Olisa Metuh Is Not Corruption, By Pius Adesanmi

Two fighting!!!

Justifying why he and other members of the
National Working Committee of the PDP stole a
quarter of a billion naira of party funds
immediately after President Jonathan lost the
election, Olisa Metuh says:
"Before going to press PDP Publicity Secretary,
Olisa Metuh told Saharareporters that the
payments was made to assist NWC for the
Governorship and state house of assembly
elections that took place on April 11th 2015. He
said that since the Presidency was more
concerned about transparency, they Presidency
Campaign Council should publish how it gave
out N700 million to each state and most
importantly how the Presidency spent Nigerian
resources in the last 6 years."

Seven hundred million times 36 plus Abuja
= ???

Did I not write in the build up to the election
that once they start fighting publicly after losing
the election, the extent of the heist perpetrated
by these people would shock even the most
hardened career Jonathanian? And this is just the beginning o.

The fights will get muddier,
murkier, and messier o. This is just still the
naira heist we are hearing about o. They have
not started the dollars fights o. Revelations
about who got what in kilograms of hundred-
dollar bills will still happen as they fight in
public o.

Two years ago, I stopped talking about
corruption in Nigeria. I wrote that when you
start to denominate theft in billions and
hundreds of billions of naira, it is no longer
corruption. It is impunity. I started trying to
understand Nigeria in terms of impunity; what
produces it, why it is endured, justified,
tolerated, and rationalised by so many. But
now I see that impunity no longer adequately
explains Nigeria.
What explains Nigeria is one word: wickedness.
Olisa Metuh is not saying that he didn't steal. He
is not even worried about the figures he is
bandying about. He is saying that the
Presidency is a greater thief. Olisa Metuh is not
corruption. 

Olisa Metuh is not impunity. Olisa
Metuh is wickedness.

It is a hopeless society where the instinct to
deny theft (actuated by shame and the fear of retribution) is surplus to the requirements of social membership and citizenship.

Those of you asking Buhari to probe these
things are assuming that we have any
framework, any procedural and institutional mechanism that could handle the scale of the theft supervised by just the Presidency, the PDP,
and Hajia Desinatu in the petroleum sector.
I don't think there is any existing framework
for Buhari to handle theft on this scale. We
need to establish a TRC like they did in South Africa after Apartheid. Our own will not be called a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It should be called a Theft and Retribution
Commission. 

Such a TRC must understand that
retribution for the concerned here is neither prison nor the death penalty. We are beyond all that. 

What the guilty need in Nigeria now is
institutionalisation for this is sickness. Once
they have confessed to the billions and
hundreds of billions stolen, you institutionalise
them and begin emergency psychiatric
treatment.

If you know Olisa Metuh, if you know Hajia
Desinatu, tell them to stop running from pillar to post. 

Nobody is interested in jailing them. We

want to get help for them eventually at a TRC.