By Emeka Alex Duru
(08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)
Events surrounding the erstwhile Minister of Humanitarian Services Dr. Betta Edu, since President Bola Tinubu ordered her suspension, bring to mind our days in secondary school – Bishop Shanahan College (BSC), Orlu, Imo State, reputed for high level discipline and academic excellence. Pronouncement of “pass-and-pass-out or fail-and-fail-out” by the School Principal, was all that it took for a student to be deserted by even his closest friends.
The rare proclamation, was usually made at the Assembly ground after a student must have been found guilty of grave offences. He would instantly be avoided by his classmates. His case was more complicated, if he was a boarder. Before the school was over for the day, his corner mates would shift their beds, leaving his own outstanding. From that moment till the end of the term and his eventual exit, he would lead a solitary, miserable life. Nobody wanted to be found guilty by association.
Betta Edu is passing through similar experience, now. Since she was accused of mismanaging some funds under her care and asking the Accountant-General of the Federation, to transfer a certain amount of money meant for vulnerable Nigerians to a private account, she has been literally treated as an outcast.
Even those with whom she had wined and dined together, have been keeping their distance from her. Psychologists are right that success has many parents, failure is an orphan. A sordid tale of how she was humiliated at the Villa Gate, in her efforts to see the President, captured her ordeal.
The story is that when Edu got wind of her imminent suspension, she rushed down to the Aso Rock villa with her convoy and tried to see the President, without a prior appointment. She was, however, restricted to the waiting room where she watched the announcement of her suspension on television.
When it became apparent, she was not going to see the President, Dr. Edu came outside but found out that her entire security details and vehicles that accompanied her convoy were gone. Her security details were said to have received signals recalling them to their respective commands, following her suspension.
Her Villa Access Tag was also taken from her by men of the Directorate of State Services (DSS). It took the intervention of one of the principal aides to the president, who volunteered to use his vehicle to give her ride out from the villa.
There is also the angle of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), immediately, inviting her to its office and keeping her waiting for hours. I have not confirmed the veracity of the entire story but cannot dismiss any aspect of it, given how previous state officials who lost out in power game, were treated with ignominy.
Edu’s case is not different and would not be the last. This is a system where when one is up, almost everyone grovels before him. But the moment he is down, he is on his own, treated like a leper. The suspended minister cannot be treated differently. And truth be told, she cannot be exonerated of the rot in the system. If we go by street lingo, the temptation is high to say, “na them, them”, meaning, they are all the same.
You can then understand the heat in the land over her travails. It is not that the gullible Nigerians sniggering at her would be picked to replace her. Neither would her salary be transferred to them. No, it is just a fleeting excitement that “one of the oppressors has been caught”. You can interpret that as a mindset of envy. But you may not equally rule out exasperation borne of years of neglect and disdain on the people by members of the upper class. So, Edu, is carrying her can and bearing the brunt.
But I sincerely find it hard to get excited by the expose and revelations surrounding the entire drama. For me, they all smack of choreographed circus which Nigerians will certainly not see the end. What is playing out is a mere storm in a tea cup that will peter out in the next few days. The Newswatch Magazine of old, would have appropriately dismissed it as “hollow ritual of comic tragedy”.
Nigerians are not new to this type of lackluster drama. After all, it was here, in 1976, following the assassination of the then military head of state, General Murtala Muhammad, that the then Chief of Army Staff, General Theophilus Yakubu (TY) Danjuma told the bewildered citizens, that the ousted head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, was behind the Col Buka Suka Dimka coup, that led to the death of Murtala. But years later, Gowon was cleared of complicity in the coup, with a casual explanation that the allegation against him in 1976, was in line with the mood of the country at the time.
Just recently, Timipre Sylva, who ran for Bayelsa governorship in the November 11, 2023 election on the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was accused of monumental corruption, leading to the confiscation of his houses and landed property. He was later let off the hooks by the court and was rewarded with appointment as Minister of State, Petroleum Resources. There are other instances.
The agenda is not to defend Betta Edu. But I wager that the ululation about her suspension may not be in service for fatherland or in line with any claim about fighting corruption (whatever that means). If that is the case, it suffices to throw a challenge to any of the forces against her who has not sinned more than her, to cast the first stone. None, including the President, I bet, would do so.
Betta may have stepped on toes, for which she is paying. But with appropriate propitiatory sacrifices, her sins, even if they are crimson red, would be washed away and she would bounce back, shining whiter than snow. Adams Oshiomhole, former Edo governor, now a senator, set the tone, earlier, that joining the APC was all that one needed for his/her perceived wrongs to be forgiven. Edu is already in the fold – a daughter of the soil, as we would say, growing up in Ngwa Road, Aba, Abia State.
Besides, there is a limit to the extent Tinubu can go in pursuing someone accused of corruption without being reminded to clear the log in his eyes before removing the spec in another person’s. The most he can do is to ensure thorough and transparent probe of all the parties involved in the sleaze. Betta Edu could not have acted alone. We need to get her own side of the bazaar. For now, it is a single story.
*DURU is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos