By Zik Gbemre

When recent media reports revealed that the former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha said he has a dossier on former President Olusegun Obasanjo and would reveal it in his forthcoming memoirs to enable Nigerians know what the man had been doing since 1966, we could not help but wonder if this was a tactic by the former Governor to get his voice heard make himself relevant in the country’s political space. Or was the said statement intended by the former Bayelsa State Governor to make himself seem innocent of all the corruption charges that had led to him being imprisoned, and to draw sympathy from Nigerians. Or paint former President Obasanjo as the ‘bad guy’ that caused his woes while in government. What could have given Alamieyeseigha the impetus and audacity to come forth and make such statement? Or was because his brother – Goodluck Jonathan – had given him State Pardon after all the atrocities he has committed, that he thinks he has something to say to Nigerians?

Olusegun Obasanjo and Diepreye Alamieyesiegha

It is funny how, after ten years, the anger arising from the impeachment and subsequent imprisonment of former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration is still reverberating even though Alamieyeseigha claims he has forgiven Obasanjo. The former governor was impeached and removed from office in December 2005 and was subsequently sent to jail for mismanagement of Bayelsa State funds. Some of his property said to have been secured with stolen funds in and outside Nigeria were confiscated and given to Bayelsa State by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) working in conjunction with foreign security agencies. But Alamieyeseigha, who was granted ‘State pardon’ by his former deputy governor and immediate past President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, last year, said that Obasanjo has not known peace because of the role he played in events leading to his impeachment, arrest and subsequent imprisonment.

Now the big question we would like to ask the former Bayelsa State Governor is this: Is he trying to tell Nigerians that ‘everything’ that had happened to him as regards the “corruption saga hovering around his dented reputation” were all lies? Who is the former Governor trying to fool with this public ranting?

To refresh our minds with more details, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha was detained in London on charges of money laundering in September 2005. At the time of his arrest, The Metropolitan Police London found about £1m in cash in his London home. Later they found a total of £1.8m ($3.2m) in cash and bank accounts. He has been found to own real estate in London worth an alleged £10 million. His State’s monthly Federal Allocation for the last six years has been in the order of £32 million. He jumped bail in December 2005 from the United Kingdom by disguising himself as a woman. Though, Alamieyeseigha has constantly denied this claim, but it was widely reported with even pictures as proof of him being disguised as a woman to escape security operatives in UK.

On June 28, 2012, the United States (US) Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that it had executed an asset forfeiture order on $401,931 in a Massachusetts brokerage fund, traceable to Alamieyeseigha. US prosecutors filed court papers in April 2011 targeting the Massachusetts brokerage fund and a $600,000 Maryland home, which they alleged were the proceeds of corruption. A motion for default judgement and civil forfeiture was granted by a Massachusetts Federal District Judge in early June 2012. The forfeiture order was the first to be made under the DoJ’s fledgling Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative

Back home in Nigeria, on July 26, 2007, Alamieyeseigha pled guilty before a Nigerian Court to six charges of corrupt practices and was sentenced to two years in prison on each charge. However, because the sentences were set to run concurrently and the time was counted from the point of his arrest nearly two years before the sentences, his actual sentence was relatively short. Many of his assets were ordered to be forfeited to the Bayelsa State government. According to Alamieyeseigha, he only pled guilty due to his age and would have fought the charges had he been younger. On July 27, just hours after being taken to prison, he was released due to time already served. This is just another ‘smart way’ for public officials to admit they actually stole/misappropriated their State funds for their selfish gain. To justify this, in April 2009, Alamieyeseigha was said to have pledged a donation of 3,000,000 Naira to the Akassa Development Foundation. Now the question then was, where did he get that kind of money?

In December 2009, the Federal Government hired a British law firm to help dispose of four expensive properties acquired by Alamieyeseigha in London. Alamieyeseigha had bought one of these properties for a whopping £1,750,000.00 in July 2003, paying in cash. Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha used it as his London residence, and as the registered office of his Solomon and Peters Inc.

