Hushpuppi's many sins: Money laundering, scam, frauds, EPL club, others
‘The real significance of crime is it’s being a breach of faith with the community of mankind’ –Joseph Conrad
Hush means silence, particularly after a prolonged noise. Quietness! Loud quietness has descended on a large number of neurotic hero worshippers that peopled Nigeria’s market of mediocrity- a land where miry mud is used to make their god in their own image. Puppies are sons of dogs or daughters of dogs; or better still, children of dogs.
A Hushpuppy is a silent son of a dog. He dwelled among us and his own loved and worshipped him, for his criminal benevolence. He was a friend to high and mighty, criminals and crime fighters, lawmakers and lawbreakers.
He understood the power of money, particularly, its alluring magnetic capacity to lure, even the very elect. His motor is what money cannot do does not exist! He had magical money! His was wealth whose foundation was laid on other peoples’ sweat and tears. From Nigeria to Dubai, from America to China, at each stage of development, Hushpuppy changed.
He continued to grow in iniquity until he became a dog in America. He seemed to have read O/Level Economics authored by O.A. Lawal that I read in secondary school myself about four decades ago.
In the book, one of the outlandish characteristics of money the erudite economist highlighted was that ‘money commands’! With money, Hushpuppy became a commander in police, instructing and commanding the tragic hero of mediocre worshippers, Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, on who to arrest or not arrest, who to detain or not. With money, Hushpuppy became the defacto Inspector General to Kyari.
There was an honour for sale and there was money to buy it; like Esau in the Bible and for a pot of portage, Abbas became Abba’s line manager, with the responsibility to serve his new master’s criminal urge, but not without a financial reward according to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Greed took Abba Kyari, an overhyped officer, a man who was supposed to be fighting a war against criminals, to the land of his adversary while the war was expectedly going on. He pitched his tent with the adversary and got himself trapped in a hall of shame.
He became a pitiable puppy in the kernel of his foe, taking order and command from Hushpuppy, to haunt, hurt and hurl Vincent, Hushpuppy’s partner in crime into public detention cell for private gains. He became a policeman of fortune, an adopted Puppy of Hushpuppy for a price.
He turned his gun against the law when it matters most and handed over his ammunition to a friendly foe.
Abba Kyari was a beneficiary of Nigeria’s mediocre hero-worship culture, a so-called super cop in a country of one-eye man among the blind, where the effective and efficient performance of duty has become an exemption rather than being the rule.
Welcome to a country whose people celebrate Governors as heroes for using the resources of states to construct road – a country whose impoverished people promote President to galactic martyr while still alive for constructing railways, a country where people worship their half-baked imperial rulers without any shred of concerns for transparency and accountability. We promote people beyond their capacity, score them beyond their achievement and celebrate them above their value addition.
The Yoruba says ‘oruko nla lo np’omo aja’(it’s a big-name that kills puppies). We ended up calling a man that was ordinarily performing his official duty a super cop simply because we are alien to a climate where policing is diligently dutifully done. The name ‘super cop’ sunk into Kyari’s head, swollen it and leaving him with a migraine headache of conspiratorial criminality that now has the prospect of sinking him.
Now, he seems to be moving from a super cop to a super crook! The trouble with Nigerian hero worshippers is that ‘they stand with their tragic heroes’ even when one wants to help them to do internal cleansing before they dance naked to their shame in the market.
This was how DSP George Iyamu was called a super cop in the 80s, with the public hailing him as a peculiar crime buster until his hypocrisy was detected. He died on the firing squad as an enabler and a kingpin of the armed robbery gang of the infamous Lawrence Anini after he had been judicially sentenced to death.
Tarfa Balogun, a former Inspector General of Policy ended in prison for the crime of graft after we had celebrated him as a super cop.
Make no mistake; it is not only in the Police Hush we have puppies. We have in Media Hush, Legislative Hush, Executive Hush, Judiciary Hush and much more silent cauldrons and covens of national afflicters and troublers!
In our very eyes, Central Bank became Micro Finance Bank doing Anchor Borrowing up and down at expense of Macroeconomic policy driving and management.
We watched until it became ‘Esusu’ in the hands of Emefile and Buharinomists. We forget that when Central Bank falls, Naira dies under its rubbles. The genius that promised us $1 to 1Naira has magically given us $1 to 522 Naira. What a Hush!
Abba Kyari is just a metaphor for our deeper problems. His is proof that we are sleeping on duty, becoming accomplices in our own victimization and ethical degeneration. His published defence on his handle affirmed an elevation of mediocrity.
That defence gave a lead to conspiracy. It offered circumstantial evidence. It was hogwash, and for a much-celebrated officer, it came short of thoughts and logic!
In any event, his fate is no longer within our purview, a United States court has issued a Warrant of Arrest on him. Nevertheless, his case is a tragedy for the police in desperate need of a rebrand. We didn’t deal with it when he was accused at endsars tribunal of graft and extortions. Now, the chickens have come home to roost. Aso o b’ Omoye mo. Omoye ti rinwowo woja.
Now, reasonable Police formation should do introspection on why did it take the UAE Police to arrest Hushpuppy despite his access to its officers in Nigeria? Within the contexts of crime-fighting in Nigeria, Abba Kyari towered above his peers in reported actions.
He is a premature member of the police elite, who, on the way to glory played with a sorely dirty puppy in miry mud of messy morass!
Gbenro Olajuyigbe is the Executive Director of Emergency & Risk Alert Initiative.