Babachir: What will Buhari do this time?

IF you ask a perceptive Nigerian and a non-Nigerian alike what the biggest problem in Nigeria is, they are both going to finger corruption as the country’s main headache. It has grown to become a multilayered dross preventing the country’s silver from shining. A day hardly passes by without issues of corruption featuring in the media. Corruption is as popular in the country as the name of its capital city, Abuja.

In some discourse, corruption is said to have crept into public administration with the incursion of the military in the governance of the country. But scholars in other discourse are quick to point out that graft is no respecter of government, be it civilian or military, though the scale is admitted in some quarters to differ.

But since the return of civil administration in 1999, the number of insatiably greedy and corrupt individuals masquerading as pro-poor politicians has multiplied exponentially. These hooded thieves have continued to pillage the country’s patrimony. And the national greed is party-blind. So entrenched is the malaise that elected chief executive officers across zones have taken graft to a ludicrous level where the competition is about the fatness of their onshore and offshore bank accounts as against the welfare of the citizenry. The citizens are left to wallow in abject poverty and helplessness.

Thus, when the handlers of General Muhammadu Buhari (then as presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), approached Nigerians with a grand narrative that only Buhari has the capacity to give corruption a bloody nose, the political message resonated with a vast majority of the electorate who voted for the Daura-born politician.  “Buhari is the only ex-head of state with no mansion in Abuja or outside the country. He waged a fierce war against corruption and indiscipline during his first coming” were some of the refrains from his handlers during the election period.

However, a number of incidents, since the advent of his change government, have combined to hang a question mark on the anti-corruption mantra of Buhari’s administration. First, the government has been variously pilloried for prosecuting a one-sided war. Officers of the immediate past government and some leaders in the now opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have complained about being singled out for ‘persecution’ over 2015 campaign funds, while mum has been the word on the figure and source of the campaign funds deployed by leaders and candidates of the governing APC.

Following this was the consequential revelations that attended arrest of seven judges alleged to have been fingered in corruption-related activities, in the aftermath of commando-like operation launched by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) on superintendents in the temple of justice. Two of the judges alleged that the immediate past governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi and his counterpart in the Ministry of Science and Industry, Ogbonnaya Onu, approached them to tilt the scale of justice in their favour with promises as heavy financial rewards. Although the two ministers have shrugged off the allegations, calls on their employer to ask them to step aside to pave way for thorough investigation of the averments ended up like seeds that fell on the rock.  Even Amaechi, who threatened that that the judges would have dates in court with him has yet to file any defamation suit against either of the judges. Perhaps, because he knows the matter, like zillions of others, will fade away from public memory after the initial gra gra.

Unarguably, an incident with the potentiality to further puncture the anti-corruption crusade of the administration is the revelation bordering on alleged graft involving the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal. The bubble of Lawal’s suspected shady deals began to burst when the ad hoc committees of the two chambers of the National Assembly, in their reports on the investigation of the humanitarian crisis in the already insurgency-traumatised North-East, indicted the SGF for clearing weed in the Internally Displaced Persons (IPDs) camps with humungous amount of money. Babachir was reported to have shunned summons from the committees to give him fair hearing. The SGF was also alleged to have used his position to award several contracts to himself through a company, Rholavision, reportedly belonging to him. A sum of N10million was said to have been lodged into the company’s account 20 times on March 29, this year alone.

Reacting to the calls for his resignation by the Senate over the allegation, Babachir chirped that he was no longer on the board of the company. He claimed he resigned from the firm on August 15, 2015. But an online news medium, The Cable, obtained a document from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) which said the SGF was still a director in the company as of September 16, 2016, when he penned his intention to give up his stock in the company. Babachir coordinates the Presidential Initiative of North-East (PINE) and the Safe Schools Initiative envisioned as succour efforts to the insurgency-ravaged communities in the zone. A total of N2.5 billion was said to have been misappropriated under the initiative supervised by the SGF.

The Babachir saga came at a time when the presidential confirmation request for acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, was rejected by the Senate on account of unfavourable security report from the DSS. It also came at a time another top government official has been linked to alleged N500million bribe form a telecommunication firm. It is also against the background of a revelation in an interview by a member of APC Board of Trustees and close ally of President Buhari, Buba Galadima, that “Under Buhari, people are just stealing left, right and centre.” The SGF’s alleged corrupt practices constitute yet another albatross on the president’s anti-graft policy.

It is gratifying that the Presidency has directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Mallami, to probe the involvement of any top official in any corruption-related deals. What is wrong with the approach, which has been similarly applied in earlier alleged corruption matters involving members of the Federal Executive Council, is that those fingered were not asked to step aside so that they will not use the same positions to either influence the direction of the probe or frustrate same.

To strengthen public confidence in Buhari’s battle against sharp practices, the probe should not be limited to Magu and Babachir. The searchlight should be beamed on all who have been similarly alleged, including Amaechi and Onu as well as some Ministers who had practically nothing before their appointment but are now buying mansions in upscale areas of major cities, spending money like drunken sailors.

If the probe is made to cover all government officials linked with one corruption matter or the other and if nothing concrete comes out of it, then there will be fertile grounds for skeptics who are rehearsing to sing Nunc Dimittis for Buhari’s anti-corruption policy. Who will even carry out the probe? Is it EFCC whose chairman is alleged to be living in a rented mansion rented for him those who want to dictate the direction he should go? The time for lethargy is not now, especially with the recent inauguration of whistle-blowing policy. The whistle that the Federal Government expects the citizens to blow will rot in warehouse once their minds are set that the current government is not ready to wage a comprehensive war against corruption.