by Tola Adenle

Time was when poor people in America whose mortgages were called up for payment during the Great Depression of the 30s got thrown out of their homes into the streets even in the coldest of winters.  Even renters in America have generally – at least – always been spared the humiliation and wretchedness of being forced to shiver on sidewalks while hovering over their belongings in such weather.  How or Why?  Most states have laws that prevent renters from being evicted when temperatures fall below certain numbers believed to be too cold to throw people out on the streets.

As the “Occupy Wall Street” becomes an “Occupy Movement” and seems to graduate to “Occupy Anywhere that should hit the System”, an “Occupy Foreclosure Auctions” has emerged in scattered locations across the US, and with it, the Occupy Movement may have found a cause that could bring the civil disobedience to a point of being taken more than seriously.

As the banking crisis hit, governments everywhere, including Nigeria, scurried to bail out banks to prevent what these governments feared would bring  domino effects to their various economies.  Meanwhile, not much relief went the way of bank depositors.  In Nigeria, a few suicides were reported but even those who would never contemplate killing themselves, have been left inconsolable.

The link between bailing the rich out and abandoning of people who lost savings, investments, etcetera due to the greed of the same people governments helped everywhere, cannot be missed.

Read the L.A. Times account of how the Occupy Movement in Los Angeles disrupted an attempt to foreclose a hapless owner’s property:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-occupy-foreclosure-20111203,0,6160603,print.story.

As the gaps between the Haves and Have-More widen, those left behind due to no faults of most of them are beginning to feel very aggravated by the “heartlessness” of the so-called “99%.  The Occupy Movement see themselves as the 1% being trampled by Wall Street’s raging “Bull”.

Despite Nigerians’ immeasurable patience and forbearance, it is inconceivable that things will continue as they are as long as those endless weekend parties that are [sort of] levelers for the world’s happiest people continue.  Well, an “Occupy Nigeria” movement, long overdue, promises to get under way in January over the lie of “oil subsidy”:

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/occupy-nigeria-civil-society-labour-unions-engage-series-mass-action-january-2012.

Links?   Check out a list of a few Billionaires, Pillars of Society, Leading Church & Mosque Leaders, DEBTORS of “non-performing loans”, ALL from among the hundreds of dead-beat debtors released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) two years ago. It offers more than food for thought as this year races to a close and a few who have become obscenely wealthy by merely holding important positions in government and other aspects of the country’s life prepare to savor the fruits of criminality in far-off lands in exquisite million-Euro/million/dollar … homes while the majority of Nigerians go from market stalls to market stalls in efforts to purchase cupfuls of rice and oku eko [not-good frozen fish.]  I actually saw a MAN and his two children – a boy and a girl – at an Ibadan market during the last Ileya begging a rice seller about the price of rice by milk-can size.  They eventually took home TWO CANS home apparently for the celebrations; I know they were coming from the praying ground.

Well, these few from the list of “non-performing loan” billionaires will never have to eat rice purchased price the cupfuls:

a.  A few of the Bank Debtors Listed by the CBN in 2009:

At Erastus Akingbola’s run-to-the-ground Intercontinental Bank in a list that includes many oil companies such as Rahmaniyya Oil & Gas(N12 billion+); Dansa Oil & Gas (N8.8+b); Arisekola’s Lister Oil (N5b) are Obateru Akinruntan’s Obat Petroleum (a MEASLY N1b) and [former Minister] Captain Iheanacho’s Integrated Oil-Gas (N2 billion), etcetera.

Afribank

 African Petroleum: (N12.8 billion) listed as Directors & major shareholders are – Femi Otedola, Osa Osunde, Tunde Falasinu, Clem Aviomah, Layi Bolodeoku & Grace Ekpeyong.

Union Bank

Femi & Nana Otedola’s Zenon Oil (N6.2 billion);

Cecilia Ibru’s Oceanic Bank

Dangote Industries Limited (N2.5b);  “General Magoro”’s Oando (N7.1b); Mr. Oba Otudeko’s Honeywell Group (N1.6b); Akinruntan’s Obat Petroleum (N4.4b);

b.  The Subsidy Receivers for whom millions of Nigerians must now be quartered & served raw:

Oando Nigerian Plc. – N228.506 billion; MRS –N224.818 billion; CONOIl – N37.960 billion;Obat N85 billion; AP; N104.5billion.; Honeywell-N12.2billion; Integrated Oil and Gas – N30.777 billion.

Now, match names on List ‘a’ with those on List ‘b’.

Finally, I hate to keep repeating Reuben Abati’s assertion that the place to start looking for those who have damaged Nigeria is the National Honors’ List but guess what? -No matter what disrepute Abati may have brought to himself, he remains one of Nigeria’s great essayists or, how d’you beat this lead-writing: ”If anyone is looking for … those who have damaged Nigeria … the place to begin the search is the National Honours List”?  It’s concise, it’s paunchy, it says all the essay it leads is meant to say, it’s attention-getting and it’s racy.

c.  The 2011 National Honours List …

has Dangote receiving the highest “honor” that a non-Head of State can receive, the CFR and he was decorated by Jonathan with glowing words.  Any wonder that Achebe would reject being named among such a list – for the second time?

For a full list of bank debtors announced by the CBN in 2009, please click the link below or paste in your browser:

http://emotanafricana.com/2011/12/07/bad-debt-holders-a-k-a-non-performing-loan-holders-central-bank-of-nigeria/

It was posted here some minutes ago.

December 7, 2011.