Many christian worshippers at the National Christian
Centre in Abuja today mocked and laughed at President Goodluck Jonathan when he
described his government as second only to the United States of America in its
commitment to fighting corruption. The President was speaking during the church
service, during which several of his ministers, advisers, women organisations,
political apologists, chairmen of commissions, and former Heads of State Yakubu
Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo were in attendance.
“Our commitment to the fight against corruption is second
to that of America’s commitment. We are very commitment to it and everybody
knows.”
As soon as he said this, members of the congregation
looked at him incredulously and began to chuckle and laugh, as if they had just
heard the punch line to a new joke. But
his appointees and friends tried to save the moment by clapping. It was unclear
whether they were clapping for the joke, or in cheers, but a senior member of
the government who spoke anonymously with newsmen after the service, said
Jonathan was merely deceiving himself.
“Who does not know that this government is weak when it
comes to fighting corruption? I think Jonathan is deceiving himself and not
Nigerians,” he said smiling.
Coming ahead of his address to the nation tomorrow on the
occasion of Nigeria’s 52nd anniversary as an independent nation, President
Jonathan’s statement about his commitment to combating corruption seems certain
to lead to a new round of jokes among Nigerians. Asked to comment on the statement today, a
New York based analyst simply described himself as “FHLA.” Asked the meaning of
that, he said, “I am Fighting Hypocrisy Like the Americans.”
It would be recalled that last Monday at a conference of
the Nigerian Institute of Management in Abuja, President Jonathan told
Nigerians he is now ready to fight corruption with everything at his disposal. “My
administration will fight corruption and associated social vices until they are
exterminated from our body polity,” he said, opening the conference.
He then left for the United Nations General Assembly,
where the American press promptly identified his delegation as one of the most
financially reckless, his Pierre Hotel suite alone costing Nigeria $10,000 per
night. The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, occupied
suites in two different hotels, one at the Four Seasons Hotel for $5,000 per
night; and the other at Mr. Jonathan’s hotel for $3,000 per night.
Reporting on Nigeria’s squandermania, America’s National
Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), said, “Nigeria’s delegation is keeping five
vehicles parked outside the Pierre Hotel where the cheapest room is about $800
a night – or roughly what most Nigerians earn in two years."
A SaharaReporters investigation found that the NNPC
delegation actually rented a total of 10 limousines in New York for its seven
visiting officials, at a daily cost of $1,800 per day. It was five of those
vehicles that NBC found idling at Pierre.
“If Mr. Jonathan is going to ‘fight corruption and
associated social vices until they are exterminated’,” a Nigerian newspaper
columnist said today, “he is going to have a very large battlefield, and also a
lot of opportunities for Nigerians to laugh at a bad joke.”
SaharaReporters
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