By Ikechukwu Amaechi
When President Muhammadu Buhari cancelled the August 23, 2017,
Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the first on his return from a 103-day
medical trip to the United Kingdom, in order to receive the report of the
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo-led committee, which was asked to probe the
allegations of fraud against the suspended Secretary to the Government of the
Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and the Director-General of the National
Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayodele Oke, some Nigerians were scandalised.
*VP Osinbajo and President Buhari |
And the reason was simple. The Council remains the highest policy
making organ of the federal government and after a three-month absence from
Nigerian shores, many had thought that the president would have had the urge to
be brought to speed on the happenings in the country by those he entrusted with
the responsibility of making the authoritative allocation of our collective
values while he was away convalescing.
So, to such people, the reason for the cancellation was
preposterous. What does it take for the president to receive a report? Is it no
longer a matter of scheduling? Besides, that week’s cancellation would be the
fifth time the president would be in the country but unavailable for the meeting
of the Council which consists of himself, his deputy, Head of Civil Service of
the Federation, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief of Staff
to the President and the ministers.
The last time he attended the meeting before then was more than four
months, precisely on April 5.
But there were also some Nigerians who were prepared to give the
president, to borrow a cliché, the benefit of the doubt.
To such people, the report and what the government does with it were at the core of all that the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) stand for and profess.
To such people, the report and what the government does with it were at the core of all that the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) stand for and profess.
President Buhari had suspended Lawal in connection with the
allegations of violation of law and due process in the award of contracts under
the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE), and Oke over the discovery of
large amounts of foreign and local currencies ($43m, £27,000, N23m) by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a residential apartment at
Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, over which the NIA had made a claim. The
committee had 14 days to submit its report.
Many Nigerians had eagerly awaited the report, which, if Buhari’s
health had not deteriorated necessitating his abrupt return to a London hospital on May 7,
ought to have been presented to the president on May 8.
So, there was a tinge of urgency to the whole matter and the
president pushing aside every other matter on his table to address that
particular issue was perceived in certain quarters as a good enough
justification.
Of course, the three-man committee which also had the
Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and the National Security
Adviser, Babagana Mungonu, as members duly submitted their report and
thereafter a strange silence fell on the nation.
Osinbajo after the presentation said the ball was now in Buhari’s
court to study the report and take decisions based on the recommendations.
When asked whether he would disclose what was in the report, he
demurred, saying only the president could take a decision on the
recommendations, but added that the committee was fair in its investigation
even as he declined to give a timeline of how long it would take the president
to study the report and take action.
“Of course not. This is a report which contains recommendations to
the president. It is a fact-finding committee as you know and what our terms of
reference were was to find out based on the fact available to us and based on
the interviews of witnesses of what transpired in those cases, one involving
the SGF and the other the DG of NIA. We have now concluded that and we
submitted a full report with recommendations to the president. We cannot, of
course, give you any kind of details because the president has to look at the
report, study it and then make his own decisions,” the vice president said.
Fair enough!
What is not fair and, therefore, unacceptable to many Nigerians, is
the fact that one month after, not even a word has been heard from President
Muhammadu Buhari on the matter. Could it be that the report is so technical
that the president is yet to understand what it is all about, given his
limitations? If that is the case, Osinbajo, his deputy and a Senior Advocate of
Nigeria (SAN), who authored it, would have been summoned to help break it down
for him. But to so believe would be too simplistic. It is either the report
indicted the accused or not.
Simple!
Many believe that what is playing out is a much more sinister plot
because the committee most likely passed a guilty verdict on the accused.
Therefore, the fears are that the president has put the report away
to gather dust, bidding his time and hoping that Nigerians in their legendary
penchant for collective amnesia would sooner than later forget. Those involved,
particularly Lawal, are the axiomatic sacred cows. The president was forced by
public outcry, literally, to set up the investigative committee and suspend the
accused from office.
That was after an earlier attempt to upturn a guilty verdict passed
on Lawal by the Senate backfired.
The Senate which brought the matter to the public domain had
indicted the former SSG based on a report by its committee on the Mounting
Humanitarian Crisis in the North-East but Buhari would have none of that.
Instead he wrote to the Senate, accusing the Senator Shehu Sani-led committee
of failing to give the SGF a fair hearing, adding that the report was signed by
only three out of the nine committee members.
But Nigerians need to know what the verdict of the Osinbajo-led
committee is. We need to know whether the accused were exonerated or indicted.
If they were exonerated, what were the reasons for the exoneration? If they
were indicted, then what next? When will they be arrested and charged to court
like all other Nigerians accused of corruption?
This is necessary because suspension from office or even outright
sack is not the punishment for graft in our statute books.
If Lawal and Oke are charged to court and found guilty, then they
should serve the time as a deterrent to others. That will send a very strong
message that this government is not biased in its anti-corruption fight. It
will also send the clear signal that the government means business.
Anything short of that will make the din of Senator Sani’s immortal
words that, “When it comes to fighting corruption in the National Assembly and
the Judiciary and in the larger Nigerian sectors, the president (Buhari) uses
insecticide, but when it comes to fighting corruption within the presidency,
they use deodorants,” continue to echo even louder.
Nigerians who still believe in Buhari and his anti-graft posturing
neither want to agree with Sani’s bombastic description of the president’s
letter as “a funeral service for the anti-corruption fight,” nor his assertion
that “we have a political atmosphere where you have a saintly and angelic
presidency and a devilish and evil society.”
No! Not yet!
But truth remains that when it comes to the weapons to be deployed
in the fight against corruption, double standards will always be an anathema.
So, Nigerians are waiting.
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