The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

Saraki’s made in Nigeria

Senate President, Bukola Saraki had very kind words for the Nigerian Army last week over its decision to purchase 50,000 pairs of shoes from a local manufacturer in Aba. He sees the decision as ample evidence of the crucial role a truly national institution such as the Nigeria Army could play in ending the prevailing economic recession in the country.

For this patriotic example, Saraki urged other military and paramilitary establishments to emulate the army even as he also praised the Nigerian Air force for the cooperation it entered into with a local spare parts manufacturing company to produce some airplane parts for its use. The Senate President attributed the new direction to the amendment by the Senate of the Public Procurement Act in June this year.

The new law compels Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) to compulsorily give preference to goods and services which can be sourced locally. Saraki believes that patronage of Nigerian made goods was the panacea for the economic problems that have overtime held this country down. In this, he spoke the minds of many.

It is heart-warming that the Nigerian Army is now patronizing made in Nigeria shoes while the Air Force is forging some cooperation with a local company for the production of spare parts for the use of its fleet. That is the way it should be. It has long been recognized that our taste for what is foreign even when there are good alternatives locally has been the greatest disincentive to investment and development.

Government response to this penchant for conspicuous consumption had fluctuated between outright ban on some of these goods and services and some form of restriction. Just recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) banned some items from being funded from the official foreign exchange market. The essence was to discourage the importation of these goods and stimulate the production and consumption of locally produced ones.

But with the world as a global village and many African countries signatories to World Trade Organization WTO treaties, such restrictions are no longer in vogue. They run in conflict with trade liberalization which is based on the premise that each country will be able to exploit its position of comparative advantage once free and fair trade regime has been implemented.

But as a primary producer that depends almost solely on a mono cultural economy for its foreign exchange earnings, trade liberalization has had adverse toll on the nation’s economy as our citizens depend largely on imported goods and services, thus exerting undue pressure on our foreign earnings.

Our local manufacturers have had to contend with stiff competition from foreign manufacturers in the face of hash business environment. Faced with stiff competition and sometimes better produced goods, our people have not hidden their preferences for the foreign produced goods and services. If such a trend is allowed an unfettered reign, our nation would be worse for it. Thus, the allure of the campaign to attune the psyche of our people to patronize locally produced goods and services.

The overriding idea is not only to conserve foreign exchange usually depleted in the importation of goods that have local alternatives, but more importantly, to enable local industries grow and offer employment to our army of job seeking youths.

But despite years of preachment and pontification, not much gain has been made in this direction. Even the government that purports to lead the way in this re-orientation drive has come out the worst culprit for serially flouting it. Instances abound where governors have gone abroad to import school uniforms, chairs and other materials when there are a surfeit of those items in very good quality locally.

Such governors are bad examples and therefore cannot be expected to act as armour bearers in the campaign to make our people patronize made in Nigeria goods. Needless to talk of the millions of jobs they have created for foreign companies while denying their constituents such job opportunities. The same goes for government ministries, agencies and departments.

Perhaps, the incongruity between policy directives of the government and the actions of its officials moved the Senate to amend the Public Procurement Act, so as to compel these agencies give preference to local manufacturers where viable alternatives exist. Saraki would therefore wish to appropriate credit for the decision of the army and the air force to look inwards for some goods and services. He is entitled to his opinion though the issue predates the current Senate.

The idea the Senate President is celebrating was the brainchild of the Yar’Adua administration. During that era, the then minister of commerce and industry, Chief Achike Udenwa had rolled out an elaborate programme for the sensitization of Nigerians for the patronage of made in Nigeria goods.

In those sensitization meetings, stakeholders overwhelmingly embraced the idea as it would in part address some of the problems that had over time militated against industrial development. The campaign was launched with much fanfare in 2009. And at the launch, Yar’Adua who was represented by his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan had announced a number of measures to promote made in Nigeria goods and stimulate domestic production.

He banned the serving of foreign tea and all manner beverages in government offices and functions. That was not all. He directed that henceforth, all contractors must give priority to Nigerian made products. In addition, all uniforms and boots of the armed forces must be sourced locally. It is now seven years that directive was given.

And if the armed forces are just aligning themselves to that order seven years on, it only illustrates most glaringly, the yawning gap between policy pronouncement and their implementation. That is perhaps why Saraki is beating his chest for the credit of strengthening the procurement law. The coincidence of the purchases by the army may well be a consequence of the Senate action.

Now it has been given the force of law, it is hoped that all ministries, agencies and departments of government must give priority to it in their procurement plans. That should be the starting point for the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma who had indicated government’s plan to embark on the campaign to encourage Nigerians buy made in Nigeria goods.

With the government taking the lead, it will become much easier for the ordinary people to follow. Example they say, is better than precept. It had hitherto been contradictory for the government to be parroting the campaign when in all its actions it did the contrary. We also expect to see in the days ahead the arraignment in court of law, institutions that flout the new procurement law so as to serve as a deterrent to prospective offenders.

The sentiments expressed by Saraki on patronage of locally made goods being the panacea to our underdevelopment are in order. That idea had long been shared by previous regimes. But the necessary incentives and support infrastructure that would catalyze industrial development have all been lacking. So, in this drive to get our people consume what we produce locally, the environment must be made business friendly to enable manufacturers perfect on their production and withstand the stiff competition arising from trade liberalization.

November 7, 2016
One hundred days of inaction

This is certainly one anniversary that deserves contemplation. It re-enacts aspects of a corruption related drama that is still on the stage. It is interesting that a major character in the drama, by highlighting the anniversary, showed an awareness of time and timing that attracts attention.

The significance of this particular anniversary is its expansion of the expanse of corruption related activities in the House of Representatives. No less a person than the beleaguered former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who has been singing about the alleged rot and stench in the House of Representatives, introduced new lyrics.

In an interview to commemorate 100 days since he dropped a devastating bomb about alleged corruption involving the leadership of the House of Representatives, Jibrin dropped another bomb. Jibrin was quoted as saying: “With what I have seen happening, the whole process of forming a small group, inviting the Minister of Budget and Minister of Finance has started and that is where the whole problem on the process of appropriation starts. You form a small team, you agree on certain fundamentals; then you come back and try to impose it on the Chairman of Appropriations or Chairman of Finance. When he declines, he becomes an enemy and you start blackmailing him.”

