It is hard to say when, precisely, Patricia Etteh, the speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, a former hairdresser who became the fourth highest official in Africa's most populous nation this year, fell definitively from grace.
Perhaps it was when her detractors first accused her of spending US$5 million to renovate the offices and official residences for her and her deputy, as well ordering a fleet of a dozen cars. Or perhaps it was the US$780,000 worth of massage machines she was accused of requisitioning, a charge she rebutted by saying she would not have made such a purchase when six massage machines were already clogging the storage halls in the House building, gathering dust.
The final blow for Etteh, who resigned on Tuesday, may have come on Oct. 17, when, amid fisticuffs between her supporters and detractors on the House floor, the chairman of the Health Committee collapsed and died, apparently of natural causes.
Or it could have been when it became clear that the business of governing Africa's top oil producer had ground to a halt.
"The Nigerian political elite to a large extent are like maggots," said Sola Adeyeye, a former member of the House who has watched Etteh's implosion with a mixture of disgust and awe. "They are creatures that enjoy the presence of corruption and stench. But the Nigerian people are only going to put up with that for so long. She had to go."
Etteh's travails began late in the summer when a House panel indicted her on charges that she had abused her office and failed to follow due process in spending lavishly on renovations for herself and her deputy. Since then, the scandal has dominated the front pages of Nigeria's boisterous national and regional newspapers, and calls for her to resign have filled editorial page columns.
Etteh has insisted all along that she did nothing wrong, that she followed proper procedures in her expenditures and that she is a victim of a witch hunt by political enemies. She was the first woman to lead a branch of Nigeria's legislature and many political analysts said she had been chosen for that spot by Nigeria's former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who stepped down in May after two terms in office but remains influential in the ruling People's Democratic Party.
The scandal exploded at a delicate time, just as Nigeria's new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, made his UN debut last month. The trip was filled with carefully orchestrated appearances intended to transform Nigeria's image from a land of oil-fueled kleptocratic chaos to a vanguard of progress and democracy in the new Africa.
Many commentators worried that the controversy would simply drag Nigeria's image through the mud again, confirming its reputation as a nation of "scammers," in Colin Powell's memorable phrase.
"Nigeria is neither America where a public official in Etteh's position would have resigned out of decency; Japan where she would have committed suicide for shame," wrote Rotimi Fasan in a column this month in Vanguard, a national newspaper. "Nor indeed is our beloved country China where people like Etteh are summarily executed by the state. The cultlike operation of government in Nigeria would rather see to it that Etteh remains in office."
Nevertheless, Etteh was prevailed upon to step aside after it became clear that her position was untenable, one of her aides told the BBC. The deputy speaker, who was also embroiled in the renovation scandal, resigned as well.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS