Corruption: EFCC Is Not Fit For Purpose; It’s Time To Scrap It!

 By Olu Fasan

When General Olusegun Obasanjo became president in 1999, he was under pressure from the international community to tackle corruption frontally. Obasanjo himself described corruption in Nigeria as cancerous, saying it required surgical operations. He established an anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in 2003.

But 20 years later, Nigeria remains a “fantastically corrupt country” as a former British prime minister memorably put it. The cancer of corruption has festered and spread malignantly, destroying every facet of Nigeria’s polity.

Nigerian Legislators: Drop Your Incessant Threats!

 By Tonnie Iredia 

The several interventions of the Nigerian military in the governance of the country affected one arm-the legislature more than the other two-the executive and the judiciary. This is because at each intervention, it was only the legislature that was always suspended.

*President Buhari, Senate President Lawan, Speaker Gbajabiamila

Thus, the overzealousness of members of that arm since 1999 when democracy was restored in Nigeria to cover lost grounds is understandable. They have indeed, developed an inclination to display not only their assigned official powers but also those they have added by definition and perception.

Nigeria: A Sick Society With Unhinged Citizenry

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Nigeria  is a sick country, very sick. What is worse, Nigerians have increasingly become unhinged. Many of the things happening in the country are bizarre and it takes only an unhinged population to condone the maladies. 

You are wrong if you think I am talking about the importation of adulterated fuel which has grounded almost the entire country and destroyed many vehicles. In any other country other than Nigeria where there are consequences for actions of state officials, heads would have rolled by now.

The petrol supply chain was disrupted last week when the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, otherwise known as The Authority, announced that it discovered methanol quantities above Nigeria’s specifications in imported petroleum products.

Even as the queues get longer at the petrol stations, the noise has lessened and we have all gone back to our pastime – grumbling. Nothing will happen because the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPC, the regulator and sole importer of petrol in Nigeria, which is busy pointing fingers of blame at four marketers, including its own Duke Oil, is the major culprit.

Insecurity In Nigeria: What Exactly Is Govt Getting Right?

 By Ladesope Ladelokun

The President handed Nigerians the marking scheme with which to assess him some five years ago when he told Nigerians at virtually every campaign stop that he would fight insecurity, work hard to revive an economy in a tailspin and declare a total war on the vermin called corruption.

*President Buhari

But it must be said that it is not the best of times for Nigeria at the moment. The most populous black nation is mourning. It is mourning the demise of peace in a country where human life is not worth more than a kobo a dozen and left helplessly bleeding by elephantine corruption.

While it is expected that every rational leader would be worried about Nigeria’s many problems, it cannot be out of place to state that worrying alone cannot liberate the wretched from the chasm of destitution, or lift an economy gasping for breath. But hope gives the strength to trudge on when everything fails. After all, only death terminates hope and only the living can hope. But hope can be shattered.

Nigeria: Buhari, Pantami And The Burden Of A Nation

 By Charles Okoh

The recent unearthing of the not-so-wholesome past of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has brought doubts on the sincerity and desire of the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to end insurgency and all sundry security issues that currently engulf the nation.

 *Buhari and Pantami

Pantami has shown little or no regards for the tenets of democracy and democratic principles in his capacity as a minister in a democratic government. He has carried on as a despotic leader who would brook no contrary view no matter how genuine and objective. His disposition to governance would only come as a surprise to those who knew little about him before the tremor caused by the expose on his sordid past came to the fore recently. 

Kemi Adeosun: When Forgery Is Elevated To A Cardinal Virtue

By Jude Ndukwe  

“Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

*President Buhari and Kemi Adeosun

Let me start this week’s essay on a spiritual note. This is because we are a country of religion, sometimes to its extreme, but most times in hypocrisy. We mouth virtues with the enthusiasm of a priest or imam but act out vices with the fanaticism of an extremist. Some of our political leaders are so shameless that they thrive in evil but pay putrefying obeisance to God either on Fridays or on Sundays with celestial mien and heavenly gait. Most unfortunately, these same set of people commit various crimes with audacity, cover or even encourage others to do so one way or the other. 

