Retribution or righting the ship?

The cost to the nation has been tremendous. After the inspired presidency of the first Black leader, the next president took advantage of latent hostility for that revolution and set about closing down international brotherhood and promotion of democracy, preferring to close borders, prop up familial business, squeeze every bit of corruption from business and government funding possible and, essentially, prove himself to be more corrupt than any previous president.

In fact, the estimate is that during his term, the president bilked or cost the economy of the nation more than 9% of the gross nation product of any one year. And $83,000,000,000 is a huge sum that is still being counted. His misdeeds are hanging around his neck and in court filings,  all being exposed in the media and under public and political scrutiny.

With dozens of court cases hanging over his head, there was no recourse except to stall, put up roadblocks and call on similarly corrupt government officials, especially his faithful “lapdogs” (as one paper calls them) in efforts to delay what is surely clear cases of fraud, personal enrichment schemes and, above all, a level of immorality that damaged the country throughout his term and infects it still.

Remember, this is a man who has had a long checkered history of evading the law, taxes and regulations. He has, for decades, faced litigation and personal financial downturns that many have caused to question how he got out of debt more than once. Similarly, members of his family have also been implicated. Enter other nefarious players, many from international criminal organizations, who helped him recover and then were allowed to bilk the nation of more funds.

Some of the later revelations of his time in office show he was taking bribes and pedaling influence for pardons and defense contracts, property usage and other schemes, which have yet to be legally pursued by authorities — now hot on this trail still. It is estimated it will take 10 or more years to uncover all the tentacles of this corruption. But court cases are and will continue to pile up. He’s going down, hard.

Oh, and in case I didn’t mention it, this is President Zuma of South Africa I’m writing about. The similarity may prove uncanny.

Writer Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now resides in New Mexico.