SOMETIMES, you just cannot help that scary feeling that most of the names that made it into President Muhammadu Buhari’s list of ministers jumped on to the change train without any working knowledge or idea about what is required of them. Beyond the razzmatazz of the Senate’s lax screening and its anti-climax with the eventual clearance of all the nominees, I doubt if any of these characters really appreciate the enormity of the job before them.
All they have mastered is an annoying mimicry of the President’s anti-corruption fixation after which they sit on their hands, waiting for magic to happen. It is a compelling shame that, months after these ministers officially took over the running of all the key ministries, hardly can anyone pick one or exceptional probabilities that could reflate this sinking hope. In the local parlance, it is called ‘same of the same.”
The height of it is that most of them believe that lifting Buhari’s one-way battle against corruption is all that is needed to remain relevant on the national scene. Unfortunately, this matchless buffoonery in governance is not only chocking dreams, it is an anathema to development. This country is in a crisis and it will take more than a repetitive regurgitation of the President’s single-dose cure-all to get Nigeria breathing again. At once, several of them seem to be competing to lead in cluelessness.
However, personally, I am yet to come across any minister that is completely bereft of ideas like the one saddled with the responsibility of taking the Federal Capital Territory to the next level – Mallam Muhammed Bello. In the first place, it is not clear why Buhari picked this former head of the Muslim Pilgrims’ Board as the best man to run the FCT. Months into the job, Bello is yet to set foot on terra firma, not to talk of hitting the ground running.
He is effectively a sleeping sailor on the high seas. It is so bad that most Abuja residents can hardly recall his name! By the way, Bello started showing signs of a bumbling wannabe in office during his maiden world press conference which this writer was lucky to attend. Asked to highlight his plans, he kept rapping about his determination to ‘key into the President’s fight against corruption by directing all the workers to declare their assets!’ By November, it will be one year after swearing in and it will be a sad commentary if Bello remains ensnared in that reverie of delusion, even when sewage flows randomly on some streets and other obvious signs of decay continue to fester.
Abuja continues to sink in reverse gear and things have fallen apart. He is neither in charge nor has he picked capable hands to steer the ship. If things do not change soon, he may end up distinguishing himself as the worst FCT minister that ever passed through here. Do not get it wrong. No one is saying the government should not tackle corrupt elements in the system and force them to dance to the same dirge of pain they inflicted and continue to inflict on our psyche.
What is totally abominable is the palpable numbness that has gripped the entire system as if that is the singular remedy to cure all problems and satisfy citizens’ expectations. In a report last Saturday, the Vanguard newspaper published a damning story on the high rise of hunger-induced crimes in the country. I believe that any serious-minded minister needs to grab a copy of that publication and digest it. It paints a gory picture of how a combination of ineptitude, graft and policy somersaults has gorged this once rich nation of its blessings.
How much longer would the people chew raw hunger while Buhari and his men engage corruption in a shadowy fight? Now, life is suffocating under the intense grip of palpable poverty, no thanks to our perennial harvest of bad leadership. It should concern those in authority that ordinary law-abiding citizens now invade the neighbours’ kitchen to cart away foodstuffs and rob worshipers of their belongings in churches and mosques. Petty theft is now a commonplace in taxis, bus stops and on the roads with Abuja recording rising cases of ‘0ne chance’ robberies in the last few months.
All these societal dislocations are traceable to the parlous state of an economy that feeds the rich few at the damnation of the poor. It is a fact that citizens’ intense craving for a change in the system propelled the Buhari administration into power and those given the opportunity to occupy high offices are expected to kick-start that change. Right now, the verdict is that they have failed us. In dire situations as we have on our hands now, you assume that all the President’s men would have long rolled up their sleeves and get to work. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case.
You hardly know what is happening at the Ministry of Agriculture where the substantive minister, Audu Ogbeh is said to be at loggerheads with the Minister of State, Heineken Lokpobiri. They sit on their hands while hunger chafes at lives across the land. Then, there is the reported frosty relationship between the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu and the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah over some unilateral appointments made by the former. They bicker while the education system remains in tatters.
The health sector is in shambles as it has always been in our recent past – no change! Unemployment has risen in geometric proportions yet jobs are being given to only those who have the right connections while the number of unemployed youth jumps daily. Some even say the Finance Minister is only good at ‘blowing grammar’ while the financial system goes into technical recession.’ These notwithstanding, most ministers have switched into a mode of riotous silence. I admit that a few are making some noises here and there. Some are still grabbing the headlines for their action and inaction.
They pop up occasionally to remind us that they superintend over their ministries. One of such persons is the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) who huffs and puffs occasionally. Fresh from his altercation with the Senate over the forgery case, Malami must have thought he would be doing Buhari a world of good by directing officials in his ministry to take over decades-long high profile cases from the relevant anti-graft agencies. Specially named the National Prosecution Coordination Committee, Malami said this could be the answer to the epileptic pace at which high profile criminal cases drag on at the various courts.
He sauced it up by saying that it would ensure “smooth and prompt” prosecution, noting that it was his prerogative to determine what case should pass as high profile as it must “must have overriding public interest elements,” and that “the quantum of value of a case and its sensitivity also influences whether a case is a high profile case or not.” To my mind, this is nothing short of a crafty way of legalising the jobfor- the-boys mentality. By the way, how many current high profile corruption cases has Malami’s office successfully prosecuted since he came on board as a minister? Here, I speak of cases in which the government claimed to have incontrovertible evidence including monies that were retrieved from suspects. If the ministry were that effective, many of those arrested would not be sipping tea in their plush homes while the legal gymnastics persist endlessly at the courts and the whole shenanigan casts a dark cloud on the Buhari anti-corruption campaign.
It beggars belief that Malami thinks a new, shadowy committee peopled by his close aides has the magic wand to resolve high profile criminal cases that date back to May 29, 1999. Moreover, what exactly does Malami mean when he said it was his prerogative to determine what constitutes high profile criminal cases? Does it mean, as it happened under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and others, he could file a nolle prosequi for cases these anti-graft agencies had initially labelled as high profile? Does it mean that he could, if he likes, exhume the carcasses of buried cases and reopen them for fresh trials especially if the President so desires? In fact, what significant change has occurred in our jurisprudence practice to warrant this additional burden on an under-performing ministry? If there was any need for such a institution called the NPCC, it should be, at best, an advisory body saddled with the responsibility of fasttracking the current graft cases before Nigerian Police Force (NPF), Department of State Services (DSS)), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices & other related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Asking these legally constituted bodies to hand over files of these delicate cases to a committee established by a political appointee could lead to the suspicion that such files would be used to haunt the President’s political enemies aside the fact that it puts a big question mark on the perversion of justice. I assume that the need to guide against this tendency must have informed the prosecutorial powers given to these agencies. So, why is Malami keen on taking that privilege from these bodies in his new quest? On the other hand, are there particular cases that Malami would like to take over for some ‘special’ reasons that Nigerians understand with a wink of the eye? One wonders where Malami derives his confidence that he could follow up these old cases to logical conclusions when, in the last one year with living witnesses and presumed evidence, the government is yet to get a single conviction as regards the Dasukigate.
What is clear is that this is no time to play to the gallery. The anti-graft agencies should be left to discharge their responsibilities and seek advice from the Attorney General’s office if they so desire. The attempt to deny them of that responsibility through a so-called National Prosecution Coordination Committee signals ominous signs of arbitrary interference even if it is by the Minister of Justice. It is acts like this that pushes the argument for the separation of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation from that of the Justice Minister. And it is sad that the person currently occupying that office is seeing justice from the microscopic prism of chasing high profile criminal cases that often drag on till eternity while the poor—-the ones who get 30 years jail term for stealing the neighbours’ cup of garri—-get kicked in the groin by this cruel justice system! Pity.