Showing posts with label Vice-President Yemi Osibajo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vice-President Yemi Osibajo. Show all posts

Friday, December 23, 2016

Nigeria: Corruption War Has Lost Momentum

By Lewis Obi
Compared to his 1984 offensive President Muhammadu Buhari’s current war against corruption is looking like a child’s play.  Granted, he does not have the same tools he had in 1984-85, the dictatorial powers which enabled him unleash a blitzkrieg which herded scores of politicians into prison.  But it is also true that the tools he has now, moral leadership, freely granted him by the people, are grossly under-utilized.  Then in 1984, he was literally a young man of 42 with all the impetuosity that comes with youth.  But now he is wise, mature, deliberative but slow.  There’s probably no other way to explain how he did not see the “security report” delivered to the Senate by the Department of State Services on his nominee for chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
*Buhari 
A Nigerian president is a very busy man and is not expected to see most of the things done in his name.  But the fight against corruption is considered Buhari’s priority on which he has staked his reputation and honour.  He is expected to know the demands of Murphy’s Law, and if he would be unable to see the confidential information being forwarded to the Senate about his nominee, his leg man, his liaison to the Senate, should and ought to have seen it, because, conventionally, he is to shepherd the nominee through the confirmation process.  Indeed, it is his primary task to ensure that the nominee is confirmed and it is required of him to do everything, including previewing the DSS report, before it ever gets to the senate chamber.  He, the liaison man, ought to be the one to blow the whistle, to alert the President about the unfavourable DSS report, and to alert the President of the onerous task of securing the nominee’s confirmation, and, if need be, to ask for a replacement, given the negative report.
Thus, the investigation of whether Mr. Ibrahim Magu was suitable or not for the crucial position of the anti-corruption czar ought to have been done before his name was forwarded to the Senate.  The vetting of any official whose position depends on a favourable confirmation by the senate must necessarily be done first by the executive branch with a more rigorous benchmark than the Senate’s, to prevent the kind of embarrassment which has occurred in the last few weeks.  First, it was the $29.9 billion external loan, tossed by the Senate for lack of appropriate documentation.  Now, even if the Senate has an axe to grind or is making political demands, the Presidency ought not to provide the body even better ammunition.