Governor Francis Of Ebonyi State Must Be Commended.
- Katsina City News
- 06 Jan, 2025
- 148
By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
5-1-2025.
In a country where its president is rated as the third (3rd) most CORRUPT person in the world in the preceding year (2024), it must be a very pleasing development for patriotic Nigerians, wherever they may be, to know that some of their leaders think of the future generations, not themselves, or the next election.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been alleged to do ANYTHING, including selling his country to its enemies, as long as doing so would earn him some money, in the process. He is claimed to be an agent for some of the famous and infamous agencies in the US. He is also alleged to have sold a part of Nigeria to the French, for billions of dollars, which he pocketed secretly, with a few people being wiser for the dirty deal.
The Nigerian leader was declared by the global anti corruption body, Organised Crime And Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP),as the third (3rd) most corrupt person in the world. It is definitely not the kind of a back handed compliment that a nation can grin-and-bear, and go ahead with daily business unperturbed.
A previous article written by yours sincerely, had discussed how the president was also exposed as an agent of US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The indirect admission at a US court by the CIA, was supported by the FBI and the DEA, both of which agreed that “Nigerians have no right to unfiltered access to President Bola Tinubu’s past records”.
Mr. David Hundeyin, a US based Nigeria journalist of high standing, said that the three US agencies had filed their defence against the summary judgment concerning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s drug trafficking investigation records.
He wrote on his X handle that: “Yesterday (Monday) in the US federal court for the District of Columbia the CIA, FBI, and DEA filed a memorandum opposing our motion for summary judgment in the FOIA disclosure case about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s drug trafficking investigation records, where we are seeking to have the redactions removed from the (partially released) files.
“In the filing, the CIA effectively confirmed that Nigeria’s sitting president is an active CIA asset”. An excerpt from the CIA filing reads: “Human sources can be expected to furnish information to the CIA only when they are confident the CIA can and will do everything in its power to prevent the public disclosure of their cooperation. In the case of a person who has been cooperating with the CIA, official confirmation of that cooperation could cause the targets to take retaliatory action against that person or against their family or friends.
“It also places in jeopardy every individual with whom the cooperating individual has had contact. Thus, the indiscretion of one source in a chain of intelligence sources can damage an entire spectrum of sources.
“As such, confirming or denying the existence of records on a particular foreign national, like Tinubu, reasonably could be expected to cause damage to U.S. national security by indicating whether or not the CIA maintained any human intelligence sources related to Tinubu, and identifying any access or lack of access any such sources had to intelligence concerning him”.
As if that was not bad enough, the DEA’s filing included a paragraph that literally said: “We oppose full, unredacted disclosure of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records, because we believe that while Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.
“At this point, I think there is nothing more to be said about the direct role that the US government plays in ensuring that Africa is constantly destabilised and afflicted with terrible leaders who create poverty and devastation”.
But the present Governor of Ebonyi State, Rt. Honourable Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, has not busied himself with dipping his hands into the public till. He told a stunned gathering of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) that ALL his children attend schools in the South East of Nigeria, not some EXPENSIVE fancy foreign schools like some of his commissioners, who prefer to make other countries very rich at the expense of their country.
According to the governor, “I am the only Governor in Nigeria presently that all his children are schooling in the country, and not even beyond Southeast! Three are in Ebonyi, and two are in Enugu. Their biggest school fees is N35, 000. When I told them in the Nigeria Governor's forum, all were surprised and felt sober.
“Some Commissioners in my government have schools they are paying over N2 Million per term for their children, but I can't imagine myself paying such amount that's more than 5Million per term for my children. Where will I get the money to continue paying for their school fees after my temporary tenure as a Governor?
“I don't want to develop blood pressure during the time I should be resting. We must have to join hands together and reposition educational system in the country such that we can bring down those things that are lacking here that is making those big men to always send their children abroad for studies and I must make sure it starts from Ebonyi State.
While most governors, top government officials and top politicians are busy corruptly enriching themselves from the people’s Commonwealth and other devil worshipping practices for vanity purposes by them and members of their immediate family, there are a few politicians who fear God and the day that they would have to account for all they did while they were alive in this world.
In fact, the Ebonyi state governor deserves to be CELEBRATED, not only by all patriotic Nigerians, but by the entire corruption-free global community.
In the same vein, a former Governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade, now a Senator of the Federal Republic, is also another politician who thinks of his people, not about himself. This he demonstrated by words and actions.
He recently told his people not to pay any new tax to the federal government, saying that all payable taxes have already been domesticated by the state government which he had served as a governor.
In an emotion laden address to some community leaders, the Professor of Cardiology categorically instructed his people NOT to give tax to the official of the Board of Internal Revenue (FBIR) if they asked for it. He believed he had failed the people of the state as it were, so it would be very unfair of him to allow them to suffer more. He added that expecting the “poor citizens who eke out a living from their petty trading” to give to the government what they do not have is a shameful and irresponsible thing to do.
He said that the job of government was to EASE the burden on the citizens, NOT to increase their hardship, as is being done by the present regime of President Tinubu, who deliberately created an exponential increase in the poverty and hunger levels in the country.
There are of course, former and current governors who came to the job with the zeal and the good intention to serve their people, not themselves, but changed their ways as they became ‘drunk with power’, made so courtesy of the ‘Yes Your Excellency’ people, who surrounded them. Such governors came with the promises to, among other things, send ALL their children to local schools, but they changed their mind soon after they became the number one citizen in their respective states, by sending all their children to foreign schools.
Some of the children who have the head for reading, are sent to some of the most expensive and famous ivy league schools outside the country, to places like Europe and North America, particularly the United States of America (USA).
Since all the leadership would not be equally honest enough to understand what is harmful or not to our dear Nigeria, may God give us the leaders that would handle this country with enough sincerity, integrity and courage to do the right thing for the majority of the citizens. The country is majorly lacking that at the moment.
Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.