Maina and the fifth columnists

By Joseph Edgar…

The Maina debacle has finally confirmed my suspicions that there are fifth columnists working within the precincts of the Presidency, not to only embarrass the President but to also put some very strong stumbling blocks on his way should he attempt a second term.

This suspicion took root on my mind when we had the Department of State Security (DSS) allegedly write a scathing report to the Senate against the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as the substantive head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Like most observers, watchers could not believe how such a strategic department within the system could stand so solidly against another strategic leader. As we watched the scenario unfold, we began to see the reticence of a leader who was beginning to look clay footed especially in his response to these kinds of chicanery.

As we were recovering from that shock and in no order of occurrence, the EfCC led by its acting leader busted a building in Ikoyi where a large stash of funds were recovered. We were first told that the money belonged to no one. But as it unfolded, the shadowy National Intelligence Agency (NIA) emerged as the purported owner of the funds. We were eventually told that the funds were kept in an apartment owned by the wife of its helmsman. We watched as these organisations within the same administration battled to embarrass and expose themselves and this, coupled with the unresolved matter of the grass-cutting top government official, began to paint the portrait of a national circus.

Just as we were about to go about our business of survival, Ibe Kachikwu dropped his memo. In the memo, he made all sorts of allegations that all but scattered the remnants of integrity of these agents of change. I will not bore you with the details of these mess. A lot has already been said and analysed by all Nigerians, so I will not bore you with the details but to say that, as it has become the norm with this administration, nothing has come out of it.

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Following the meeting of the embattled Minister with the President and the Prayer meeting between the NNPC warlord and the President, we were feted with a picture of the two combatants smiling ad backslapping each other making us once again a country of ‘’mumus’’ as Charley boy would say it.

Today as I write, the Maina scandal is unfolding and the President is said to have received a report on the recall of the fugitive who has been alleged stole N2b from state funds while living like a Colombian drug lord.

Some top government officials had hatched the plot of recalling this person and even prompting him, irrespective of the fact that he was on every wanted list in the country. It is all the more embarrassing that it is the Ministry of Interior, which has related duties with security agencies and also guards the entry ports, that may have aided Maina comfortable re-entry into the country, ostensibly with VIP escorts which I hear he is already used to.

As it is always the case, top officials have started denying and counter accussing themselves. Documents have also started, in their usual manner, flying around showing all sorts of top officers being implicated in this very disgraceful matter. The EfCC have also suddenly woken up, seizing and impounding property owned by Mr. Maina.

For me this is really the height. The impunity and the naked disregard for processes, the law and most importanty the sensibilities of Nigerians is regrettable. But in all these, the greatest victim is President Buhari and his legacy.

Mr. Buhari is a good man. Stoic, stern and highly disciplined who does not suffer fools. For him to now be this rubbished by the henchmen he has assembled to help build the Nigeria of his vison can make a grown man cry. Now, we see the sense in his wife Aisha’s cry the other day that he did not know the men that surround him. True, if you take into deep consideration the person of Mr. Buhari you would not be able to undersand why he has surrounded himself with these merry men who seem to be running around with a different vision.

It is looking like the President is seemingly powerless in reining in these people as we have not seen any sack or disciplinary measures on the heels of this blatant rape of Nigeria by men who surround the President.

For me, I think these people are out to sabotage his return. I think the need to hold on to power through a younger more pliable figure rather than the Buhari who has his own mind is behind all these internal’’sabotage;. Or how do you want to explain his one.

These plebiscites who hatched this plot, how for a second did they thought they could succeed in hoodwinking all of us into accepting such blatant whoring of our sensibilities.

Well, I think the time is right for a major sweep of the augean stable for the smell coming out of it is worse than a cesspit with a thousand corpses.

 

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