Jibrin continued: “I have heard that the Minister of Finance has been invited to brief one leadership; Minister of Budget and National Planning has been invited to brief another leadership. That is where the whole budget fraud and padding issue is negotiated. When they go there, there is nothing that is being discussed apart from personal interests. Oh, I have this contractor; I want you to pay him his money. Oh, put my project in the budget. They go there and commit the House at such meetings and when they commit the House, they come back, they try to impose it on the Chairman of Appropriations who has to now take the whole load on his head and his colleagues are not aware that this is what is going on. With what I have seen so far, I don’t think that the National Assembly has learnt its lessons. That is the pattern that Dogara has adopted.”

Again, the name of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has been mentioned in connection with allegations of corruption in the federal legislature. It is a new song about an old dance. In an earlier interview published on October 9, Jibrin had declared: “The corruption in the House of Representatives is massive. I have not exposed more than 10 per cent of the corruption going on in the House of Representatives. It is that bad.”

Jibrin had added: “I have said a whistleblower is not necessarily a saint. But people often support him (a whistleblower) because what he reveals is usually beneficial to all. This issue is beyond Jibrin. If someone has any issue against Jibrin, he should write a petition and take it to the anti-corruption agencies. I will go to the agencies and respond to the petition. Nobody among the 359 members of the House has written a petition against me to the anti-graft agencies. I had written a petition against the Speaker and three other principal officers in the House. I am talking about people who committed budget fraud of N40bn, another budget fraud worth about N20bn and there is another budget fraud with a cumulative sum of N284bn. I am talking about a person who diverted Federal Government projects to his farm; short-changed members in the N10bn Sustainable Development Goal projects of 2015; used subterranean means to create a new House rule that is the subject of litigation; and a man who collects rent from multiple sources. I have also exposed the fact that members are collecting votes for running costs. I am not saying money should not be voted for lawmakers’ running costs. The point is that this money is (sometimes) diverted to private pockets.”

When progressive action is countered by reactionary reaction, it is a sure sign of a clash of values and a collision of conscience. When an urgent need to combat and crush political corruption is downplayed by political inaction, the result is political absurdity.

Jibrin correctly painted a picture of striking absurdity in the interview that marked 100 days of his own astounding allegations and the astonishing aloofness of the House of Representatives. He said: “I never thought that some members of the House would choose to act in a very reckless manner. I have never seen such impunity in my life because while I was dishing out the allegations, I had thought my colleagues would do the right thing which was to insist that the House should investigate the allegations and collaborate with the anti- graft agencies, the Nigerian Police and the Department of State Security (DSS) which had already commenced their investigation into the matter.”

What followed Jibrin’s allegations showed that he was wrong to think that his fellow legislators would do what he thought was “the right thing” to do. In the view of his colleagues, Jibrin had just earned himself a punishment for his posture, and he got a controversial 180-day suspension.

It is food for thought that Jibrin is still on the path of probity and still pursuing a probe of the accused. There must be something that makes him unrepentant and unapologetic. Listen to him: “I have had a lot of assurances that we will get to the point where every Nigerian wants to see – where of course, Speaker Dogara and the remaining crooks in the House of Representatives will be arrested and prosecuted. I have no element of doubt that, at the end of this, Speaker Dogara will go to jail.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the public will see any new development in this developing story of alleged political corruption in the supposedly honourable legislative institution. By the time another 100 days have passed by, what will be the situation concerning Jibrin’s explosive exposé?

November 7, 2016
About-face

The term mea culpa often comes up when a person of high standing or an institution of integrity wants to make up for a public wrong. It derives from a Latin prayer of the Catholic Church, and it means “through my fault.” Culpa means “guilt or fault,” and is the root of the adjective culpable. The last major mea culpa I recall came from America’s newspaper of records, The New York Times, when it apologised for misleading its readers on facts about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and for not probing the claims of the Bush administration about the despot’s stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction.

Something close to a mea culpa happened a few days ago. The Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) made a pirouette and decided to suspend the judges now under investigation for corruption. It was a starchy and stuff act of contrition. It was not penitential. Neither was it reverential of the cathedral lordliness of the bench it represents. It merely reversed its position.

The NJC’s press release also spews out a contradiction. It said it has suspended seven judges and, in the same breath, suspended them. What was the chicken and what was the egg? Did the NJC respond to the judges’ decision to step down or the other way around? Was it an afterthought after a frenetic wave of civic coercion? I think so.

The judges were following the bar’s bumpy footpath. The president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had first condemned the raid of the judges and railed at the DSS action as an assault on the judiciary. The NJC did the same, and we witnessed a turf war on the constitution. The DSS said it acted within its rights in what it mischievously called a sting operation. The NBA chief and the NJC said the independence of the judiciary had been impugned.

When the civil society let out an outcry, including this newspaper’s fulminating editorial, that the judges be suspended, the bar and bench recoiled. Their professional instincts forbade them to upbraid their fellow craftsmen. Sentiment predated reason.

They were caught napping, and their integrity fell short. The NBA came to the rescue of its bosses, although the NBA boss could not be said to be speaking for himself alone when he pulled the trigger on the DSS and defended the bench.

Decency lost anchor in this narrative. On both sides. The NJC was not decent when it did not think deeply before issuing an irate statement condemning the DSS for violating the principle of the separation of powers. For sure, judges are not supposed to shoot from the hip. When they speak, especially on matters of constitutional significance, it should be authoritative, deliberate and irreversible. As Cicero noted, “to stumble twice over a stone is a proverbial disgrace.” First the bar, then the bench.

In spite of its pirouette, the NJC left a bad trail. As I noted in this column two weeks ago, To Judge A Judge, what we want is not judgment, but justice. The judges allowed the heart to rule the head. Judges do not act that way.

That was where indecency lost anchor. They succumbed to sentiment. It was an act of immaturity, of a culpable impulse to defend a tribe. They forgot the overriding principle of the rule of law that makes everyone the same, whether king or judge. They were coy and they failed both the high bench and the constitution. Because of sentiment, they also lost judgment. They convicted rather than adjudicate. They called a devil before they looked.

They turned sentiment into legality. The same sentiment confounded Mike Ozekhome when he responded to last week’s In Touch and my CDHR lecture where I had noted that Jiti Ogunye got it right and he wrong on whether the DSS followed the law in raiding the judges. For all its verbiage, Ozekhome only argued on the side of decency but not on the side of law. He should know better that decency does not win in court. The court is not the Vatican.

Yet, I disagree with the DSS for its nocturnal raids. It was in line with the law but not with the values of a civilised society. We had this debate at The Nation editorial board and the house was divided. I believe, though, that when you decide to raid a judge at night for what you can also do at 8 am, you brought a quality of a gangster to the service of the law. We should be careful because demons can be vanguards of the rule of law. It is not the rule of law alone that ennobles, but also the intent of the lawyers and judges. The law, as Henry David Thoreau once noted, never made anyone a whit more just.

