Loyalty and Silence

Upon being told by Special Court judge Mohammad Aslam Gondal that the charge-sheet in their Rs.25 billion money laundering case in the sugar scandal comprises 7 volumes, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president and leader of the opposition in the national assembly, Shehbaz Sharif and his sons, Punjab Assembly opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz and (declared absconder) Salman Sharif dispatched Ahsan Iqbal, their party secretary general, to seek Pakistan People Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s advice.

However, as prudence demanded, Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother, the party’s supreme leader and three times former prime minister Nawaz Sharif forbade party minions from criticizing Zardari.

The errant included his daughter, party vice president Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

Not just Shehbaz, but also Iqbal publicly declared that the “PPP is not our target.”

Obviously, Iqbal was the right person to seek Zardari’s counsel on shaking off all and any charges of corruption.

On this crisp after, Iqbal arrives at the $5 million Bilawal House in Bahria Town, Lahore, that real estate tycoon Malik Riaz gifted to Zardari’s son. In the true Sharif tradition, Iqbal has brought with him an offering, large copper degs (cookpots) of nihari and biryani – his supreme leader’s favorites.

Considered as Aristotle by his party members, Iqbal offers a background of his visit and how his supreme leader reposes, not just admiration but also full faith in Zardari’s acumen at keeping out of jail in any government.

“Respected leader Asif Ali Zardari, our supreme leader, his family, and our entire leadership are perpetually in awe at your keeping the widest possible distance between you and the law. The way you killed Swiss case despite being convicted by their court, the now buried fake accounts case, and others and of course, you never got anywhere near being mentioned in the Panama Papers.

“It may have been conveyed to you that from top to down, none of us will react to, God forbid, whatever statements you may give (against the PML-N leadership).”

“Ahsan, it was nice of Mian Nawaz to think of me. Certainly, I will get a couple of goats to test the food you have brought, before getting it served at dinner. I appreciate your party’s decision. Of course, you too know the well-known Farsi saying der aayed, durust aayed (better late than never).

“First, I can’t help but wondering how Shehbaz let a police report against him grow to not one but 7 volumes.

“The Senate adopted the 18th Amendment on April 15, 2010, and I signed it on April 19, 2010. Your leader was prime minister till August or July 2018. So why he and party leadership didn’t use it to create a Maginot line around you all?

“Any way, what is past, can’t be recreated. You know about the Swiss case. The first credit goes to Yousuf Raza Gilani who sacrificed his prime ministerial office in refusing the Supreme Court order to supply documents to the Swiss court. May God bless his soul, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, our high commissioner in U.K. then, spirited away all the incriminating documents from his office.”

Iqbal, bowing his head in admiration, “Sir, you are indeed the Master. But like you have lined up the wadera power in rural Sindh, we too got demarcation of constituencies on the biradaris (castes) basis after the 1977 polls and reshaped these constituencies according to our original blueprint after winning the next elections.”

“Yes, Ahsan, but now the EVM - electronic voting machine – system being enforced by [prime minister] Imran [Khan] will undo our schemes. No problem. I will find a way. Trust me.

“So, Ahsan we were talking about sniffing out the cases. Let me relate a few. In the 2014 case, the National Accountability Bureau alleged that Benazir and I caused a loss of Rs. 268 million to the Agriculture Development Bank of Pakistan — now called Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited — and Rs. 1.67 billion to the State Bank of Pakistan with our tractor purchase scheme. Of course, now the government files are missing the papers and no court will act on unattested photocopies!

“Just consider the case of our [former Sindh provincial minister] Sharjeel Inam Memon. The case has no legs when 15 original deeds of property in the reference against him are nowhere on earth! He simply bought out a grade 18 officer to spirit away the incriminating evidence.

“It is getting late, so let me warp up. I believe my brother Nawaz did not grasp the English and started feeling inflated that he was declared a Godfather. Even the then senior-most judge Asif Saeed Khan Khosa denied ever saying such in his Panamagate verdict.

“Ahsan, politics is a dangerous profession, and we can be taken down at any moment and the only insurance is loyalty and silence. Ask the Sharifs and your colleagues to abide by mafia’s the Omerta law, which is not implicating other mafia and family members, and ensure that our families reward themselves generously in each of turns.

“Do convey my best regards to Nawaz and Shehbaz, but tell them that real Godfathers, Boss of Bosses, are hard to come by… of course, they know one.”