In the first of my two-part article two weeks ago, ahead of his declaration Wednesday, I made a full disclosure that I am an impenitent Buhari supporter. I have read all sorts of comments, from those claiming the General is too washed-out to fit the person specification of our ‘messiah’ (whatever that means!) to those clinging on to some imaginary allegation of bigotry, and, except for a few genuine analysts, my deduction is that most of these claims are either informed by ignorance or sheer fright of the change a Buhari presidency could bringing to an abysmally corrupt and clientelistic society like ours. General Muhammadu Buhari’s record unambiguously speaks for itself, as you’ll find out in this article my friend, comrade and former line editor at Daily Trust newspaper Ebele Chukwu wrote in March 2011 election. I am reproducing this article because Ebele’s points, from the perspective of an eyewitness, are very germane now in light of Buhari’s declaration and will set the record straight. Enjoy reading:
Obasanjo never hid his disgust for General Sani Abacha who had jailed him for a “phantom coup”. Released from jail and still wallowing in a fit of new found spirituality, he wrote a book and called it “The Animal Called Man”. And he elected to wage a battle on this “Animal Called Man”.
While taking his oath of office at the Eagle Square on 27th May, 1999, he had pledged to wrestle corruption out of our national psyche. In a fit of mediaeval triumphalism, he chanted: “there will be no sacred cows!”
But his first attack was a disaster. No sooner had he made that declaration than he dispatched Mallam Haroun Adamu to the headquarters of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), an intervention agency run by Buhari, to start the war on corruption. Adamu’s public brief was to wind down PTF but the hidden one was to disgrace General Buhari by exposing the “shady deals” in PTF.
Contractors working for PTF were used to picking their cheques across the counter without much ado. Under the new inquisitor, contractors discovered they now had to oil their cheques out, something alien to the PTF they knew. They cried foul. And there were several other fouls after the first foul. To say that Obasanjo was thoroughly embarrassed by his minions would be an understatement, so much so that till date he does not discuss PTF in public.
As a General, it would appear that Obasanjo read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” upside down. Sun Tzu had counselled: “Know thyself; know thy enemy. You will fight a thousand battles without defeat.” The blitzkrieg he deployed only showed he did not know PTF. He might not have needed to fire a shot to win or wean PTF. To date, most Nigerians knew how PTF started, what it did but not how it ended. Not known as one who forgives, was it not surprising that Buhari walked the streets with his head high throughout Obasanjo’s imperial majesty when the fear of EFCC was the beginning of political wisdom?
In October 1994, Abacha increased the pump price of petrol from N3.25k to N11.00 per litre. Nigerians assailed him with criticisms for this unpopular move and to assuage their feelings, he quickly established the PTF to use a portion of the proceeds of the increase to intervene in critical sectors of the economy. Nigerians never took Abacha seriously on this project until Buhari was announced and inaugurated the chairman of the PTF in March 1995.
That PTF awarded contracts worth billions of naira is not news. The news the PTF made within the four years it existed was and still is that contracts awarded were executed to their logical conclusion and for those not executed, the PTF got every kobo back. Before PTF, contractors were used to abandoning contracts and bolting away with their advance payments. It never happened in PTF. When Buhari visited the Onitsha end of the Enugu-Onitsha express way awarded to a local contractor and discovered the job was abandoned, he simply called on the bank that guaranteed the contractor to pay back. There and then, the contract was terminated and later awarded to another contractor. From that moment, banks and insurance companies that provided bonds to contractors learnt that the old order had changed and had to monitor projects it guaranteed.
For the years it existed, PTF published its annual reports and always addressed press conferences to respond to issues arising from the reports. And each time it did, it challenged anybody who could deliver on any of its projects at a price cheaper than what it cost the PTF to submit his proposal. Nobody ever did.
In one of the presentations of its annual report, the Executive Secretary of the Board of the PTF, Chief Tayo Akpata, maintained that the roads constructed by the PTF not only cost less than World Bank funded roads but were also better qualitatively. He challenged anyone to prove the contrary. Until the PTF was scrapped, nobody did.
While the PTF existed, contractors never needed to lobby and grease palms to get LPO’s. You only needed to belong to the appropriate group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and other professional groups to qualify. Not a few contractors received requests to supply the PTF in the comfort of their offices. It was so unbelievably true that some had to travel to Abuja to reconfirm if the LPO’s they received were genuine. And genuine they were.
To be continued
