STAR STAR DECLARATION: Umar Musa Yar’Adua PUBLICLY Declares His Assets

[Mobolaji ALUKO]

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STAR STAR DECLARATION:   Umar Musa Yar'Adua PUBLICLY Declares His Assets

 

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 See: http://www.nigerianmuse.com/important_documents/?u=STAR_DECLARATION_Umar_Musa_Yar_Adua_PUBLICLY_Declares_His_Assets.htm  

 

 

ASSET DECLARATION OF UMAR MUSA YAR'AADUA

As of June 28, 2007

 

Compiled from various media reports

 

	ITEM	AMOUNT (Naira)	SUBTOTAL (Naira)
A	Cash in Nigerian Banks:		132,396, 162.21
	Bank PHB, Nagogo Road, Katsina branch	26,602,681.01
	Bank PHB, Apapa Lagos Branch	12,000,264.21
	Bank PHB, Head Office,Kaduna	4,999,947.22
	UB Plc (formerly Intercity), Imani Branch, Abuja (loan & debit)	26,817,362.19
	UB Plc, Imani Branch, Abuja (loan & debit)	61,975,907.58
	Subtotal	132,396,162.21
B	Cash in Hand (derived from savings, campaign and post campaign contributions)		7,500,000
C	Details of property in Nigeria		527,000,000
	Yar'Adua Quarters Katsina (acquired through inheritance in 1997)	105,000,000
	Multi-storey building in Abuja (land granted to him in 1998)	212,000,000
	Duplex, in Malali, Kaduna (gift from late brother Shehu)	120,000,000
	7-Bedroom duplex in Kaduna (built in 1987)	90,000,000
	Subtotal	527,000,000
D	Undeveloped Plots  Asokoro New Layout (granted in 1998)		50,000,000
E	Farms		25,000,000
	Farm in Ruwan Godiya, Katsina (acquired in 1982)	10,000,000
	Farm in Ajiwa, Katsina (acquired in 1993)	15,000,000
		25,000,000
F	Vehicles		181,550,000
	Honda Accord AC 151 ABC	350,000
	Mercedes Benz	6,500,000
	29 new (campaign) vehicles	174,700,000
	Subtotal	181,550,000
G	Household Furniture		3,000,000
H	Details of Spouse's Properties		19,000,000
	3 local houses (acquired 1998)	1,500,000
	1 twin bungalow (acquired in 2002)	15,000,000
	3 vacant plots (acquired in 2003)	2,500,000
	Subtotal	19,000,000
I	Investments in and outside Nigeria
	Habib Nigeria Bank PLC shares (acquired in 1998)	2,000,000 units
	Intercity Bank Plc shares	100,000 units
	Muradi Hotels Ltd. Shares	100,000 units
J	GRAND TOTAL ASSETS (minus worth of shares)		945,446, 162.21
K	LIABILITIES [Unity Bank Plc, Imani Estate Branch, Maitama, Abuja ]		88,793,269.77
L	TOTAL NET WORTH		856,652,892.44

 

Compiled from various reports by NigerianMuse.com 

 

 

 

NM COMMENTARY

 

COMPATRIOTS:

 

Although I am TROUBLED by ANY MAN in Nigeria being worth almost ONE BILLION NAIRA, this is a REMARKABLE DECLARATION that we all must commend Umar Musa Yar'Adua for.

 

Simply brilliant!

 

This opens up a Pandora's box......

 

We shall see.

 

 

 

NigerianMuse

(Bolaji Aluko)

 

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[ayandiji daniel]

Dear All

If we gained nothing from the last political transition in Nigeria, the choice by Nigerans of President Umaru Yar Adua is one indubitable blessing fron God Almighty. I am saddened that certain retrogressive elements attempted to help God by infiltrating the PDP political machine (like their counterparts in other parties especially the AC and ANPP) to carry out objectionable practice of ballot hijacking and the like. all friends of Nigeria must commend this man unreservedly. History has it that he did the same thing in previous inauguration. It is strange to think that an individual cannot have N856m (N741m reported by local TV station STv). This is about (Six million by STv report) Seven million dollars which includes loans landed property, shares in companies and donations by friends (for political campaign). I have seen Nigerians (who are into legitimate business who live in the US and some in Nigeria) acquire property worth half of that. What I expect from lovers of return of political sanity to Nigeria is to seek to compel all past and present leaders to publicly declare and publish their assets. Any other thing is hypocrisy. This is the time we have been waiting for.

Professor Aina

Mobolaji ALUKO <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:

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STAR STAR DECLARATION:   Umar Musa Yar'Adua PUBLICLY Declares His Assets

 

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[Tony Agbali]

 

Yar' Adua probably did a good thing by declaring his asset, and we keep our fingers crossed whether such declarations in itself would stop corruption as a systemic disorder within our national politic. However, it must be vocally noted that while Yar' Adua is the inaugurated President, that all evidence shows that Yar'dua is not the choice of Nigerians as you assume- his election was a stolen act through the connivance of former President Obasanjo, Maurice Iwu (I almost used Ewu), and the ruling PDP.

