I OFTEN RECEIVE ANONYMOUS POSTS AND ARTICLES WHICH YOU MAY AGREE WITH OR NOT, ARE OF IMMENSE ACADEMIC VALUE AND WORTH READING. ONE OF SUCH ARTICLES I AM REPRODUCING HEREUNDER.
Next morning the house help came to inform me that someone had come to pick me up and saw this handsome young man (This is 1979 or 1980, post Bhutto period of Gen Zia). I shook hands and didn’t know who he was because all he said was “Jee Majeed Nizami saheb ki request purr may aapko Raiwind lay jaanay ayaa hoo” and that his name was Nawaz. Later when my two other compatriots joined us and asked him who he was etc, I discovered he was Mian Sharif’s son, Nawaz. He hardly said a word going or coming. Barely answered any question except in monosyllables. Jee. Nahee. Shukria. Later I wondered at the simplicity of this young man and little did I know that the future PM of Pakistan was driving us to Raiwind.
This was Mian Sharif’s approach. Oblige, bribe or buy. An approach that is the pillar of all corrupt business people the world over and which has stood the family in very good stead. Bribing, obliging, buying and finally as Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers using their position, powers and authority, to gain massive financial advantage and loot and plunder and become the billionaires they are today.
But again I digress. So finally in 1981 this person gets picked as Finance Minister of Punjab by the then Martial Law Governor, Gen. Jilani. This choice is incredibly confusing, highly intriguing and has bedevilled many since it happened. Why on earth would Gen. Jilani, an extremely bright and intelligent man, choose a simpleton like Nawaz Sharif to handle a very complex portfolio of a Finance Minister?
But this is a two part question.
1. Why Nawaz Sharif?
2. Why the Punjab Finance Ministry portfolio? Why not something as benign as Auqaf or Forests et.
To address the first is quite revealing. Nawaz was no brilliant scion of a Saigol or a Valika or a Habib or an Adamjee, highly trained in the complexities of business enterprise and finance etc. He was a person who was considered extremely simple even by his own father and hence never given any serious independent role in the family business. His primary job was to act as a glorified chauffeur to his father’s friends or friends of friends or people who the father wanted to oblige or basically a go between them.
So why him? And why the Finance portfolio?
I’ve perhaps asked this question from over a hundred people over the years. Including those who were very close to Gen. Jilani and many to the Sharif’s as well. The answer, of course unconfirmed and unsubstantiated. The reality now long and buried with at least one person involved, the late Gen. Jilani. But what one hears and or alluded to in hushed whispers is quite stunning and casts a very dark shadow on the family. I’ll stop here and don’t want to say anything further.
But now that the choice had been made, Mian Sharif requested the Finance portfolio to use this to increase the family fortunes through lucrative government contracts. This they did from the moment Nawaz stepped into his first political office and which he and his family have continued to do to this day.
Let’s not forget that Nawaz Sharif became Finance Minister of Punjab in 1980 and had an uninterrupted run of 13 years in political office.
1. 5 years as Finance Minister from 1980 to 1985.
2. 5 years as Punjab Chief Minister from 1985 to 1990.
3. 3 years as PM from 1990 to 1993.
Since then he has enjoyed another nearly 8 years as PM in his subsequent two terms from 1996 to 1999 and from 2013 to 2017. A total of 21 years in power. More than any military leader or civilian in politics. And if we add Shahbaz Sharif’s 5 years of Punjab CMship from 2008 to 2013 and from 2013 to date, between the two brothers, they’ve enjoyed 35 years of power.
And after 35 years in power, look at the state of education, health care, law and order, governance, , corruption in Pakistan and look at this man’s personal wealth.
Thanks to Imran Khan, the Supreme Court and the Panamagate JIT, we now have a glimpse into the massive corruption and loot and plunder by this man. If I were a Frenchman storming the Bastille and if anyone deserves the guillotine, real or political it’s this guy, his brother Shahbaz, his daughter Maryam, sons Hassan and Hussain and brother in law, Ishaq Dar, for what they’ve done to Pakistan. And all others, military and civilians, who have brought us to this state
And yet there are still some who speak for him and his odious family and want the criminal mafia back in power! Hopefully never ever again will we allow these criminals back in power!
-Haider Mehdi
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