Last week, an incident happened in Britain. The court ruled that the Prime Minister could not trigger the BREXIT clause without going through the parliament. It would amount to undermining parliamentary sovereignty, the very fulcrum of its democracy. Some attacked the judges for undermining popular sovereignty. The judges had no right, they argued, to pooh-pooh the wishes of the people. In an editorial by The Times of London, titled ‘Judging the judges’, the newspaper argued that it was about the pursuit of the integrity of the law. Even the people who voted to leave Europe operated within the ambit of the law, and their vote had to be executed within the same ambit. My muse and that of The Times editorial probably worked in the same stratosphere, although I wrote first and about financial corruption and institutional abuse. The Times focused on the due process and limits of popular sovereignty. Was it possible, though, that The Times editorialist took a note or two from In Touch? Just kidding.

Whatever the judges did in London, ours should learn a lesson. They were aggressive in their fairness. It recalls what Samuel J. Tilden wrote to the New York Bar Association about a century ago. “The bar, if it is to continue to exist, if it would restore itself to the dignity and honour which it once possessed, must be bold in defence and, if need be, be bold in aggression.” But always to be fair.

The NJC has a responsibility to put itself in a position of fairness. It has done a wrong and it has tried to correct it. In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare noted, “nor double penance, to correct correction.” Has the NJC cleansed itself with the about-face? They thought they had corrected the DSS the first time. Now did their volte-face correct their correction? Going forward, they have to prove that.

They should realise they are the last arbiter, the last hand in the relay of justice. It does not call for moral and sentimental gyrations.

November 7, 2016
Spots on Spotless Hotel

It is said that a good name is better than silver and gold. But it must also be said that a bad name is not made any better by silver and gold. Talking of names, a particular hotel’s name is in dire need of rehabilitation following negative publicity arising from its owner’s pursuit of political power and the accompanying financial empowerment expected by most Nigerian politicians.

It is food for thought that the hotel’s name came up again while a former Minister of State (Defence) was being questioned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in connection with the distribution of over N4billion taken from the Office of the National Security Adviser. The former Minister, Musiliu Obanikoro, and a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, are in the soup; and those stained by the soup include Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose and a former Osun State gubernatorial candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

Obanikoro was quoted as saying: “Out of N4.685billon transferred to Sylva McNamara Limited, N3.880billion was transferred to both Ayodele Fayose and Senator Omisore through cash and bank transfers. The dollars contents were handed over to Fayose personally by me in the presence of some party leaders and he collected it and took it to the room next to where we were all seated.”

Then Obanokoro interestingly introduced the name of a hotel reportedly owned by Fayose: “The location where I gave the dollars to him is called Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti. One of the party leaders that were present is Dr. Tope Aluko, who was then the secretary of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”

He continued: “I transferred N1.7 billion to Omisore. The money was paid into his account and companies nominated by him. He gave the list of companies for the transfer of the N1.7billion that was released by the NSA to him. The funds were therefore transferred as prescribed by Omisore in full. That is to the account of the companies he provided. Details can be obtained from the bank that transferred the money. I, Musiliu Obanikoro, did not buy or sell any landed property from Sen. Omisore. The National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd) did not disclose to me what the funds were meant for and neither did I ask or I did not know the source of the funds.”

The funds allegedly given to Fayose are believed to be part of the war chest used in fighting for votes and fighting for victory at all costs in the 2014 election that brought him to office. Fayose’s reported reaction: “Let me believe that Obanikoro did not say all these because whatever you say, you would have to prove it in court. It is not enough to just say it. If he’s saying all these to get out of trouble, it is just a drama of the moment. I know he is looking for ways out of the quagmire as his house was seized, his bank accounts were frozen and all that.”

While the story is developing, it is noteworthy that the hotel named by Obanikoro had been named earlier by another participant in another context equally connected with corruption. In February 2015, revelations by a Nigerian Army Captain, Sagir Koli, rocked the country. In a statement titled “How Nigerian Army personnel were used to rig Ekiti and Osun States Gubernatorial Elections 2014,” Koli gave first-hand details of corrupt activities involving his commanding officer, two ministers and some politicians towards election rigging in Ekiti State, and also mentioned a plot to corruptly achieve electoral success in Osun State. Audio evidence leaked by Koli implicated some top officials of the then Federal Government and the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Captain Koli said in his statement: “I was officially deployed as the 32, Artillery Brigade Intelligence Officer to provide credible Intelligence to the success of Ekiti State governorship election. At about 2030 hours on June 2014, a day to the election proper, the commander, Brigadier General A.A. Momoh told me to escort him to a place where the State Minister for Defence wanted to see him. Reaching the place (Spotless Hotel in Ado- Ekiti), which serves as coordinating campaign office for the PDP candidate Mr. Ayodele Fayose, we met the Minister himself, Minister of Police Affairs, Mr. Fayose, Mr. Iyiola Omisore, one Honoruable Abdulkareem and host of other top PDP chieftains.” He added: “The outcome of what was discussed…gave the party victory during the election.”

Against the background of these significant instances of moral impurity, it is apt to ponder the appropriateness of the name of the hotel concerned. It is unclear why the hotel was given the name it is called, but the place has been clearly unworthy of its name. Obviously, there are sufficient spots on the structure to crush its claim to spotlessness.

From the look of things, Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti, has secured a sure place in the expanse of infamy. It has a bad name, no doubt. The country’s political history, especially that aspect of it relating to political corruption and politically corrupt actors, cannot be complete without a mention of this hotel and its unsightly spots. Additionally, the hotel’s defining marks of dishonour are tough stains that would require more than an ocean to wipe off.

It is worth considering whether those who use the hotel’s space are conscious of its story and its place in the narrative of negativity. It would be interesting to know what goes on in the hotel during its normal business hours. Does the hotel’s history and historical stains mean anything to its regular patrons? Does it indeed matter whether events of such negative national impact ever happened there?

Perhaps the hotel’s name is no more than a statement of aspiration, in which case it does not necessarily mean a declaration by its owner to live up to the hotel’s billing. In other words, it is just hype; no more, no less.

But the hotel’s name has its uses as a metaphor for the desirable. The country certainly needs politicians that are spotless, which is a hyperbolic way of calling for a culture of anti-corruption.

October 31, 2016
Ayade’s crowd of advisers

States groaning over the debilitating effects of the current economic situation may have been taken aback by recent appointment of 1,106 advisers by Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade.