‘Redemption Songs For Buhari’s Presidency’

By Martins Oloja

In an ancient political plot captured by Shakespeare in his classic, Julius Caesar, a minor character, Artemidorus, prepares what he calls a caveat for Caesar. 

*Buhari

He reads the warning aloud that he (Caesar) may escape an evil plot by his friends and members of his ‘inner circle.’(Reading aloud from the letter) Artemidorus warns in clear terms:

“Caesar, beware of Brutus. Watch Cassius. Don’t go near Casca. Keep an eye on Cinna. Don’t trust Trebonius. Pay attention to Metellus Cimber. Denius Brutus doesn’t love you. You’ve wronged Caius Ligarius. These men all have one intention, and it’s directed against Caesar. If you aren’t immortal, watch those around you. A sense of security opens the door to conspiracy. I pray that the mighty gods defend you! Your friend, Artemidorus.”

Dapchi Abduction, Height Of Inglorious, Pathological Deceit And Hoax

Press Release

“The latest drama of the Dapchi school girls release is the height of serial and inglorious, pathological deceit and hoax. In their bid to make unfounded and unthinkable comparisons (with the regime of Gooduck Jonathan) President Buhari and his hegemonic Fulani cabal become antithetic as they are contradictory.

“Apparently, in a hurried orchestra to display their high dexterity of quick response to the manipulated abduction (as against the snail speed approach of the then Jonathan’s regime) the ‘good plan’ was marred by poor execution. Over one hundred girls appearing in new and neat dresses with their big bags of different makes.

“The thought-provoking questions are: Did all the girls dress for a religious or social outing shortly before their abduction? Were they allowed to bring their new clothes on abduction or were they taken to a boutique for their fine ‘uniforms’ before they were brought back?

Maina: The Joke Is On APC, Buhari

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

The unfolding “Mainagate” which is rocking the pretentious Muhammadu Buhari presidency is classical Nigerian drama. Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the defunct Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, who was accused of dipping his fingers into the pension honey pot, and fled the country in 2015, sauntered back noisily as if nothing happened.

*Abdulrasheed Maina

On July 21, 2015, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charged him, along with others, to a Federal High Court on a 24-count charge bordering on procurement fraud including falsified biometric contracts, which resulted in the alleged mismanagement of over N2 billion of pension funds with which he allegedly acquired choice mansions in Abuja. EFCC claimed that one of such properties is a mansion in the posh Jabi Lake area of the FCT, which he bought in June 2012 while he was still pension reforms boss, at a mindboggling sum of $2 million.

And guess what? He paid cash.

Rather than face trial, Maina fled the country and the EFCC declared him wanted on November 2, 2015.

Then, two years into the Buhari presidency, he returned, but not quietly. An Igbo adage says a child sent to steal by his father does not approach his victim’s house stealthily. He rather kicks doors open with a bang.

Rather than lie low, his posters surfaced announcing his governorship ambition in his home state of Borno come 2019. As if that was not audacious enough, he showed up at the Ministry of Interior, behind a huge mahogany desk, and wait for it, not as Assistant Director, his previous position, but acting Director in-charge of human resources department and a whopping sum of N22 million was doled out to him as arrears of his unpaid salary since he was sacked from the civil service in 2013.

On Maina, Blame President Buhari

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Aside from the tragedy of the monumental failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari government, there is also that of the barefacedly audacious attempts to still project him as glowing in the halo of incorruptibility that some have associated him with. To his diehard loyalists, it is not Buhari who has betrayed the high ideals of transparency he has espoused before the public but only those whom he has given responsibilities who are prevented by their greed from living up to the expectations of their high offices.

*President Buhari 

This is the trajectory we are confronted with again as the public is scandalised by the heist and remorselessness of the former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdullahi Abdulrasheed Maina, and the complicity of high-profile officials of the Buhari government. In the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Maina was given the responsibility of bringing reform into the pension system to break the cycle of pensioners dying broke in their post-service years because of their inability to access their pensions. But the reformer soon turned away from his official assignment and became preoccupied with the looting of the billions that he was supposed to guard against pecuniary predators. Before he was caught, Maina had already allegedly stolen N100 billion. Maina was not at a loss as regards how to avail himself of this haul. He launched into a splurge and this civil servant who was an assistant director before he was made to manage the pension system became the owner of posh houses and companies in choice areas of Abuja and other parts of the country. Yes, Maina is presumed innocent until he is declared guilty by a competent law court. But he declared himself guilty before the public. Instead of making himself available to the Senate and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to clear himself of the charges of egregious corruption he fled abroad.