Surprisingly, despite all of this, on 12th March 2013, Alamieyeseigha was pardoned by former President Goodluck Jonathan, and of course, his pardoning was criticized by many. By granting this pardon, Goodluck Jonathan goofed terribly and it added to him never being respected amongst nations in the International community. That State pardon can best be described as the height of corruption and gross indiscipline that were evident in the Jonathan administration. This is a complete contrast to the high ovation and highly-esteemed respect often accorded President Buhari by other foreign nations, including super-power nations like the UK, US and France, etc. The respect accorded to President Buhari today is evidence of what ‘integrity’ can fetch for you. That is what the likes of Alamieyeseigha and Jonathan lacked.

Again, we would like to ask Alamieyeseigha if all of these happenings that necessitated to him being impeached as Governor of Bayelsa State and subsequently sent to prison briefly were all lies. He knows they are true, hence we wonder why he is now coming out to rant about exposing former President Olusegun Obasanjo. What has Obasanjo got to do with Alamieyeseigha’s ‘bitter ordeal’ in the hands of justice over his very own actions? Was it Obasanjo that made him to misappropriate public funds meant for Bayelsa State for his personal gain?

If anything, we believe Obasanjo was only trying to ‘save’ the people of Bayelsa State from being robbed further by their supposed Governor at that time. It is sad that today, Bayelsa, despite its oil and gas wealth, is still very backward in every sense of the word with most of its villages inaccessible with vehicles. Former Bayelsa State Governors like Alamieyeseigha have no excuse for not being able to develop their State the way they should while in government. If places like New York, Amsterdam, Maritime Greenwich, North Greenwich and even the entire London (with its River Thames), can be developed to become modern-cities of marvel and attraction despite being surrounded by water, then Bayalsa State present and past public office holders like Alamieyeseigha have no excuses for not being able to develop their State. The problem was that Alamieyeseigha obviously misappropriated public funds meant for the development of Bayelsa State to buy properties abroad and live in affluence.

Former Delta State Governor James Ibori suffered similar circumstances like Alamieyeseigha but Ibori’s case was a bit different because majority of Deltans spoke against Ibori’s high-handedness and corrupt tendencies while in government and today, thanks to the London Metropolitan Police and the British Judiciary, Ibori is still paying for the atrocities he committed against Delta State as he serving a jail term. Even Ibori’s cousin, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan whom Ibori used to replace himself as former governor, has also gone limbo today as not many can explain his whereabouts. Again, Uduaghan’s ‘uncomfortable disposition’ is hinged on the fact that he left a deplorable legacy, huge debt profile and countless abandoned projects in Delta State as a former governor. What sort of life is this; where one, having misruled and misappropriated State funds to satisfy his greedy appetite to the detriment for many, cannot ‘freely’ mingle with his kinsmen and people because of the guilt of the evil he has done? That is the story of the two past governors of Delta State that have misruled the State in the last 16 years.

Alamieyeseigha should be advised to go and sit down and keep his mouth shut for Nigerians are not interested in whatever he has to say because he actually has nothing ‘useful’ to say. The sad part of all of this is that despite Alamieyeseigha’s past atrocities while in government, Bayelsans still sing his praise today. So, rather than ‘hiding his face’ as someone who has wronged his people while in government, Alamieyeseigha has the boldness to come out publicly to say rubbish. If it were in societies where corruption and indiscipline is seriously frowned at, people like Alamieyeseigha would not have the boldness to come back home, even after he was granted State pardon.

It is ex and serving public leaders and politicians like Alamieyeseigha that are making Nigeria look terribly bad in the eyes of the international community when it comes to ‘corruption in high places’. Alameiyeseigha should be told that he, and only he alone is the architect of his own misfortunes in life. Hence, he should stop passing the blame or looking for ways to draw sympathy or appear relevant in the polity. Ex public office holders like him, should only be seen once in a blue moon but never heard.

It is just unfortunate that the former Bayelsa State Governor was never really given or allowed to experience the full wrath of the law, both here in Nigeria and in the UK and US where he had left footprints of his corrupt tendencies. A country that is fighting corruption cannot be giving State Pardon to ex or serving public office holders that are seen to be corrupt. That is why the international community never really took the Goodluck Jonathan administration seriously in their supposed war against corruption. We are however glad that gradually but steadily, the story is beginning to change under the present government of President Muhammahdu Buhari. We only hope that the nation would not have to deal with another ‘Alamieyeseigha and his kind’ in government circles anymore in the near and far future.

Zik Gbemre,JP.

National Coordinator

Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)