Let’s begin with a famous admonition of Jesus in Matthew 7:1-6. He says “Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when all the time the”e is a plank in your own eye?

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”.

Then the warning in the last verse under consideration “do not give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under feet and turn and tear you to pieces”.

The last line suggests that if pigs are tolerated and decorated for too long, they can grow enough bravado to try and have the one putting unaccustomed elegance on them for lunch.

Does that sound like our story as a nation, with the quality of men and women we constantly allow into and tolerate in public service space, as leaders?

After an initial graveyard silence of almost a week, one of the 26 Rivers lawmakers, seeking a forced exit of Governor Sim Fubara, representing Etche Constituency 1, Ignatius Obenachi Onwuka, eventually owned up to the penultimate Friday accusation from a gubernatorial aide, Darlington Orji that N350 million each, was suspiciously shared to the impeachment-delirious members of the state legislature in the course of the emergency rule.

Darlington, putting up a show on wildly-popular Arise TV squealed that the 26 lawmakers pocketed the Ibas largesse in the name of constituency project financing and still seeking for more from the reinstated governor after the sole administrator who accounted his stewardship only to himself, exited the contentious job of administering the governor’s office for six months.

Five days after Orji boxed the impeachment-seeking lawmakers into a corner, controversial but irrepressible news platform, SaharaReporters published documents detailing the approval for the 30 members of the legislature and payment of the N350 million each, to the 26 lawmakers, now accusing Fubara of financial recklessness.

The documents revealed that the sole administrator’s approval for what is beginning to look like a slush fund except that it was documented to look legit, came same day; September 12, 2025, the constituency allowance memo was raised by his special adviser on Works, Engineer Atemea K. Briggs. Concerning the blistering approval speed, nothing should be deemed inappropriate (without proof) with the supersonic administrative efficiency that got the proposal approved within minutes or hours of preparing it, especially when added to the reality of the state and its funds being under one man’s whim, during the emergency period. However the alacrity in payment (which was same day) should be concerning, considering that between the rushed approval/payment and Ibas’ exit, it was just six days, while the entire governance interregnum lasted a whole six months. Sounds like a parting gift?

The last-minute approval and disbursement will make it difficult not to conclude the then-sole administrator and the lawmakers were hand in glove. What about the fact that the lawmakers were also supposed to be on presidential suspension like Governor FFubara duringthe emergency rule? Was there a presidential order for the lawmakers to be treated preferentially while on suspension? Was Ibas pandering to some federal or local interests in the state? Was it a whisperer-in-chief? Were the lawmakers on suspension with pay? Was the emergency period a working leave for them? How did they manage to process their handpicked companies for the constituency projects listed for the suspicious payment? Was the whole emergency thing just a ruse to get the lawmakers clawing into the state treasury Fubara was allegedly blocking them from?

The lawmakers’ singular claim to constituency projects is their membership of the legislature. While on suspension as legislators, other benefits that go with their legislative status should also be deemed frozen. So on what basis was Ibas, now an ambassadorial nominee, relating with the 26 lawmakers and receiving contract recommendations for constituency projects from them?. What about the payment received while on suspension? Did Fubara receive similar “special” treatment?.

These days, whenever I see due process, legality and constitutionality being raped, reaped and ripped by partisanship and political brigandage, I no longer worry like before. My Ijesa people will say “Olorun atijo lepe muni, tisinin, eropilani lee gun” (It’s the ancient God that delayed justice, the modern One, is always swift). Well, it has always been the same God (Hebrews 13:8), the Ancient of Days and Eternal, while the didacticism of the saying can be rooted in another of its kind; if a lie travels for 20 years, truth will catch up with it in just a day.

When I consider the Malami travails, I remember the disgraced IGP now-late Tafa Balogun and his raw deals in NuhuRibadu’s hands as EFCC boss. Yoruba again will say, “ti eni to de la ri” (something worse can still happen to those mocking the one in crisis today). After my piece “Lateef Fagbemi, Malami and the curse of history”, someone to the minister reached out to appreciate and intimate of the precautionary steps the Kwaran has been taking to ensure he doesn’t end up like several of his predecessors-in-office, who are battling judicially now to avoid long jail terms. I was told even family members, blood brothers and close friends that could cause the minister problems after his time in office are being excused, given wide possible berth and even outright denied access. The minister’s man also disclosed that he (Fagbemi) has been avoiding social functions, including kindred’s, like a plague, to dodge compromising situations or even sitting arrangements that could throw up indicting optics. Hopefully, judges possessed by owambe spirit can learn from the justice minister, though this won’t make Fagbemi anybody’s saint-patron. Corruption isn’t limited to illicit cash.

Aiding and abetting unconstitutionality as well as promoting illegality is as bad as stuffing cap with ill-sourced dollar bills. And to think the same man with the soiled dollar symbolism led the ruling party for two years! But hey, it’s what it is and I digress.

As sleazy as constituency project execution has become at all levels of governance, the political governance culture, introduced by Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration appears to have come to stay, despite its aberrant nature in governance codes. Lawmakers as the nomenclature suggests, are to make laws, while lobbying for constituencies and constituents may not be out of tune. But everyone is now executing projects like the executive arm and the already overlapping responsibilities have become an overlay, giving more room for manoeuver and public expenditure gymnastics.

Cornered and confessing, the lawmaker, without providing evidence of how the first N350 million was spent, claimed to his constituents that projects he meant for their betterment had been stalled because Fubara would not bring up a supplementary budget to cover the balance of N650 million, to make up the agreed N1 billion for each lawmaker. That would be N30 billion for the whole 30 or at least N26 billion of public fund for the truculent 26-person majority! Onwuka then went on to mouth the N600 billion reportedly in the state coffers, wondering why releasing about 5% of it, should be a problem to the Governor. He also confirmed the unreleased money is one of the main reasons the tyrannical majority is hounding the Governor.

After Sahara Reporters published the documents, it claimed no evidence of execution by the companies nominated by these lawmakers despite payment being more than four months now. The canary lawmaker would tactically confirm the non-execution of the projects by claiming the non-release of the N650 million balance, had stalled the entire process, shifting the blame on the Governor. So, what has N350 million been doing in each of the lawmakers’ custody all this while? Kept in trust for their constituents? Are the listed constituency projects so ambitious that N350 million couldn’t start any of them, at least for the sake of good faith and fidelity to the people who voted them into office? Would the lawmakers not have a better case against the Governor if they could show what they had done with the first tranche? If their projects are so monumental and can’t commence until the entire N1 billion is shelled out to them, would it not be amoral retaining the disbursed N10.5 billion?. The lawmakers should return the part payment to the state coffers while fighting for the whole release. When the obvious is starring the face or someone is trying to hide in plain sight, Yoruba will quip that everybody knows where a piece of meat sailing through the mouth will end.

The public/media has done Its bit; it saw something and said something. Let ICPC take it over from here. Thankfully, after Daniel Bwala’s statement on Thursday, seemingly endorsed by his employer (at least yet to be denounced), it would seem Abuja is done choking Port-Harcourt. At least, something like real probe can now begin.

Let’s conclude the way we started. In Luke 16:10, Jesus admonishes, “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much and who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.” (Sunday Tribune)

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