Mr. Patrick Duval, the former Governor of Massachusetts, is now a Director at Bains Capital, an investment firm founded by Mr. Mitt Romney, also a former Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Patrick Duval is a Democrat, while Mr. Mitt Romney is a Republican. What makes the story interesting is that Mr. Patrick Duval actively and openly supported President Obama against Governor Mitt Romney during the 2012 US Presidential election. Despite that unconditional display of loyalty to Barack, today, Patrick is fully and gainfully employed at an investment firm founded by Mitt. It's all about performance, ability to perform, and the returns on investment. And that's capitalism - only in America.
Today, almost all the Nigerian former Governors are not fully or gainfully employed in the real economic sense. They are either self-imposed Senators or Ministers, or just globe-trotting, enjoying their loot of office. That's not the end of the story. On leaving the office, most of them are remunerated yearly in the neighbourhood of N200,000,000.00, a house in Abuja and a second house in their village or their state capital. In addition, he is entitled to two or three highly priced Mercedes-Benz or BMW, replaceable every two or three years, standby security details and government-paid drivers. Is that capitalism? No. That's a welfare state for the rich.
So, when you come to Facebook to start blaming the derailment of the Nigerian brand of capitalism on "greedy" bus drivers who squeezed four passengers into a space designated for three passengers, and an Okada Bikers who always carry two in the back and one in the front, you are unmistakably disingenuous.
And when you start rationalising and excusing our debasement of Capitalism on the premise that American capitalism is also not perfect, you are openly and shamefully aiding and abetting the greed and the ineptitude that are ravaging the entire fabric of the Nigerian leadership clique. Now, this!
The starchy debonair youngish Malam Farouk Lawah, the Nigerian House of Representative member who said, yes, he took $500,000.00 from the SSS to compromise the reports of his committee in the investigations of petroleum marketers who defrauded the NNPC of the subsidy funds, is yet to refund a dime. And he has not been prosecuted.
On the flip side, the American House of Representative member, Mr. Anderson, who was similarly paid, not half a million dollars, but $90,000.00 by the FBI on a sting operation, was not only tried, sentenced and jailed, but the FBI also recouped their money.
Who is giving an account of the Nigerian $600,000.00 that the SSS gave to Lawah and his deputy? And who is giving an account of the prosecution of the bogus petroleum marketers indicted in Aig-Imoukhuede's investigatory panel, as well as the recovery of the money they stole? That cannot happen in American capitalism.
First, eliminate cronyism and nepotism in the system, both the public and private sectors. You do that, you eliminate ineptitude from our socio-economic and political system effortlessly. Secondly, eliminate squandering of our riches on those with the least needs, with a focus on social welfare and basic economic stimulants (power supply and ease of movement of goods and services, and of course, security) and you will see the Okada Biker and the Bus driver playing their parts, without slogans.
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