By Paul Onomuakpokpo
No matter how much we strain to
sustain the illusion that the President Muhammadu Buhari government is on the
right track, we are often jarred into reality by his regular missteps and
seemingly intentional negation of the common good. Buhari’s platitudes about
patriotism and the indivisibility of the country notwithstanding, we are
confronted with a situation where it is clear that he ignores the exploration
of the opportunities that have frequently come his way to blur the fissiparous
tendencies in different parts of the country.
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| *President Buhari and Dr. Kachikwu |
We have seen this in his refusal
to heed the calls for the restructuring of the country as a means of quelling
agitations for equity that clearly threaten the unity of the country. Rather,
Buhari has a penchant for regarding those criticising him for taking wrong
decisions as courting government’s attention in order to be settled – a
euphemism for bribery. But by making this argument, the government is rather
indicting itself. For the government is only saying that public service in the
Buhari era is still fabulously lucrative; a means of self-enrichment as it has
not been made less financially attractive. If it had done this and public
office had been rightly turned into just a means of serving the people with its
attendant sacrifice, it would not have considered government officials as
privileged Nigerians who other citizens are striving to join or replace.
Clearly, nothing has changed.
Public office is just a means of overseeing contract bazaars for the benefit of
government officials. In that case, officials of the Buhari government must
avoid the pain of adhering to due process that would imperil the prospects of
financial recompense for them at the expense of the public. This is placed in
sharp relief by the cocktail of scandals exposed by the letter of the Minister
of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, to Buhari.
Through the recent appointments in
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Buhari had and still has the
opportunity to prove to Nigerians that he is actuated by a pan-Nigerian vision.
So much condemnation trailed the appointments as out of the 55 top positions 36
went to Buhari’s north while the south got 19. Yet the Buhari’s north that got
the majority of the positions does not have oil even though billions are being
wasted on efforts to prise the resource from the northern soil. The south-south
that owns the oil got only two positions and the south-east that also owns part
of it got nothing, thereby confirming his forever disdain for that region.
What was unknown to the majority
of the citizens while the controversy raged was that Buhari did not consider
anything wrong with the appointments. For if he had thought that the
appointments were skewed in favour of his northern part of the country, or that
they were done without his knowledge and approval, he would have repudiated
them. Perhaps, Buhari suspected that other Nigerians who were outraged at the
skewed appointments were detractors who were seeking attention in order for
them to be invited to come and chop in government. But then, why did he ignore
his own minister who pointed out the same anomaly if his intentions conduced to
the collective good?
On August 30, Kachikwu, wrote a
letter complaining about the excesses of the Group Managing Director of the
NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru. The minister listed these excesses to include
appointments, redeployments, sacking, starving of his ministry of funds and
awards of $25 billion contracts. All these decisions were taken without the
knowledge of the board of the corporation that Kachikwu chairs. What has made
Buhari complicit in this development is that since over a month that he has
received the letter, he has not bothered to take action on it. This has given rise
to the suspicion that Buhari electing to be the minister of petroleum resources
in the first place was just a ploy for him to have access to the cash cow
undisturbed. With this revelation, Buhari can no longer pretend that he is
doing anything different from what the Jonathan government allegedly did that
paved the way for a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani
Alison-Maduekwe to appropriate the nation’s oil money. It is good that we do
not need to wait for another government to come to power before the myth of the
incorruptibility of the Buhari administration is exploded.
But Buhari can still mitigate his
complicity by immediately cancelling the appointments. He must go further by
sacking Baru since it is clear that he neither has the interest of the nation
in his dealings at the NNPC nor does he have the ability to work with his
superiors. But here we are saddened by the realisation that Buhari may not sack
Baru. Buhari has demonstrated a penchant for protecting those who are close to
him no matter the weight of the allegation of fraud hanging on them. This is
why he has found it difficult to make public the findings of the panel he set
up to probe the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation,
Babachir Lawal and the equally suspended Director-General of the National
Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke.
This rift between Kachikwu and
Baru is another indication that Buhari lacks the leadership skills to ensure
cohesion in the presidency. When there are conflicts among his aides in the
presidency, they would fester until the public would get to know about them.
Yet, the president would not be able to resolve such conflicts. This was the
case with the Department of State Service (DSS) and the Acting Chairman of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu. While Buhari
wanted the Senate to confirm Magu as the EFCC chairman, the DSS that reports to
the president was at the same time writing to the upper legislative chamber
that Magu neither has the moral stature nor professional competence to take
such a job. Months after, the indictment of the DSS stands and Buhari is still
keeping Magu as the acting chairman of the anti-corruption agency. Yet, it is
the same Buhari that we expect to keep Nigeria
What we must not ignore is the
possibility of the impunity of Buhari’s aides as demonstrated by Baru being
replicated in other agencies of government. Such aides feel that as long as
Buhari is in power, they are untouchable. And Buhari seemingly approves of
these excesses. Buhari’s silence in the face of the excesses of his aides
forebodes that rather than earning his plaudits, an aide who chooses to be
different and insists on the right thing being done would suffer. In this regard,
it is not unlikely that in the days ahead, Kachikwu may come under so much
pressure to resign. There may now be allegations of fraud against him. And if
he does not resign Buhari may sack him.
No matter what happens, at the end
of his appointment, it would be to Kachikwu’s credit that while things were
going wrong in the Buhari government he served, he spoke out. He did not keep
quite because of the need to protect his job. Nor did he quietly resign in
order not to rock the boat. Indeed, Kachikwu’s decision to speak out is a
validation of the duty he owes his country as a good citizen who would protect
the commonwealth. He also owes it as a duty to his people of the south-south to
expose Baru’s impunity because the oil resources that are being stolen are from
his region.
At a time that the All
Progressives Congress (APC) members and government officials are recanting on
restructuring that they fought for before the Buhari administration and others
are keeping quite in the face of herdsmen-instigated carnage, rape, kidnapping
and lunacy while the farms of their people at home are being used to feed
cattle, it is reassuring that Kachikwu spoke the way he did. But whether
Kachikwu is harassed, intimidated or sacked, the fact is that his action is a
seal of his living above the carapace of impunity and other forms of corruption
that have darkened our democratic experience under Buhari.
*Dr.
Onomuakpokpo is on the Editorial Board of The
Guardian
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