Still on Andygate: the Emmanuel Uba money laundry case. The President has confirmed that his farm did receive some ‘unsolicited gift’ from his former Special Assitant. The president via his lawyer, Kunle Fagbenle, says that attempts to link him (the president) to the Uba affair was an attempt to tarnish his name.
What I can’t undertsand is why any form of criticism is always seen as an attack. Obviously the president thinks some members of te public have made it their business to devise ways and means to tarnish his image!
Who is the “tarnisher” of image here: Uba or some faceless member of the public?
For the president to “think nothing of the whole thing“, and yet “sees it as a calculated attempt to tarnish his good name,†tells me the prez is sure doing more than thinking, “nothing of the whole thing,” he has infact developed acute paranoia over the Uba affair.
I can’t see why anyone would want to tarnish the president image, because it is an exercise in futility. Afterall, he is the president, not some Joe Shumck; he has the clout, connection and billion of dollars in resources to launder his image sparkly clean. So to attempt to tarnish the president’s name is an exercise for the foolish.
It’s become a common and cheap practice for our leaders and those in government to conveniently assume the role of the victim whenever the public has an opinion or offers some criticism. And this is what the president had done. He is now the victim!
Mr.Fagbenle, the President’s Lawyer, states via the Nigerian Tribune:
“The president could not understand how a farm equipment worth about $45,000 matter so much in his farm where millions have been spent… ‘there was no illegality on the part of the president’ and that Uba who made the purchase was already a wealthy man ‘who happens to be the president’s assistant…[the] President Obasanjo believed and stated that the whole incident with the media focus was like making a mountain out of a mole hill”
This is freaking Unbelievable!
Is Mr Fagbenle truly a lawyer? Because if he’s, I believe he has taken some classes in ethics and thus expected him to understand the meaning, because that is what the Uba case is all about.
It is not about whether Uba was charged on civil or criminal grounds, or whether the gift to Obasanjo was unsolicited or not. It certainly has nothing to with Uba been a wealthy man, and to tag the issue as an attempt to tarnish the president’s name is simply laughable.
This is all about ETHICS.
The utternances and attitude of Emmanuel Andy Uba, the president, via his spokesman/lawyer, and the [tag]EFCC[/tag] boss, Ribadu, have shown that [tag]ethics[/tag] is a word that has little meaning or relevance among the Nigerian political elites.
Ethics, defined: A system of moral principles, rules and standards of conduct.
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