'Mainagate'And The Hypocrisy Of The Buhari Regime

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

The hypocrisy of the General Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government is nauseating. The behaviour of some of its officials is childish, to say the least. They probably think Nigerians are idiots who don't have the capacity to reason.

*Buhari 

Take for instance this Abdulrasheed Maina fiasco. The Ibrahim Magu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is now jumping up and down claiming to be seizing Maina's properties in Kaduna and Abuja and they have journalists to video it and write the stories and create the impression that, indeed, Magu, like his Oga, Buhari, is an anti-corruption czar. And you ask, why now?

Buhari, Kachikwu And NNPC

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.

*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.

A New Role For Magu

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

In a democratic government that is marked by the absence of an autocratic pecking order that harks back to the days of medieval despots, conflicts among the key players in the political space are inevitable. But since there is no allowance for any of the three arms of government to hegemonise authority, they are all expected to adhere to a constitutionally ratified cooperative principle that oils the wheel of good governance.

*Ibrahim Magu

Such a principle is violated if instead of the arms of government mustering enough capacity to resolve their disagreements, they allow them to hurt governance. This brings us to the long-drawn rift between the Presidency and the Senate over the confirmation of the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu. The conflict is festering as both arms of government continue to maintain their hardline positions.

The Senate has vowed not to confirm any presidential nominee until Magu is relieved of his job. It feels affronted by the unresolved contradiction that the same Presidency that gleefully declared that it did not need the approval of the Senate for Magu to be in office wants the upper legislative chamber to confirm presidential nominees. 

In its attempt to wriggle out of the cul-de-sac it has found itself, the Presidency is considering taking the matter to the Supreme Court for judicial intervention. When the rift between the two arms began, the Presidency obviously relished the support of the public. The latter eagerly waited for that moment when the Senate would declare itself shellacked by the Presidency. Beyond supinely contemplating the impudence of the Senate to appropriate powers it has not been given by the constitution, some people made themselves available to be hired to protest against the chamber. But these protests have since fizzled out since it has become clear that the Senate would not disavow its position.

Osinbajo’s Fantasy Of Presidential Infallibility

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Weighed down by a lack of direction and adherence to constitutionality that is a high point of fidelity to democratic norms, the President Muhammadu Buhari government keeps on spawning despair in the land, with massive economic collapse leading to rampant suicide.

*Osinabjo

Amid this, Buhari’s deputy Professor Yemi Osinbajo appears to represent an illustrious exemplar of sanity in this government. Although decades of serial disappointments by political leaders have made the citizens to cease trusting them, there has been the hope that Osinbajo could be a different kind of political leader who is only actuated by a desire to serve the people and improve their lot.

But at first, Osinbajo proved not to be different from other politicians. The citizens wondered why some illegalities like the government disobeying court rulings and sacking university vice chancellors before the end of their tenures could take place while he is the vice president. He has been silenced by the perks of public office, so the citizens thought.

How Private Are Your Private Parts?

By Tony Iwuoma

We live in a world of hyperbolic privacy. We learn to keep private things private as soon as we are born. From infancy, we were taught to cover our private parts. Even the little daughter you once bathed would soon start hiding from you because she does not want you to see her bum bum. We are taught to keep certain aspects of our life private and that is why our so-called celebrities cling so tenaciously to the dogma of not talking about their 'private lives' despite their atrocious public exhibitions.

(pix: Oxbridge)

Nudity has almost overtaken our culture and those parts that we once held sacred have since lost their innocence, no thanks to modernity. Those private parts of the womenfolk that the men strained hard to just have a peek at have come unstuck in the streets and on television; there seems to be no private parts anymore. Those who still insist on some modicum of decency are viciously tagged 'old fashioned'. Oh, how beautiful it is to belong to the vanishing tribe!

