Former Chief of Army Staff and Minister of Defense, T Y Danjuma yesterday in Enugu State described a former minister of petroleum, Allison Diezani-Madueke as exceedingly corrupt. The retired general argued that Diezani’s record of corruption is yet unbeaten in Nigeria’s political history.
Inasmuch as the retired military chief has the right to his opinion, what he didn’t tell us was how he, T Y Danjuma managed to transition from a regular army officer to becoming one of the richest men in the world. His wealth became so massive that America’s Forbes magazine described him as Africa’s richest retired military chief alive. Such stupendous wealth!
While I do not hold brief for Diezani-Madueke, I also do not believe that T Y Danjuma has the moral right to condemn her when it is clear that they are both undue beneficiaries of the rot in Nigeria’s petroleum industry. T Y Danjuma suddenly became the owner of the largest indigenous oil company in the whole of West Africa without a requisite background in the oil industry.
In addition to that, he owns one of Nigeria’s largest indigenous shipping companies. On top of that, the late General Sani Abacha gifted him two oil wells in 1996 as a debt of gratitude under the guise of a birthday gift. It took former president Olusegun Obasanjo to force him to sell off those oil wells at a whooping cost of over one billion dollars.
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By today’s exchange rate, the two oil wells Abacha gave T Y Danjuma as a birthday gift are worth more than one trillion naira. This is more than the annual budget of seven states in Nigeria. What a waste of national resources! It is therefore insulting to sane Nigerians that such a beneficiary of a corrupt system could boldly call another “corrupt.” It is hypocrisy at its peak!
SCRIPT CREDIT: Facebook.com / Uzogara Tobechukwu
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