 

Yar'Adua presidency is a stolen act. This "hand of God maradonic" endorsement is problematic, as it is utterly erroneous to say that Yar'Adua is the choice of Nigerians.  It is the choice of a clique of Nigerians impostors, they do not represent Nigerians in their totality. Afterall, Nigerians were disenfranchised during the process that produced Yar'Adua.  Yar'Adua may or not be a blessing from God, that I cannot fully ascertain outright within a public template, that might be inclined to sanction or disincline religious thinking and imaginations within their interpretations of daily existence. The acute "act of God," "hand of God," idioms has become too often an anathesizing opium that the Nigerians utilize in coping with the absurd and paralysis critical actions on the part of social agents, who should be critically working for change.

 

The collorary to that is, "if we cannot beat them, lets join them" syndrome that has eaten deep into our social fabric.  Evidentially then, we see politicians now criss-crossing, party-switching from one party to the other, often the ruling party, so that they can share in the national cake.  Shamefully, ANPP, AC (did I hear they recently withdrew from the National Government Yar'Adua dangling carrot, the mimicking of OBJ-Ige style!) are now parleying in the attempt to have a share of the slice of the pie.

 

No doubt, the many visionaries of Nigeria, the neo-Babalawos and Marabouts, well might agree, in sanctioning the theologization of power that has now become all too regular within the "act of God" Nigerian script.  The problem is that we have refused to even relate this neo-Christian and neo-pagan thinking (I used the word pagan cautiously, since it references the rural areas within its original Roman context and etymology), compared against the many African traditional mythologies. Within these vignettes, we see that God rather than being Deus Ex Machina when humans began disturbing the peace, pounding their yams into food paste (Iyan) and their pestle reaching up to the sky he so made close to the earth, almost inseparably, create their own mess and troubling God's peace withdrew into stellar heavens- if only technology was advanced with the creation of Yam powder God would still be close to the earth!  But human beings adept at creating troubles left God with few choices, and the best being to sling through his rope and romp upward, thus definitively demarcating stellar sky/heaven from the earth, and leaving human beings to deal with their issues.

 

When human disturbance becomes acute, God leaves us to clear our mess.  It also follows a certain Christian theological privileging of Free will; where God respects boundaries and does not infringe, without invitation, into the human terrain. In lucid terms, God does not impose himself to infringe upon the matter of human free will that is within the realm of human acting.  God allows for what again in moral theology and even law, has now become known as the "Principle of Subsidiarity."  This principle maintains that higher authorities do not venture to infringe in doing, what those lower to them can and are capable of doing.

 

But our Nigerian problem is one that is often in the rush to magicalize the secular, "profane," and mundane. Too often chorusing the lexicon of the miraculous, because miracle workers parade our streets, ringing their bells, and intoning their religious language seeking God where God does not seek to be seen, we have become too immersed in the meshy swamp of religious delirium.  Therefore, we see God in the confusions we create, we disturb others on our buses (molues) with signature tunes of "Praise the Lord," "Alleluia" without minding their state of mind or need to be peaceful. Not done with all these "Jah" antiphons and their refrains, that makes Nigeria more than the Vatican of all Religiosity, we burst into songs of disturbances, that makes mockery of low-noise observance and denies people the liberty of peace.  Rather than allow the peace of sonorous passengers, we initialize the God of peace through outbursts of loud disturbances,intentionally puncturing the sonority of scene existence.  We puncture God into every crevices, creating more problems. 

 

Now, rather than looking at the facts of the flawed political processes that produced Yar'Adua as a president of stolen mandate, a moral laughing stock, that was enthroned to serve and further the goals of certain prebendal and class interests we relish a  "Messianic" heralder- as a blessing from God! Soyinka was right, the trial of Brother Jero, provides a glimpse to our psyche! 

 

This neo-gospel  that subsumes all spheres into the regal domain of religiosity, I do not understand- and wish not to understand.  This applied political science or theopolitical science, is makes for chaotic hormonal crises, that paralysis me in laughter.  In fact, the political surrealness, fostering a theological ampit in explaining away political realities is a representative sample of the frenetic analytical reducibility of the understanding of power dynamics and structure, into a magical rite, a rite of passage that offer along the channel of initiation new theoretical libations for consumption of the gods- one that the gods of Nigerian power would surely relish!

Religion becomes the superordaining tool of analysis for each, all, and everything! God blesses thuggery and rigging, therefore, it is convenient, it is alright. Maybe!

In my mind though, this is a metanarrative of where our problems lie, as we anasthesize social reality with the divine opium, that might just be our own imagination, our way of playing mind-games with ourselves. Implicitly, God must be implicated, and forced into what is directly human affairs.  Therefore, I am here just wondering why God would allowed his/her "over-self" [theoretically I prefer to the traditional notion of himself/herself/-some who calls She would prefer herself]  to vet hilarity and abet the massive rigging that characterized the April 21, 2007 election, that ill-produced Yar' Adua? It parallels Maradona's hand of God soccer world cup goal! Wonders shall never end!