But seriously speaking, what are your private parts? Is it all about our genitals? Is it about briefs and boxers, or brassieres and lingerie? Is it about bum shorts, stony breast implants and false and padded buttocks? Is it about cavorting with your squeeze beyond the eyes of her parents? Is it about baby mamas and papas? Is it about Queen Esther and Stephanie Otobo’s determination to do in Apostle Johnson Suleman? Is it about philandering with spouses of other men or women beyond the trusting eyes of the cuckolded?

Nigeria: Perils Of Looters’ Anonymity

By Paul Onomuakpokpo 

It is a disturbing paradox that the Ibrahim Magu’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has left unresolved – the more breathtaking the speed with which it pursues its campaign of ridding the country of corruption, the more chinks are inflicted on its armour for sceptics to question its credibility. Just recently, the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Senate attempted to nibble away at the confidence of Magu by directly impugning his competence and integrity. Worse, the commission has been woefully losing its cases in the courts.

(pix: NigerianEcho)

The above could be considered as externally induced bumps in the path of the commission to wage a successful war against corruption. But there are other obstacles that the agency has seemingly spawned deliberately to serve a purpose other than its avowed pursuit of national good. The newest obstacle that the EFCC is now erecting in its path is its declaration of its inability to identify the owners of loot it has recovered.

By taking this path, the agency has failed to realise that it has set up itself for mockery. For the EFCC’s declaration is a self-indictment as it means that it has failed to do the first things before rushing to the media to announce its haul to its excited audience that cheers it on. It has failed to do a thorough surveillance and investigation that could have made it to unveil the identities of the culprits and render its case irreproachable. It is this unbroken absence of fidelity to the first things that have made the courts to dismiss most of the cases of the EFCC.

 As the controversy rages over the N15 billion cash haul from the Osborne Towers’ raid, we must not really be shocked by the EFCC consigning the owners of the loot to the zone of anonymity. This is because this position of the agency is only a new dimension to the byzantine character of the campaign that has the rapturous blessing of the government beginning with President Muhammadu Buhari. Remember, it was Buhari who offered to the public the prospect of waging an anti-corruption war that knows neither friend nor foe.

Nigeria: Twilight Of The Republic

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Since our leaders have failed to learn from the past, they have currently embarked on a voyage of stretching the resilience of the nation and its people to the limit. To them, no calamitous consequences could attend this. They feel secure in the delusion that since the civil war could not dismember the nation, nothing else could. This is why when the victims of killer herdsmen cry for justice, they are ignored. It is the same way that those who agitate for restructuring are dismissed as national irritants. The beneficiaries of the warped polity send the subtle message to the oppressed that they have nowhere to go; they just have to learn to accept their bleak lot.

*Buhari and Saraki

These injustices have not really precipitated an insurrection that provokes the searing memories of the civil war simply because it is the poor citizens of the country who are significantly their victims. Or could there have been the civil war if a member of the ruling class, Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, had not considered himself as the embodiment of the persecution of the Igbo? Would the poor Igbo have resorted to secession as a means of ending the injustice being meted out to them by their fellow citizens?

But the country is taken to the precipice of crisis, and its heightened form, dismemberment when it is the members of the ruling clique who feel betrayed by their colleagues. Again, the civil war bears out this – did Odumegwu-Ojukwu call for arms because what was primarily at stake was the need to stop the mass killing of his people or that of redressing a personal insult of those beneath him transforming into his superiors? 

Throughout history, the fact is the same – personal squabbles become national tragedies. In the dark days of military regimes in Africa, there were palace coups because some soldiers felt affronted by the arrogance of their colleagues.

Now, the brewing crisis between the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari and the Senate of Bukola Saraki poses a mortal danger to the continued existence of the nation. It has gone beyond recurrent disagreement as a staple of democracy. What we are faced with now is a smouldering fire that could imperil the nation’s democracy.

Buhari And His Divided Government

By Rotimi Fasan

President Muhammadu Buhari sits atop a government that is very divided. The administration is apparently in confusion with close members at war with one another. The confusion that has resulted in Buhari’s warring and, one might say, fumbling administration began, it can now be said with insight, when the president decided to form a so-called kitchen cabinet of close associates and relatives, persons directly or indirectly connected to him by marriage, blood or religion.