Before the latest one, the governor had engaged 28 commissioners, 65 special advisers and over 100 special assistants, personal assistants and community relations officers. With this number which is very high compared with figures emanating from other states, one had thought that Cross River has had a surfeit of such appointments. But events have proved that position wrong.

A breakdown of the latest figure showed that 799 were appointed into various boards, commissions and agencies, while the remaining 307 were engaged as special advisers, senior special advisers, special assistants and personal assistants. Others were categorized as personal assistants to paramount rulers, liaison officers and special assistants on religious affairs among other such nomenclature.

The governor had rationalized the humongous size of his political appointees on the grounds of expanding government as a way of reducing poverty; increase democratic participation and improve the value of service delivery. The latest appointments would also seem to find justification on the same grounds.

If with the criticisms that trailed the initial appointments, the governor still found it auspicious to further increase the number to this level, it could perhaps be inferred that those earlier appointed lived up to their billing and the state fared better with them. Having justified their appointments, a further increase, would further deepen democratic participation, reduce poverty and enhance performance, the argument would further go. That may be the irreducible deduction from the recent appointments. We shall return to that shortly.

The governor is within his rights to make appointments as he deems fit. He is also in a better stead to tap the temperament of his people on political matters especially given the promises he made while seeking for political office.

If he fills existing vacancies in the various boards, commissions and agencies or creates new one in keeping with established rules, one is unlikely to have any quarrel with that. What to consider is the capacity of those establishments to add value to the provision of quality public goods and service to the constituents. If this goal is being achieved, the end would have justified the means it would seem.

But it appears some of the commissions and agencies are avoidable duplication of existing ones as their mandate could well be accommodated within existing boards and agencies. For some others, it is difficult to fathom whether they will really find job to do or where they find one, whether the responsibilities entrusted upon them would suffice to justify their existence. Or are we going to be left with a situation where the government will have to subsidize those establishments?

If it turns out that such establishments will not be self-financing, then the aim would have been defeated. One of the reasons for the underdevelopment and extreme poverty in the country is the high cost of running government. This cost stands to be pushed beyond reasonable levels by the craze for bogus appointments. The net effect leaves the state worse off. That is the contradiction.

There is something inherently untidy in appointing more than 472 people as special advisers, senior special advisers and special assistants etc. There is a limit beyond which Ayade cannot possibly go replicating political offices without throwing the entire state into a bigger mess. The recent appointments went far beyond that limit. Moreover, it tends to portray government as merely existing to dispense political patronages.

Apart from the wastages that will result from replicating offices solely for political patronage, it is just not possible for the governor to personally relate with and effectively supervise such a high number of advisers. He may not even know who they are. Neither will any useful advice emanate from them. This should not be surprising. After all, we were recently told by no less a person than President Buhari’s wife Aisha, that the president does not even know some of his ministers. If the president does not have personal knowledge of his ministers even with the limited number, it remains to be conjectured what Ayade wants to make of 472 sundry advisers.

It is difficult to find justification for this level of appointments given the dire economic straits the states are currently enmeshed. Cross River State is neither insulated from the current economic realities nor does it boast of a high revenue profile when compared with its contemporaries. As matter of fact, its revenue has since nosedived having lost 76 offshore oil wells to a sister state in a very protracted legal battle.

Given the facts of the above, it would appear that the appointments were propelled in the main, by political expediency rather than the value appointees stand to add to the delivery of public goods and services. The governor appears inflicted by the stale idea that political supporters must all be accommodated into the government. And that politics has become an occupation of sorts attracting into its fold able bodied men and women who must be rewarded at the end of elections.

This tendency can only be encouraged at a great risk. Not unexpectedly, the volatility and rancorous nature of our politics are inexorably linked to the idea that politics is the fastest means of making quick money.

If the anti corruption mantra of the current government must succeed, there is the urgent need to discourage the lure of public offices as the fastest route to quick money. By reducing corruption in public places, political appointments will become less attractive thereby lessening the rancor associated with political competition.

More fundamentally, if the Cross River State government is really intent in conveying democracy dividends to its constituents, it should invest in social intervention measures and infrastructures that will enable the people create jobs for themselves. That is the trend now. The state must strive to discourage the tendency for all and sundry to look up to the government for employment. This new direction does not seem to find help in the bazaar of appointments just made. Government has no business running business and the earlier the governor gets his people cue into this, the better. It is amazing the high number of youths who now depend on politics as a means of living.

One other way the people of the state can be meaningfully empowered is by according the local governments the autonomy envisaged for them as the third tier of government. For, much of the finances and roles that would have enabled that level of government attend to the peculiar needs of the people have been appropriated by state governments.

With virtually nothing happening at the local government levels, those they would ordinarily have taken care of through sundry activities that ought to go on there, are left with no choice than look up to state governments. Little wonder the governor had to appoint advisers to traditional rulers, an issue the local governments should have handled.

These are some of the issues that should engage the governor rather than replicating appointments of very questionable value. Even then, reports that political appointees are not remunerated in keeping with extant terms, cast further slur on the entire idea.

October 31, 2016
From a mustard seed

The past caught up with me last weekend when I was the keynote speaker at the Annual General Conference of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, popularly called CDHR. I was its founding secretary- general and that was close to 30 years ago.

Since then, I have been philosophically an ally but I have not brandished its emblem to wallow and fight in the trenches. I was asked to give a talk on a burning national issue: The concept of the rule of law and the notion of justice in the survival of the Nigerian state.

I was impressed to see the body has bloomed from its infancy of a few rebels to a massive umbrella with branches across the country. Beko Ransome-Kuti, soft-spoken, doe-eyed, slight-built stormy petrel was the president. Another prominent member is the diminutive lodestar and the best legal mind of his generation, Femi Falana (SAN).

It was the era of IBB and the closure of media houses, the hunting of radicals, the time of fear and trembling among our spineless elite who knew they had to steal enough and betray enough to belong.

IBB ousted Buhari, whose reign was notorious for its barbarous strong arm and imposition of decrees two and four, the tenebrous detention rooms, the promise to rev our factories back to work that never materialised, the humiliation of two major monarchs in the Southwest and North, the interminable queues in bus terminals, the termination of the rail project in Lagos, etc. PMB rule was marked by the unsmiling visage of his deputy, the late Brigadier-General Idiagbon, the phrase, “The press, I will tamper with it,” the allegations of selectiveness in the arrests of politicians like Shagari and Ekwueme, the occlusion of a return to democracy.

