Vunderkind
Social Member
As the polity gets heated in a melee of claims and counter claims, people are beginning to avidly dig up dirt from the past. Yesterday, we got an email titled “What does IBB have on Buhari?” and a link to an old article here: http://www.naijapundit.com/news/ibb...rty-laundry-as-elrufai-lists-his-corrupt-past.
I will summarize the contents of both the email and the link below:
In August 2012, General Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan reportedly cast aspersions on Nigeria’s former military leaders, to which ex-Military President Ibrahim Babangida (reportedly) retaliated.
He asked President Jonathan to learn to accept criticism and threatened to expose the “holier-than-thou” attitude of General Buhari.
Speaking through Prince Kassim Afegbua – his media adviser at the time – he said of Gen. Buhari “he is a one-time Minister of Petroleum and we have good records of his tenure as minister. Secondly, he also presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), records of which we also have. We challenge him to come out with clean hands in those two portfolios he headed or we will help him to expose his records of performance during those periods.”
Babangida also added ominously, “those who live in glass houses do not throw stones. Gen. Buhari should be properly guided.”
To add pique to interest, Malam Nasir Elrufai, according to the link, had accused Buhari in October 2010 of improper acts.
He (Elrufai) was quoted as saying: “That same prejudice accounts for the baseless claims of corruption Buhari levels against El Rufai. The fact is that Mallam El-Rufai served Nigeria with integrity and has never been convicted of any corrupt act. He is boldly contesting the false charges which the Yar’Adua government filed against him in court. It is strange that a Buhari who protests when unproven claims of N2.5 billion (about US $3billion in those days!) missing oil funds are leveled against him can gleefully elevate similar claims into facts when it concerns another. How would Buhari feel if the corruption allegations made against him by Group Captain Usman Jibrin, then a board member of PTF, are today reported as if they were proven facts? So much for “corrupt background” and “shoddy performance.”
Here’s more dirt:
- Malam Elrufai reminded Buhari that the reason he remained unelectable was because of his record as military head of state, a memory not many Nigerians have forgotten.
- Buhari permitted 53 suitcases belonging to the father of his ADC to enter the country unchecked. This was at a time when Nigeria was exchanging old currency for new.
- Using retroactive laws, he executed three young men for drug peddling after they were convicted by military tribunals as opposed to a regular court of law. This was against the canons of legal decency.
- While in rule, Buhari gave himself and his officials immunity from reporters, including truthful and accurate news reporting. The Decree ( called “Decree 4”) was employed by Buhari to jail journalists without deferring to truth, and it was used to cuckold Nigeria’s media as a whole.
The political temperature gets hotter still, and it looks like more cans of worms will be opened before 2015 elections and the online space looks like the final frontier for all concerned parties and stakeholders to get their points in the open.
Moral of the story: the internet never forgets, and neither should you. No matter how old a news publication gets, it can be brought back from the archives to haunt you in the coming elections.
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