Bode George: Celebrating An Ex-Convict
The ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had on Saturday 26 February, paid millions of tax payers’ money to a television station to broadcast live the celebration of the return of Chief Bode George, a PDP chieftain who was sentenced to two years imprisonment for abuse of office and misappropriation of funds among other offences.
The thoughtlessness of the celebration, which was akin to giving garlands to a rogue, has been the topic anywhere more than two Nigerians are gathered. The internet was awash with condemnation of the celebration and social networking sites discussed nothing else.
PDP’s action has sent a wrong signal to Nigerian youths that it is all right to steal or mismanage public funds since it can even turn them into a ‘hero’ like Bode George. It is even more appalling that serving ministers, present and past governors, and former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, attended the event. The carnival that heralded the return of George was simply disgusting.
Yet George was convicted on 26 October, 2009 alongside five others by Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Ikeja High Court on 35 of the 68-count charge bordering on contract splitting, inflation, abuse of office and disobedience to lawful order.
While sentencing Bode George, Justice Oyewole held that he and five others were indeed guilty of splitting numerous contracts between 2001 and 2003 when he was chairman of the board of Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA. He noted that there was incontrovertible evidence that George and others on the board “intentionally and knowingly†split contracts in disregard of lawful order passed to them by the Minister of Transportation.â€
We believe that Justice Oyewole was not wrong in jailing Bode George. It is those who are celebrating him that lack a sense of decency. The celebration of Bode George is political. It is an attempt by PDP to make Nigerians forget the ignominious events that led to the incarceration of their godfather. But those who forget such events are on the way to perdition.
The case of Bode George is not strange in our land. We all know that those who are celebrated today in our society are either rogues or charlatans in the corridors of power.
The celebration of Bode George will not turn him into a hero. He remains an ex-convict. He will only be regarded as a leader by a pack of rogues, scoundrels and thieves.
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