O FALAE AND HIS ILKS
An Open letter to Baba, written by US Based Nigerian,Oluwafemi Taiwo


Dear Baba Falae,
Definitely you would not remember me again. But I do remember you. I first met you in the mid-eighties when you were the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the old Nigeria Merchant Bank Limited, then on Broad Street in Lagos. That would be anything between 1985 and 1986. Then I visited you in your homes in Lagos and Akure a couple of years down the line in the company of the late Alex Adedipe, formerly the Majority Leader of the old Ondo State House of Assembly. The impression, I got in those years was that you were an upright man.

Doubt began setting in when you became President Babangida's Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). For us young fellows, we knew something was terribly wrong with IBB's regime. We knew it was monumentally corrupt and thought people like you were too refined and principled to be part of it. But there was no way to prove much as the Maradona was quite adept at his thievery and scheming. Then we heard that some of you stabbed Chief Bola Ige in the back and small tales began coming up. That was in the run up to the 1999 elections and the contraption leading to that shift to a democratic dispensation. Many gave you the benefit of the doubt but we knew you did not stand in the same roll of honour as Chief Adekunle Ajasin and Chief Fasoranti. Many of us knew that eight of ten of your so called Afenifere Group were only selling Awoism for personal gains. We knew many of you cannot lace the sage's boots.
Baba Falae, it is sad that when people like you have no moral defence for your putrid acts done in the dark, the next thing you resort to would be legalese. It is unfortunate that a man supposedly as erudite as you can say "you did not know where the money came from" as mitigation for your immorality. Your defence that you were paid for inter-party collaboration did not reflect your famed intellect, sir. Otherwise you would know that when one party pays another to collaborate with it, it amounts to corruption. When independent political parties collaborate and work together, it is based on commonality of principles and ideas, not based on payments. The Conservative Party in the UK did not pay the Liberals to form government or collaborate. They fashioned an agreement based on common areas of their manifestos and they agreed on the offices to make it work.
Baba Falae, you are corrupt. Baba Falae, your hands stinks and smells of the blood of the innocent, sir - the men who gave their lives, lost limbs and died in battle defending you and your nation. Take a look at the mirror. For a mere N100 million, you traded off your reputation. Afefe ti fe, a ti ri furo adiye (The wind has blown the cover off the fowl's anus). You took the money because it has always been in your character to do so. Pure and simple. There are people we can vouch for in Akure who would not touch a billion Naira. The highly revered retired Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi of the Akure Diocese (Anglican) is one and we know him. Thank God you did not win the presidential election in 1999, it would not have been a different story today had you won. Corruption has always been in your blood. I thought the Yoruba's say "agba ki i wa l'oja, k'ori omo tuntun wo" (an elder will not stand aloof in the market while the head of a new born slouches). O mase o! Ki'le fi ya'to si Jimoh Ibrahim (What a pity! How different are you from Jimoh Ibrahim)? Shior!
I am praying for Nigerian youths. I am talking of those aged from 18 to 40. Those born from 1975/76 to just before civil rule in 1999. I am praying anger wells up in them and makes them see. That they can see their joblessness and how it relates to Baba Falae's N100 million "inter-party collabo" payoff. The relationship between the accident that killed their mum/father/sister/brother/relations to Raymond Dokpesi N2.1 billion "media strategic consultancy" payout. That Nduka Obaigbena's N650 million "terror attack" compensation is somehow linked to why they have local vigilante guarding their streets while policemen are carrying umbrellas for the wife of the local government chairman. Can the young Biafra agitator make a connection between Pius Anyim's Centenary City project with the erosion that has washed away his father's home in Mgbowo, Awka, Enugu-Ukwu, etc. That their pensioner father/mother/uncle/aunt who couldn't get paid after serving Nigeria for donkey years is ultimately a direct correlate of Bafawara's N500 million "spiritual consultancy" project. The innocent and not so innocent lady doing "runs" to pay for her education and also keep her family and younger ones housed and fed must link her fate to the dollar rain before March 2015 election. The young heroes who gave their lives at the front of the battle that raged endlessly for years in the northeast and Dasuki's ATM are directly linked. That is the way unconscionable elders have traded away your potentials and raped your country. Young man, get angry now. Young woman, time to get mad has come.
God, please deliver us from ourselves.