IBB promised to bring fresh air to the political space. He lambasted Buhari for his clampdown. He abolished decree four, but left in place decree two, which guaranteed his fangs of tyranny. It was like killing a baby tiger but preserving its mama with all its snarls and paws. He was extravagant with his gap teeth, adorned TV screens with his smile, his mellow voice sang early to the Nigerian ear. He knew every journalist and junior officer by name, displayed a plebeian force by staying rain-soaked on a parade field with fellow soldiers during a national day, befriended the implacable Awo until the sage saw through him, and some say he never saw through him, waxed poetic with the refrain “Nigeria is our country and we must salvage it together.” He earned the name Maradona from his circuitous transition programme to civil rule. With decoy, flattery, military hammer, state funds, he coaxed virtually every man of honour into his beguiling nest and released them to their shame and public obloquy. He invited many to that party, only few decided not to be chosen. It was an era of elite burlesque where everyone was believed to have a prize. Wole Soyinka, against whom no ill was found, would later regret praising the affectionate fiend.

Naira began its awful descent, the era of ‘Andrews’ was born, Fela sang Second tier in savage homage to a failing economic programme. We had an IMF debate that looked as farcical as Luigi Pirandello’s play, Six Characters in Search of an Author. The author, IBB, already knew he was taking the loan, but many did not know he had.

The IBB era led to the birth of many civil rights groups, some of them for opportunistic purposes, but the savage times were real. It was in that context that the CDHR was born and I became its chief scribe.

I noted that, in the early days of the CDHR, we were less interested in the rule of law than we were in justice. It is a testament to our progress that, today, we have laws we can embrace and a government we can hold to account, despite its fascination with occasional acts of impunity. The laws in the IBB days wove around decree two, and to ask for the rule of law was to ask for blood and death. We wanted justice, and that made us lawless. It meant arrests. Falana, who was the chairman of the conference at the weekend, recalled a meeting that was stormed by IBB’s SSS. As soon as the members knew of their coming, it became a church service. Everyone started singing a church song, and the visitors were perplexed.

My lecture could not escape the subject of the judges’ arrests. I stated that the arrests were according to law, as against Mike Ozekhome’s unenlightened point. G.T. Ogunye educated him on the status of the law today. The issue of the law as the last arbiter came again to my mind. The DSS ought to understand that while nailing the judges is important, it must bow to the same judges who have, in their lack of good judgment, weighed in on the side of their fellow bench men. Popularity has nothing to do with justice. The Nazis were popular. So is Trump today in the United States, Putin in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, etc. It is the kind of danger that Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti highlighted in his opus, Crowds and Power.

Falana noted a point. Some Nigerians were appalled that some of the arrested politicians and judges were arrested at night, handcuffed and rough-handled. He noted that even if this was wrong, this happens all the time to the common man and no one has raised hell. The rule of law asks us to do same to all.

The other issue of note was the $29 billion loan the government is seeking. But, Falana said, we have the money only if we look. Four million dollars was loaned to the banks in the Sanusi era and six billion during the Soludo era. The oil firms loaned about 20 billion. Banks and oil majors announce staggering profits every quarter. If we get this money back, we will have more than the $29 billion for which we are about to mortgage our future. This led to the intervention of the bearded orator and long-time critic, Femi Aborishade. He asked why we don’t know how much we have extracted from the looters. He called for transparency and a special trust fund for the recovered money. This point was adopted by the human rights body as a campaign issue.

Delegates attended from the North, East, Southwest and Southsouth. I was glad that the CDHR, whose meeting decades ago was no more than five or six members, some of them reporters, has now morphed from a mustard seed into a big tree. We could not register it because it was not registrable. The President, Malachy Ugwummadu, announced it was registered two weeks ago.

Like Fela, like Dylan

Eventually, Bob Dylan accepted the Nobel Prize for literature. I had thought his was going the Jean Paul Sartre path who rejected it. Sartre said it was like giving a drowning man a floater after he had already found the shore. Critics say, however, Sartre rejected because they gave his foe, Albert Camus, before him.

Dylan said he was speechless. I had thought that the Nobel Committee chose Dylan to stick it the American literary elite who had pined over being routinely ignored for the prize. It gave it to a musician. This is not to downplay Dylan’s talent. He deserved it. If you read his works, they amount to some of the best lines in a century, appropriated by politicians, justices, businessmen, cultural heroes. Fela was no less important. The problem though is that Fela used an informal medium, the broken English so-called. But it is another language, just like Mark Twain.

Lines like “dead body get accident,” “dem go start to yab demselves harlem,” “44 sitting, 99 standing, suffering and smiling,” etc. Fela, like Dylan, was a social conscience. The Nobel committee compared Dylan to Homer and Sapho, who read and chanted their works. None of them was arrested like Fela was because he spoke truth to power.

October 31, 2016
Felabration as cerebration

Music is the weapon of the future.” Who said this? Where and when? Afrobeat phenomenon Fela Anikulapo Kuti made this definitional declaration when I interviewed him in December 1996, seven months before his death at the age of 58 on August 2, 1997. It was perhaps Fela’s last major interview, and I rank my interaction with the music legend among the high points of my journalism career.

How did I get to interview the great one? I was Features Editor, Today’s News Today (TNT), an ambitious Lagos-based evening newspaper, and the organisers of a series of Fela renaissance concerts tagged Fela Don Come O had chosen the medium for publicity purposes ahead of a planned show on Boxing Day at Lekki, Lagos. The first show at Water Parks, Ikeja, Lagos, was inadequately publicised, the organisers had reasoned. So they came to TNT’s Oregun office to arrange an exclusive interview with Fela that would run for two days as a publicity stunt to draw a crowd.

Naturally, I was over the moon about the job. I had a partner for the interview in the person of Akintunde Ojo, now deceased, who was the paper’s entertainment expert at the time. For several days before the interview, we prepared and kept reviewing our preparation. On the eve of the date, we had to consult one of Fela’s aides for some guidance on the kind of questions that would hold his interest.

We watched Fela’s pulsating performance at his club, the Afrika Shrine, on Pepple Street, Ikeja, till the show ended just before dawn; and then the maestro sat down with us for an interview that lasted about three hours. If there were signs that he was battling with symptoms of a grave illness, we didn’t notice. He had stopped playing the saxophone on account of some challenges, but he boasted to us that he would one day start playing the instrument again. He made us laugh, he made us think, he made us wonder, and he made us feel we were capable of great things.

After the session, he left the club in a waiting taxi, which was a thought-provoking statement about his diminished financial resources despite his undiminished stardom. The interviewers went away inspired by the magical meeting and the unforgettable encounter.

