The denouement of Babachir Lawal

“WE are victims of our actions; our destinies are controlled by the cosmic rolls of the dice, the whims of the stars and the vagrant breeze of fortune that blows from the windmills of the gods.”- H.L. Detridge.

The above lines came to mind on Wednesday, April 19, after the Presidency suspended the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr David Babachir Lawal, from office pending investigation into the allegations of violations of law and due process in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).

Within fourteen days from the date of his suspension, the committee headed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, will investigate the allegations against him and submit a report of its findings and recommendations to President Muhammadu Buhari. The crux of his offence – influencing the award of N220 million grass-cutting contract to his company, Rholavision Engineering Limited, by PINE – is public knowledge.

The propriety or otherwise of the contract award, a fact which was unearthed by the Senator Shehu Sani-led Ad-hoc Committee on the Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East, as well as the recommendations of the committee, which the Senate passed into a resolution that Lawal should be removed from office and prosecuted for abuse of public office, has been a subject of heated debate.

Given the anti-corruption stance of the Buhari administration, the popular expectation was that Lawal would be immediately suspended from office and steps taken to investigate the allegations contained in the report of the Senate to the president, dated December 15, 2016, as the administration has just done. Rather, the president in his January 17, 2017 reply to Senate President, Bukola Saraki, discountenanced the resolution and advanced reasons for his action.

Remarkably, the president faulted the procedures adopted by the Senate as inherently deficient.  One of his fundamental arguments was that only three of the nine members of the committee signed the report, which rendered it, prima facie, a minority report “as against a final report which ought to have been presented to the Senate in a Plenary for adoption as a binding and final report before submission to the Presidency given the weight of allegations made in the report.”

Another argument by the president was that the Senate Ad-hoc Committee Interim Report and the votes and proceedings of the Senate have not, in their own right, established that Lawal was ever given an opportunity to appear before the committee to defend himself; ditto Rholavision Engineering Limited, which was linked to him.

Read the president further: “You are invited to note that non-application of the principle of fair hearing by the Senate Ad-hoc Committee is a clear contravention of Section 36 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and against the principle of rule of law as enunciated in the Nigerian legal system as well as the rules of the National Assembly Committees on handling of public petitions.”

The simple and unambiguous inference from Buhari’s letter, in my own words, is that “I am ready to do the needful – remove and prosecute Lawal – if the conditions precedent, to wit: fair hearing and compliance with the Senate Rules, are met.”

Even though, it is not clear if the Senate Ad-hoc committee undertook further investigation of the matter and consideration of the issues involved, yet Lawal’s scandalous involvement in the contract award, through his company, has been sustained in the public psyche, thus becoming a sore point in the Buhari administration’s anti-graft war.

That the third highest public office holder in the executive branch has been insinuated into such a scandal is an issue that should not be treated lightly let alone when the Senate has entertained and investigated concrete allegations and returned a guilty verdict against him. It, thus, becomes inconceivably suicidal for an administration, whose leader is perceived to have zero tolerance for corruption, to have, so it seems, attempted to sweep the sensitive matter of abusive of office under the carpet.

The administration runs on a tripod of the executive, legislature and judiciary. Nigerians have seen how the executive, which has been accused of protecting its officials who are allegedly corrupt, has taken the anti-corruption battle into the enclaves of the judiciary and the legislature, charging judges and the senate president with breaches of provisions of the law and other extant rules before the courts and tribunal.

Perhaps, a reappraisal of its disposition to the anti-corruption war especially within the executive ambit was at the bottom of the sudden volte-face on the Lawal saga.  Perhaps, the administration has realised that it is losing its massive goodwill and floundering in the anti-graft war on account of its seemingly selective prosecution of corruption cases.  Perhaps, in the circumstance, it has decided to seize the initiative to do the correct thing even if the Senate has not been able to perfect the modus operandi for Lawal’s indictment.

This is the time to retune the anti-graft war. The Osinbajo-led investigative committee may be the game changer.  It is saddled with a historic task, the outcome of which may make or mar the anti-corruption war.  But given his pedigree as Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and pastor, Osinbajo should be guided by the spirit and letters of the law, morality and fear of God in the discharge of this tricky assignment.  Corruption, its whiff and tendencies are the foci of investigative attack here and not an individual, his ethnic or religious affiliations, lest people begin to give the exercise a religious undertone.

It is somewhat sardonic and unfortunate that Lawal is the one caught right in the eye of the storm and with his hands in the cookie jar of abuse of public office, hence becoming a victim of his action.  It could have been anybody else.  Indeed, what has crystallised is nothing but the fall of Babachir Lawal, a denouement of sorts. It would not matter whether or not he survives the inquisition. Lawal’s debacle will prove salutary to Buhari’s anti-corruption war: that the administration does not have sacred cows; and that if the SGF could be suspended and investigated, the ministers, especially the “super” ministers, should not be conceited.

• Mr Ojeifo contributed this piece from Abuja [email protected]