 

*Buhari 

These people feel answerable only to the president and exploit their closeness to the president to wrongfoot his policies including his arrowhead anti-corruption war. The president’s self-inflicted injury was exacerbated by a National Assembly that was dominated by a divided All Progressives Congress, APC, whose members elected a leadership that has enjoyed neither the support nor trust of the party leaders.

The frosty relationship that this would engender between the legislators and the executive arm of the administration (particularly the presidency and anyone thought to be connected to it) can be seen in the fate that has befallen Ibrahim Magu in his failed bid to be confirmed as chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

But I’m a bit ahead of my explanation. So let me return to how President Buhari brought all this upon himself and what this now implicates for his government. Muhammadu Buhari The first appointments made by Buhari were of a nature that got many Nigerians complaining given its lopsided arrangement. The appointments, mostly of his immediate minders, were almost to the last person made up of Muslim men of northern extraction. It both reflected as well as demonstrated a tendency for mind-closure and parochialism.

But this was apparently lost on the president who couldn’t be bothered about it, not even the fact that the Igbo presence in the government is almost of cipher value. He ignored all questions raised about this and, when he chose to respond, simply went ahead to defend the appointments, explaining it all in terms of the pattern of votes that got him elected.

Magu's Rejection: I Stand With The Senate (II)

By Ochereome Nnanna

Having examined the retired Colonel Hameed Ali versus the Senate saga, let us take a look on another contentious issue: the Ibrahim Magu screening controversy.

President Buhari and Sen Pres Saraki 

So many people have said their minds on this matter, which is their constitutional right. There are those who blame the Senate for the long-drawn impasse and difficulty in getting Ibrahim Mustapha Magu confirmed as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Some have alleged that in rejecting Magu’s candidacy, the Senate constitutes itself into a “parallel government”. Others say they want to “collect the power” from President Muhammadu Buhari and frustrate him from implementing the “change” he promised Nigerians.

The one I found most interesting was the submission of Chief Robert Clark, a respected lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, with usually sound perspectives on legal and current affairs. He appeared on Channels TV and was all over the place, lamenting that the Senate’s treatment of Magu was “a slap on the face of the President; a slap on the faces of Nigerians”.

The impression being given by all these shades of opinion is that the Presidency has played its own part neatly only to be messed up by the Senate. Another impression is that the Federal Government is all about President Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidency he commands and the Cabinet he has at his disposal. In other words, the Executive Branch alone is the Government. On both counts I beg to disagree. First of all, let us track the facts of this story.

Following the sack of Ibrahim Lamorde as the EFCC Chairman, Magu, another police officer, was nominated as his successor in acting capacity. One would have expected that President Buhari, cognisant of the sensitive nature of the EFCC Chairman’s duties, would immediately send Magu’s name to Senate for confirmation. Instead, Buhari delayed this issue between 9th November 2015 and 14th July 2016, when his Deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo as Acting President, submitted Magu’s name to the Senate for confirmation when the President was away on his foreign medicals.

Uniform Palavar: I Stand With The Senate (1)

By Ochereome Nnanna

 Whe retired Col. Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Customs, CGC, finally yielded to the language and pressure of force and appeared before the Senate on summons on Thursday, 16th March 2017, the only thing I wanted to see on him was his uniform as the overall boss of that organisation.

  

Once I saw he was still wearing his white kaftan, my gaze went beyond him to the bevy of the Customs top brass, all proudly and smartly outfitted in their grey khaki uniforms and looking resplendent indeed. Some of the “oga madams” (or female officers) seemed to make a meal of the situation, all dolled up in comely (even sexy) make-ups and slanting their caps at rakish angles, as if to say: “to hell with Oga Hameed Ali for insulting the dignity of this uniform”.

Meanwhile, Hameed Ali stood before the Senators like a truant schoolboy physically bundled to the assembly ground to receive his due punishments from the school principal. Receive the punishment he did: he was dismissed with ignominy to go and wear his uniform and come back a week later.

Otherwise, he would face the wrath of 109 Senators with the mandates of millions of Nigerians. The arrogant will always be humiliated, and the proud put to shame. I hear people parrot Ali’s nonsensical claim that no law compels him to wear the uniform. Which law compels Africans to respect their elders? Which law compels us to greet people when we meet them?