There is no doubt that Fela’s AIDS-related death meant that a critical progressive voice had been silenced. He was not just a musician but a musical icon with a sense of mission. It is a point to ponder how he would have reacted to Nigeria’s renewed democratic experience that began in 1999, about two years after his death. His unapologetic activism on the side of the people was daring and defiant; and he was willing to pay the price for his anti-establishment campaign. Music was indeed a weapon for him, and he used it against the enemies of progress with all the potency of a visionary iconoclast.

My reflections on Fela were prompted by Felabration 2016. The yearly celebration of Fela’s legacy is applaudable. It is interesting that this year’s concert, the 19th edition, was tagged ‘Everybody say yeah yeah’, a catchphrase popularised by Fela. From October 6 to 16, Fela came alive again in more ways than one. Although his remains lie in an inventive tomb on the grounds of his former residence on Gbemisola Street, Ikeja, which is now Kalakuta Museum, Fela’s spirit soars beyond the restriction of the grave.

Fela’s enduring relevance is reinforced by the country’s current unhealthy condition. The country’s sickness did not begin today, and Fela sang several songs about the deterioration. I remember his song titled Authority Stealing. Fela sang: “Authority stealing pass armed robbery.”

An October 21 report justified Fela’s insightful lyrics. This alarming report based on information released by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) said: “In its report of activities from August 2015 to July 2016 presented to civil society organisations (CSOs) by its Executive Secretary Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye during an interactive session in Abuja yesterday, PACAC said corruption brought Nigeria to its knees under Jonathan. The report says: “His (Jonathan’s) tolerance of corruption was reflected in the sunset of activities of anti-corruption agencies under his watch and exponential increase of other vices no doubt fuelled by corruption.”

PACAC continued: “For example, it is widely believed that insecurity escalated because of the massive embezzlement of $2 billion through the Office of the National Security Adviser under the leadership of Col. Sambo Dasuki, who allegedly diverted the money appropriated to fight insurgency. The problems in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry reached the zenith with multi-billion dollars subsidy scams while President Jonathan looked the other way. At the same time, other vices spread like cancer – kidnapping, import duty waivers, financial recklessness, a profligate legislature, corrupt judiciary, etc. There was no single high-profile conviction under his watch, yet there were allegations of high-profile corruption within his cabinet. Jonathan’s legendary comment that stealing is not corruption underscored his perspective on corruption and remains a watershed in the history of anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria. Under his watch, corruption brought Nigeria to its knees.”

Now, the most chilling aspect of the report, which highlights the scale of stealing by people in power and the consequences of ‘Authority Stealing’: “PACAC said using World Bank rates, one-third of the N1.3trillion allegedly stolen by only 55 people in seven years could have provided 635.18 kilometres of roads, built 36 ultra-modern hospitals in each state, built and furnished 183 schools, educated 3,974 people from primary to tertiary level (at N25.2 million per child) and built 20,062 units of two-bedroom houses.”

This picture makes it so easy to see why Fela sang that political corruption is more terrible and more terrorising than armed robbery. This is why Fela remains relevant. His lyrics are undying in a country dying from corruption.

October 24, 2016
Still on judicial invasion

Writing under the title-Invasion of judiciary: the dialectics, I had last week, examined issues arising from the sting operation by the DSS in which it arrested some judges on allegations of corruption. Reactions came in torrents and I consider it only fair to avail the public the benefit of some of these views.

The few highlighted below, capture in the main, the feelings of a majority of those who reacted. Now read on:

There is need for deeper reflection if indeed you want to consider the matter from a philosophical perspective. Some of us have been wondering why our courts have been running riot in passing conflicting judgments when certain individuals are involved. A less prompt approach would have led to a loss or destruction of evidence. There is nothing extraordinary about the NJC. I shudder to think you consider a corrupt and compromised judiciary as having no internal security implications. For me the dialectics of the situation is at work. – Ambrose Abanum.

With views such as that of Emeka, Nigeria will remain in perpetual darkness and oppression. The same NJC that is clamoring to be allowed to carry out its duties is corrupt. They attended to 232 cases out of 1800 received. And what are their outcomes –‘slap-wrist’ punishment, or compulsory retirement or refund. The outcome of the arrest proved the more how corrupt the judiciary is. A drastic situation requires a drastic solution. If such happened in China, most judges by now will have been executed and the rest will sit up –Kunle Orekoya.

With views such as that of Kunle Orekoya, Nigeria will be in a big problem. Fighting corruption must follow the extant laws and devoid of double standards. How many of our senior army officers implicated by the same EFCC in the same dispensation were apprehended in the new found Gestapo style of the DSS? We must not start something that is not sustainable. We must fight corruption but not replace it with tyranny or reign of terror that will even make matters worse. Orekoya must note this: In China and in other climes, many of those with sordid pasts hobnobbing with the present government under the guise of fake support and solidarity would have been in jail -Damian.

When courts sit at nights to give injunctions, what did NJC do? When two judges give conflicting pronouncements on the same issue, NJC kept mute. If the DSS breaks roof to get at them, so be it. Anonymous.

If the amounts as being said were actually found with them, it is then mind boggling. A drastic problem of corruption of this level needs a draconian approach such as the DSS people. Anonymous.

Interestingly, none of these views is against the fight against corruption. But while four would tolerate unconventional strategies, only one wants that fight to follow extant laws. The latter is worried that ad hoc measures cannot be sustained and therefore of limited value in the type of systemic and sustainable change that can permanently restore the integrity and credibility of the judiciary. He wonders what value there is in kick-starting a process that cannot be sustained.

The rest are worried by the level of corruption within the judiciary; the huge sums alleged to have been recovered from some of the judges and their effect on justice for the common man. For them, the DSS could as well break roofs, trample on peoples’ rights and become law unto itself and be justified as the end would have justified the means.

That is where we run into serious problems. Even then, this position is largely tainted for being propelled by the faulty assumption that the receipt of gratification by judges to influence the course of justice is all there is to judicial corruption. That is not so. It is also flawed by the presumption that once judges are arrested and humiliated in crude ways or even jailed, the nation would have had a handle to judicial corruption. This is far from the truth as the ramifications of judicial corruption are more complex than what we have been made to believe.

In its Global Corruption Report 2007, Transparency International (TI) made two classifications of judicial corruption: (a) political interference in judicial processes by either the executive or legislative branches of the government and (b) bribery. Those who subscribe to unconventional approaches, see judicial corruption only from the narrow and circumscribed prism of judges taking bribe from the public to influence the course of justice. That is why they would even want the DSS to go outside its powers to ‘catch the thief’ and deal with him even through mob justice. Unfortunately, that approach, even with its questionable success value, does not provide solution to all there is to judicial corruption.

