ELECTION, HALLIBURTON & SIEMENS: WHY OBAMA SNUBBED NIGERIA?

"No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."

With these words, it could not have been better stringed together and especially coming from the proverbial horse's mouth, President Barack Obama. Nigeria, through Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo truncated democracy by imposing sick weakling Umaru Yar'Adua on Nigeria? Nigeria through her officials demanded and received $180 million dollars in bribes from American company Halliburton as a condition precedent to awarding them a lucrative $6 billion dollars liquefied naural gas (LNG), which they skimmed off the top of the contract? Nigeria also through Senator Jubril Aminu and co, demanded and received $12 million dollars in bribes from German systems firm Siemens? So in a simple three phrases, it is a hijacked election, Halliburton bribery scandal and Siemens bribery scandal that rubbished Nigeria so much that President Barack Obama decided to ignore her in preference to Ghana? Should Nigerians be worried, you bet; except that its leaders are shameless criminals who does not care about reputation, and one of who slept with his son's wife, his daughter in-law and prides it as evidence of his being very virile? What a dog Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo is?

So now that Nigeria has heard why President Barack Obama ignored them, Icheoku asks, can anything be done to remedy what has damaged the country so much, that it is becoming a pariah among the comity of nations? Icheoku says yes, provided the leaders are ready to do what it takes to fix what is broken!

First, President Umaru Yar'Adua must ensure that future elections in Nigeria are conducted in such a way as to ensure probity and accountability. If they must rig the elections, it must be done in such a way as to have some semblance of sanity and not become so outrageous that its outcome defies every possible logic; like the ruling party PDP winning election in Lagos State or any of the Yoruba states or even in Adamawa State? Concede some states to other parties and let the winning margin not be as outrageous as the recent bottleneck in Iran with unfathomable margins? President Umaru Yar'Adua admitted that much when he said that the election which brought him to office was not fairly conducted; and while people expected him to conduct a fresh election, irrespective of whether he skewed it so that he wins it, he obtrusively went ahead to assume mandate and today, he is being avoided as a beneficiary of a fraudulent Nigerian election. Icheoku says, a beneficiary of a fraudulent scheme who sees nothing wrong with his new position, might as well qualify as an accomplice; and so it is that President Umaru Yar'Adua is an accomplice to the nightmare of an election conducted by Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.

Can the president still do something to repair his damaged reputation? Yes, if only he will summon the courage to do what is right and have the guts, to ensure the fairness of subsequent future elections in Nigeria, including the 2011 general election. Until then, Nigeria remains in the eye of President Barack Obama and the American people as the country which does not permit free and fair elections, which must be avoided!

Secondly, the Siemens bribery scandal must be conclusively investigated and the offenders punished. All the named Nigerian officials including Senator Jubril Aminu must be made to account for their misdeeds; which can start by relieving him of his position as the senate foreign relations committee chairman? The horrible thing about such scandal is that it paints every Nigerian as a possible suspect since they spring up such leaders, tolerate their misdeeds and nurture them without any expression of revulsion or repugnance for such misconducts. Until the $12 million dollars scandal is resolved, the world will continue to see Nigeria through the eyes of President Barack Obama and will avoid any meaningful engagement with her; being a very corrupt country where you must pay to play. President Umaru Yar'Adua, can show leadership by taking this case head-on, irrespective of the Jubril Aminus involved, and show the world that such action is not a state approved way of doing business in Nigeria. But when a Federal Senator is involved and he is supposedly being shielded by the presidency, it leads to many possible interpretations?

Thirdly, the top officials implicated in the Halliburton bribery scandal must be revealed and punishments meted out to them, including restitution paid to victim-parties. This is a case which have been zeroed within a period of years in Nigeria and the men at the helm of power then known and determined; and which involved very top officials of the state! So what is stopping these people from being prosecuted if not for the lack of back-bone by the current leadership in Nigeria? Icheoku says, were President Umaru Yar'Adua man enough, he would have done what is expected of him - order the probe and arrest of all those past leaders who were in charge in Nigeria during the bribery period. He has the instrumentality of the state which could be deployed to ferret out where these bribe-deposits were made, under a threat of state punishment. The committee assigned with the investigation of the Halliburton bribery scandal had boasted to the world that come June 22, 2009 they were going to reveal the master-minds behind the bribe scandal? But to the greatest surprise of all, the appointed date came and went without any word being said by the Nigeria Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro who heads the committee about who these corrupt men are.

Whether the pressure of cover-up became so overwhelming that Mike Okiro became dumb on his appointed date, Icheoku cannot tell but whatever happens, Nigeria is suffering the consequences of its lack of appetite to take-on evil and head-on? It does not bode well for Nigeria and this is why President Barack Obama snubbed her and instead went to Ghana for his first official state visit to Africa. The days of Nigeria playing the ostrich, which buries its head in the sand and believes it is hiding, is certainly over as President Obama's Ghana visit has revealed. The option now for Nigeria is, either President Umaru Yar'Adua takes the initiative to fix what has been pointed out to him as broken, by the July 10-11, 2009 snub of Nigeria by American President Barack Obama; or the Nigeria people forcibly demand for a change of the statusquo? But if none of these happens and very soon indeed, it is going to be an accelerated down-hill slide and Nigeria should pray American arm does not force the rest of the world to join the bandwagon to stem such malady as exists in Nigeria. Only time will tell.