 

Personally, I am more critical than that, so I see not the "hand of God" in thievery and inordinate arrogation of power. It sound more like the question of the neutrality of God during World War II, when traditionally Christian European nations were fighting on  opposing sides. Italian Bishops, German Bishops, all were storming heaven with missiles of prayers  within their various national churches, to deploy God's favor to their national side, to help them win the war.  Naturally, I  supposed that God then intoned, "please, leave me alone, please let me out of this. You created this mess yourselves, please deal with it all by yourselves!" This assumed "leave of God" in favor of human free will (voluntarism) I would say could also be imaginatively applied to the Yar'Adua's presidency.  It is the Nigerian mess, and we need to deal with it all by ourselves rather than force the hand of God into all this.  God might have blessed Nigeria but with a "stolen mandate," I wonder whether a curse is not lurking just equally around the corner.  God abhors theft, at least so says the Christian decalogue, and the other religion that I know too.

 

The production of Yar'dua as President is one that is predicated upon a clique determination to foster their privatized interests upon the collective, and to truncate the sovereignty of the Nigerian people, in the truest sense of  spitting lethal venoms upon the people's interests.  However, rather than implicating God in this maddening scenario, we ought to think more about the modes within which social contradictions can equally simulate autonomous processes, outside of the intentionality of their productions within a Faustian sense.

 

As scholars, some of us are religious and spiritual, but to entrapped in transposing such religious claims unto the political terrain in warranting the inauthenticity of sovereign arrogation of power, seems to me, to be a vulgarization of the power of the tools of social analysis. It equates somewhat to sanctioning the notion that God sent the late Chilean President, Augustino Pinochet, to deal and emasculate communists to ensure the purity and beauty of his created Manifest Chilean order. Ordinarily, perspectives that dances in the rhythm of religious views, even within their embediment of irrationality and illegitimacy, does in fact make sense to some fanatics.  However, to encrypt is a moral or ethical vision of reality, is somewhat skewed, the way I see it.  Else, we also hail the fact of the McCathy's onslaught against presumed communists in America, as a way of gaining signification, as the scourging messenger; the sleigh of God, the "last prophet" as the hammer in the hands of God in liquidating all assumed communist-in-every-crevice irreligious apostles within "God's own country!" Intertwining God with politics is all too often the essential condiment in creating the many Hitlers, Saddams, Bokassas, enthroned as God's demi-urge.

 

I bet political scientists and scholars in general can do better than theorizing Deux Ex Machina schemes. Sorry, this is nothing personal.  No doubt, personally and vocationally, I do believe in the immensity of divine power to influence human affairs, but I think too that theologically, God respects free will, therefore leaving the human arena to human beings within the realm of what is specifically called in moral theology or ethics "human acts," a notion that also entails issues pertaining to responsibility, accountability, and culpability.  I am leery to just disturb God with the mess, I create by my actions or inactions. 

 

Further, I think that we Nigerians have gone beyond showy ploys and shadowy schemes that at first is used to buy our attention and support, to distract us before been preyed upon. Didn't OBJ do similar thing in 1999, when he cancelled the oil block contracts, only to turn around and become corrupt? Don't we know that OBJ banned sirens blowing on the streets of Nigeria in the early days of his administration in 1999-2000, what has changed regarding that phenomena in today's Nigeria? Don't we also know that erstwhile President Shehu Shagari left power, himself somewhat poor compared to the Babangidas, Abachas, Obasanjos of this world, but folks like Umaru Dikko and Augustus Adisa Akinloye (of course Buhari accused him of labeling champagnes in his name) made tons of money?  Therefore, the declaration of a seating President is symbolic and significant, but the most important thing is the will to ensure that political lackeys are equally clean. But do we see that happening in today's Nigeria, where the Andy Ubas and the Adedibu are the kingpin models of Nigerian politics, and intrigues and "bad belle" is reigning supreme?

 

This is not to discard your crucial point, however, but just some concern regarding the modes of theorizing and analytic outlook as it pertain to Nigerian politics. Because before long we made Obasanjo into a "Barbaric baba" within the greatest privatization and concentration of power in the hands of an individual in Nigerian history; a power that became a manifest Frankenstein monster; with the inbuilt power of determined destruction paving its paths. Therefore, what I wonder is whether the theologizing of power is a new mode of analysis within the politic script of Nigerian intellectual scholarship. Of course, today, the God-talk and the right-wings "global warming" of American politics might also be globalizing- not the least about the enthusiastic religious frenzy that my friend, Nwakama recently alluded to. Such behavioral imagings have now become too obtuse in disprivileging the sense of the rational, while inordinately enthroning an allographic obversion toward the redundant inscription and compenetration of religion into the fabric of our politics.

 

This suspension of rationality allowing for a celebral apogamic union propels an obscurantist emotionalism parading all spectre of religiosity and spiritual absurdity within the Nigerian market squares; the public theatres where acting predominates over actions. Here surreal acting predominates and takes on a life of its own, replacing critical imaginations with tenous manipulative visions of unmeasurable religiosity of all stripes, that attempt to emasculate the sinewing tendons that ought to uplift the ethical standard as the mirror for ensuring normative accountability and responsibility.

ayandiji daniel <diji...@yahoo.com> wrote:

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