We are even faced with a more dangerous and pernicious danger of judicial corruption arising from political interference in judicial processes either by the executive or the legislative arms of the government. The failure to factor this dimension into calculations while assessing the prospects of the DSS action in curing judicial corruption did incurable damage to supporters of that move.

The issue to ponder is how does the offensive by the DSS address judicial corruption arising from the meddlesomeness of the executive? It has practically no answer to it. And when it is considered that the same DSS is an agency of the executive, the whole contradiction become even more disconcerting.

Are we sure what has been termed sting operation, ostensibly to sanitize the judiciary, is not a ploy for executive interference in the affairs of that arm of the government? And of what value are the arrests when some of the judges are back at the bench handling cases before them?

Again, while one of the judges has attributed his travails to the rulings he gave against the DSS in cases before him, the other accused the AGF of vengeance for an issue years before his (AGF’s) appointment. Yet, some others have spoken of their refusal to be influenced in election cases before the Supreme Court as the real issue. We may wish to dismiss or rationalize on these allegations but they can only be ignored at a great risk to our democracy.

If we believe the allegations the DSS made against the judges even when prima facie evidence is yet to be established, we do not have any basis to dismiss the ones coming from the judges. It has boiled down to the words of the DSS, AGF and other government officials against those of the judges. That is how hopeless the situation has become. That is the major flaw of the DSS action. And its consequences could snowball unpleasant consequences for order and good governance.

Where does this scenario leave us? It reinforces the view that extant procedure for dealing with corruption within the judiciary can only be abridged with severe repercussions. That is why the NJC – a creation of the constitution with specific powers to discipline erring judicial officers should neither be trampled upon nor compromised. We are free to express reservations with the way that body handles issues before it. We are at liberty to criticize and lampoon the Judges and NJC for observed imperfections. But the solution does not lie in going outside the box to invent make-shift solutions of very effervescent value.

There is the temptation to view the development as the interplay of the social dynamics of history- involving the contradiction between thesis and anti-thesis that will give rise to synthesis (something beneficial to society). But I do not see such prospects because the action of the DSS does not command that force capable of unleashing fundamental changes of heuristic value. Again, the action is hugely flawed because it has nothing for judicial corruption arising from the interferences of the executive which ironically, the DSS works for. Incidentally, that is the worst form of judicial corruption our nation could face.

The solution lies in fundamental judicial reforms to address observed shortcomings. But if we think multi-faceted judicial reforms cannot provide the elixir, Marxian perspective that such institutions are part of the superstructure that serve the interest of the ruling class, may be a soothing balm. Does that lead us any where?

October 24, 2016
To judge a judge

During the Jonathan era, a near fuss – sometimes amounting to farce – was made about building an institution in place of the strong man. Perhaps because of the personality contrast between Buhari and GEJ, we seem to have collapsed in favour of the person instead of the institution. Jonathan, a backstage man, soft, sly, leading from behind. Buhari, ascetic, gangling, front-room bull, crashing the china.

But nothing reflects this conflict as the recent theatrics over the judges. In a bid to give respectability to its operation, the DSS called its act a “sting operation.” To call it a “raid” would take away from its subtlety or moral grandeur. So, they used a rhetorical sleight of hand. Sting operation means it is choreographed, decent and ineluctably lawful. But a raid? That will hark back to the Buhari-era military, with all its echoes of strong arms and hushed voices.

But the facts are the facts. What happened was not a sting operation. The DSS should know we are no illiterates here. A sting operation amounts to a stage-managed affair, and the culprit is caught in the act. So, if a judge is caught in a sting operation, it means he is taking the bribe while the giver is handing it over. A recent example was the case of the English football coach, who had to step down in the face of overwhelming video evidence.

The DSS probably anticipated a moral backlash, so it dressed up its acts with a meretricious phrase. So, they raided the alleged thieves like the thief in the night. They said they picked up evidence, huge stash of Naira and dollar. In a sting operation, those will be “hot” evidence. In this case, it is “passive” evidence. The judges were not caught in the act, but with the act. Allegedly.

But does that make the DSS operation wrong? No. They acted within the law. Could they have gotten the same evidence in a dawn or afternoon activity? Of course. The night gave it a sort of bestial colour. But truth does not often result from smooth dealing. The night affair may not have been a holy act, but an unholy act was unveiled. Allegedly. If in the end, they turn out to be justified, then it is one of those instances where Machiavelli’s morality holds sway. All is well, says the bard, that ends well.

The raid plays on a popular sentiment. Many believe our judges are corrupt, and when the DSS found huge haul of money, what better way to stir support and confirm the lordships’ iniquities? Many top role models, including within the judiciary, have bewailed the deviousness of the judges. They have gone to justice without pure hands. They have acquitted the murderers, killed the innocent, played sly with electoral mathematics, made sinners governors. They are the murderers in the cathedral, apologies to T.S. Eliot. They piss in the pond of justice and get paid for it.

Some judges are reported to be so fertile that they sometimes write two verdicts and wait for the higher bidder. When we sell justice, we sell our souls. The society becomes lost. When the drunken man in The Mayor of Casterbridge sells his wife, he sells his soul and never gets anything back. The judiciary is important, but history has shown that it is on rare occasion that it helps save a society. Judges are, for most parts, weak men and women, who flourish in conformity. They hardly challenge the ruling order even though they have the instrument in their hands. The judicial truth was silent during the treasonable felony in the “my hands are tied” verdict of Justice Sowemimo. It was silent in the June 12 verdicts under IBB’s duress. It was silent during the slavery era until the British and Americans found slavery no longer profitable and Judge Mansfield gave a verdict in 1776 as though he were a man of courage. Jane Austen’s novel, Mansfield Park, is a subtle jibe at a society of self-sufficient affluence gorging on the largesse of slave plantations.

The justices were silent when Abraham Lincoln dumped the rule of law and habeas corpus and only ruled it illegal after the civil war. Nazi Germany, Stalin era, etc in a combustible Europe of the last century saw judges whose lips were clipped. In the 1960’s, the so-called preventive detention laws came pell-mell on dissent.

The judges need to be judged. But who will? The NJC’s response has been hasty and defensive. It ought to have shown balance. It should not have run to the defence of its peers, but would have shown an interrogatory temperament. It would have asked questions more than given answers.

Of course, there are questions, the DSS must answer. Even if we know the judges are corrupt, on whose evidence are we to rely? If they found a million in a judge’s home, we need evidence that that is, in fact, the case. It is paradoxical that the DSS is angry that judges have more than they earn, and that is a great point once they prove it in court.

