zamfara to return their properties to him. Such brazenness and audacity, now a stuff of legends, thanks to Matawalle, has never been seen before in the land. The man’s conduct has created a new shade of what pioneer EFCC chairman, now National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, referred to as “corruption fighting back”.
Usually, the corrupt, once busted, find means of dribbling the system with technicalities and claims of sickness as a delay tactics, the plan always to run down the clock in the hope that a favourable government may step in to give them soft landing or time could soften the rough edges of their shameless crime. Although, there may be no remorse since the process of prosecution suffers a great deal of draw back, at least, these classes of thieves have a semblance of shame and do not necessarily attempt to insult the people’s sensibilities by making the kind of outrageous claims put forward by Matawalle.
In effect, with the new court order, Matawalle seems to have become the first government official alleged of diverting government property that jettisoned some semblance of shame, restraints and that African modicum of value to go head first into a collision with his successor and the people of Zamfara over properties that he bought with state funds, for his use as governor, and which ought to be naturally left behind for the next governor to use for his official duties.
It is only when one considers the post COVID economic crunch, increasing the competition for scarce resources, that can actually understand the gravity of Matawalle’s actions. By carting away those cars and other properties that Governor Dauda Lawal Dare has vowed to recover, Matawalle aimed to force the new government into expending monies that could have gone into kick-starting the lives of the people of Zamfara whom he, Matawalle, pushed to the very brink of haplessness, to buy vehicles.
What manner of kleptomania will push someone who just left office to continue to lay claims to property belonging to the office he occupied? What level of inhumanity will push an ex-governor into deliberately attempting to force a new government into expending scarce funds to procure property that could save it billions, billions that could be used to improve the lives of the people he once governed? Even more disheartening is the manner in which he went about prancing in his indignity, claiming that he owned a dealership that only took delivery of cars bought for the use of his office while he held sway in Gusau. Audacity!
Not even when the Federal High Court, Sokoto Judicial Division, dismissed Matawalle’s claims to the ownership of the vehicles, refusing to grant all the reliefs sought by him, and rejected his inordinate claim to the ownership of the official vehicles, effectively confirming that the vehicles are still considered the property of the Zamfara State Government, did the man come down from his high horse.
For someone who should bury his face in shame for attempting to add vehicles to the billions he was alleged by the current government to have stolen through procurement fraud for non-existent projects, Matawalle thinking he was fooling the people with a show of force by conducting a promenade of vehicular convoy lined with gun trucks that should be joining the first against the same banditry that he enabled with his inertia while he was governor; didn’t know that his Maradun macabre dance was actually a walk of shame.
Beyond that, I believe that walk of shame amounts to a mockery of the people and all the values they hold dear. I mean, what manner of leader will even contemplate such an ostentatious display of his poverty of values, empathy, and remorse?
It is high time we considered reviewing the “honourable” title we freely, but undeservedly, attach to political office holders, especially those whose dishonesty and dishonourable conduct is public knowledge. Nothing of Matawalle’s conduct since getting appointed as the spare tyre minister in defence has demonstrated even a tiny drop of honour. Therefore, to continue to regard him in such lights amounts to a slap in the united faces of the people of Zamfara who continue to be haunted by his past failures and current show-offs.
Ishaq writes from Abuja.
