America is no longer the altruistic world police. Definitely the world is past hoisting it as the beacon of the most beautiful. The politics of its diplomacy can be very ugly and fatal. Gone are the days when the 50-state ensemble would proclaim piousness of a thing and the rest of the world would keep it as apostolic creed. Washington is as rotten as a dictator in Panama or a kleptomaniac leader in Kosovo. The mention of the two countries here is a symbolic meme for the scandalous leadership festering world over. If you think what you have as rudderless rulership is mournful, wait until something tragic is thrust in your face. The world has lost the rulership of men.
When America preaches probity now, you want to check its business interests and that of its conglomerates sustaining Washington with dark money.
In December 2010, ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney was charged for bribery in Nigeria over the $180 million Halliburton scandal. What did Washington do? A plea bargain was quickly entered, fine was paid and the man was hauled off the hook, with suppressed international media noise.
Today, his daughter Liz the RINO (Republican Only In Name) is throwing her weight around the US House, seeking a Donald Trump to throw under the bus over the January 6, Capitol riot, because the former president knocked her off the Republican House leadership position. Can someone remind Liz of her dad’s soiled linen before she continues pontificating on Pelosi’s panel?
After the way US Justice Department ruined, I feel for fun the delicious buffet of Allen Onyema, CEO of Air Peace, with the so-called indictment for wire fraud in the movement of money to purchase aircraft from considered rival, Washington’s justice delivery, when dealing with foreigners, hardly excites.
That was supposed to be Allen’s moment in history. Nigeria as a nation was uncharacteristically celebrating him for providing succor to Nigerians, caught in the horror of pure cannibalism, couched in racial neologism in South Africa as state actors bemusedly fiddled.
Both state and public recognitions were streaming in. Onyema took a deserving space in the moon. Then America came with the suspicious grand jury indictment and the so-called unsealing of his matter. Those who already had him in their warmth, including Tribune, for big time celebration, back-tracked. He hollered from the rooftop that he was a victim of super powers’ business war. Somehow, the prosecutorial Nigerian public gave a listening ear. The so-called probe got lost in the attendant public disagreement over whether America had vested interest or just helping humanity reduce its troublers by one. America lost. Onyema is waxing today but he should watch his back.
Then, Akinwunmi Adesina, that debonair President of the African Development Bank (AfDB). Give it to Olusegun Obasanjo. As President, he head-hunted marketable materials, even if he infamously said he was not bound to take the advice of his advisers while swearing them in. That was Aremu. You want this Adesina as the president of a country, you want to be proud of. But I digress.
So, America came again with a suspicious probe to obviously stop his reelection. Aremu rallied African leaders and they stood up to America. Not used to eyeball-to-eyeball, America backed down, but it doesn’t usually back off. Adesina, while keeping his trademark bow-tie in place, should also keep his pen in place. America is watching.
On Thursday, information highway went into an overdrive with opium-like ecstasy. America unsealed another grand jury indictment and it contained the names of five regular intercontinental crooks, led by Ramon Abbas (codenamed Hushpuppi) and a Nigerian super-cop, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari. Oh, la, la. The media had a feast, particularly the online platforms, serving the news hot as extracts upon extracts were released from a slew of court documents, sprayed on the internet by the FBI.
And was the information detailed. Kyari went from a controversial celebrity cop to a common felon within minutes that the stories of his alleged romance with Hushpuppi hit the airwaves. Not only was he listed as an accomplice to be prosecuted in the US, his initial response, which was deliberately cheeky, to trivialise the issues raised against him practically drowned him.
Since, no court of law, has convicted Kyari of any crimes, despite his established friendship with the infamous fraudster and considering America’s trust issue, it is trite to give the super cop the benefit of the doubt and believe his story of just linking Hushpuppi with his fashion designer.
But there are issues to consider that won’t necessary weigh in Kyari’s favour. Who is that crime fighter that goes about befriending doubtful characters? What about the truisms of show me your friend and birds of a same feather? First, it was Obi Cubana, the money-miss-road from Anambra. Then, an about-to-be convict, since Hushpuppi has pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
Reproach says when it wakes up in the morning, it goes about looking for the famous, to afflict. Only God can repair Kyari’s image, even if he walks away free like Onyema, because even unlike the Air Peace boss, who was smeared with big cash sleaze, Kyari is being situated as Hushpuppi’s errand boy in the affidavit filed in the US court and he hasn’t helped himself by confessing to doing a cloth-delivery service for his supposed “boy” in Dubai.
Perhaps the greatest lesson in the unfolding Kyari saga is to always remember the God of vengeance. Without mocking his travails, the numerous allegations of misuse of power levelled against him, despite many breakthroughs in crime bursting and professional accomplishments, should worry an average man or woman of conscience. SARS became a monster under Kyari. By implication, he almost set the entire nation ablaze because #EndSars revolts were a direct consequence of the atrocious foundation he laid heading the tyrannical unit. There are numerous examples for those still in power to learn from, but it seems destructive deafness has already afflicted them. First, it was Magu. Now, Kyari. Who knows who is next?
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and then