But in this same government, a certain military officer had a home that his lifetime earnings could not muster and we have seen no sting operation, or raid, whether at night, daylight or dawn.

Eventually though, the DSS has said it will have to take the matter to the courts. The same justices who have waded in, in defence of their colleagues will still have to adjudicate. Is it going to be a case of a man being a judge in his own cause? Will the DSS be willing to capitulate to a Supreme Court whose main players are NJC gladiators and have shown a certain “partial flavour” in the matter?

Rather than be a case of strong men clashing, it will be a case of institutional hubris: The DSS in its martial wisdom, the Lordships in their judicial lights. A breach on either side will be ominous.

If it becomes a matter of who will prevail, then we have failed again. What we want is not for the DSS to win or the NJC to lose but for the right values to prevail. That means knowing the truth in a transparent manner and justice dispensed. We want justice, not judgment. That will mean the DSS providing proofs and the judges being even-handed. It promises to be a sombre show, so long as it is not a show of shame.

Osinbajo’s knockout punch

After all the hoopla, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo came with the jab. It was a simple sentence: “I was nominated.” He sentenced the controversy to a permanent rest. The so-called authorised biographer of PMB was exposed as a phoney scholar. Even if you write an authorised biography, it is no excuse to lie. He lacked rigour or the curiosity of enquiry. He should have consulted Osinbajo himself. He didn’t. No one should do research under such a professor.

With that sentence, Osinbajo demystified a scholar, punctured a cabal of malevolent naysayers and spoke to history.

He spoke with the conviction of an evangelist, the clarity of a lawyer and the comeback of an avenging angel. He mentioned no names and abused no one. He merely said he was nominated. He was not a politician. He belonged to a group and someone has to put you forward to such a high office. And who else could have done it!

So, folks, those sneaky revisionists who want to distort history, can I hear any more words? I don’t think so. Osinbajo has delivered the blow, like Ali to Frazier when he had nothing more to offer. A knockout was inevitable.

October 24, 2016
Corruption needs no conference

A curious two-day conference will be held in Abuja on October 18 and 19. It is curiously called “National Conference on the role of the legislature in the fight against corruption in Nigeria.” More curiously, it is organised by the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption and the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption (PACAC) in collaboration with the European Union, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and the Africa Development Studies Center (ADSC).

Among the curious high-profile participants expected at the conference are Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara. Others are the Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes, Chukwuka Utazi, the Chairman, House Committee on Anti-Corruption, Babajide Akinloye, and the PACAC Chairman, Prof. Itse Sagay.

It is unclear whether the forum is intended to school the country’s federal legislators in the fundamentals of anti-corruption. It is worth noting that the Director General, Kenya School of Law, Prof. P. L.O. Lumumba, is expected to shed some light on the subject.

Without doubt, it is one thing to be taught and another thing to be teachable. Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the targets of this training programme of sorts is not their learning capacity but their capacity for unlearning and relearning. It has been observed that knowledge is incomplete without values, and the lawmakers have continued to demonstrate to the public that they may indeed be irredeemably challenged in that critical department.

To give a striking illustration, consider the loud and clear voice of the beleaguered former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who has been singing about the alleged rot and stench in the House of Representatives. Who is listening to Jibrin?

In an interview published on October 9, Jibrin declared: “The corruption in the House of Representatives is massive. I have not exposed more than 10 per cent of the corruption going on in the House of Representatives. It is that bad.”

Jibrin continued: “I have said a whistleblower is not necessarily a saint. But people often support him (a whistleblower) because what he reveals is usually beneficial to all. This issue is beyond Jibrin. If someone has any issue against Jibrin, he should write a petition and take it to the anti-corruption agencies. I will go to the agencies and respond to the petition. Nobody among the 359 members of the House has written a petition against me to the anti-graft agencies. I had written a petition against the Speaker and three other principal officers in the House. I am talking about people who committed budget fraud of N40bn, another budget fraud worth about N20bn and there is another budget fraud with a cumulative sum of N284bn. I am talking about a person who diverted Federal Government projects to his farm; short-changed members in the N10bn Sustainable Development Goal projects of 2015; used subterranean means to create a new House rule that is the subject of litigation; and a man who collects rent from multiple sources. I have also exposed the fact that members are collecting votes for running costs. I am not saying money should not be voted for lawmakers’ running costs. The point is that this money is (sometimes) diverted to private pockets.”

Is anyone listening to Jibrin? It is food for thought that those on the receiving end of his accusations are likely to be at the planned anti-corruption conference in the capital city this week. The accused have done little or nothing to prove that Jibrin does not know what he is talking about. Those who should investigate Jibrin’s weighty allegations have done little or nothing to disprove his scandalous claims. With the move by the House of Representatives to tame Jibrin through a controversial long-term suspension, it would appear that the battle has been lost and won, even though the hurly-burly is not over.

Jibrin’s response to his 180-day suspension: “The constitution is clear: you can only get a member out of the House through recall and the constitution is supreme. The Legislative Privileges Act only allows the House to suspend a member for one sitting day. The House rules stipulate that you can only suspend a member for only 14 days. Therefore, legally, there is no way this can stand. They only suspended me because they wanted to save face. I raised allegations, but they have not responded.”

Evidently, the anti-corruption fight cannot be fought by fighters who are themselves pro-corruption. On the question of the incompleteness of knowledge without values, another striking picture reinforces the failure of values in the federal legislature.

A September 19 report on cheating by members of the National Assembly said: “NAN gathered that some of the lawmakers, especially principal officers, have more than the statutorily approved number of aides in their employ, who also draw their salary from the assembly’s funds…It was also revealed that many legislators draw the emolument of their aides from the assembly’s funds but pay them fractions. Some of the lawmakers employed only one or two aides but are collecting the full salary for the five they are entitled to.”

The report continued: “This act was discovered to be perpetrated more by the members through their constituency offices, which they are mandatorily expected to have in their areas, but deliberately failed to do so. They submit names of non-existent staff in the constituency office to the national assembly service commission and collect their entitlements directly.”

It is noteworthy that these are the characters expected to play a positive role in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. What will they learn at the coming conference? What can they learn? How will the results of the teaching be measured and monitored?

In the end, this publicised conference may be no more than another stunt to create the impression that corruption is unwelcome in the National Assembly when there are enough signs that corruption enjoys a warm welcome in that supposedly honourable space. Indeed, it is not far-fetched to observe that corruption usually gets the red-carpet treatment from members of the National Assembly. What the fight against corruption needs is not a conference but conscience.

October 17, 2016