Should principal officers in the House apply the stick on Jibrin, they would, without intending to do so, be moving the fight against corruption from actual battle to a rhetorical one.
Two words have dominated Nigeria’s media and political space for decades. The two words are corruption and unity and they have stayed with the country since independence. Apart from unity being ubiquitous in national political discourse since independence, it is also one word that every Yoruba-Nigerian who cares to read or listen to broadcast news has to confront on a daily basis. Of course, over drumming of both words has always had negative effects on perception of Nigerians internationally. Corruption seems to refer to actions that can be verified while unity most often serves more like a weapon in a psychological and ideological war, propagated periodically by members of the elite class, especially its political wing. The focus today will be on corruption
At the beginning, it was believed that corruption was just an excuse for demonising politicians not favoured by the group in power. When the Forster Sutton Commission was set up to look into the affairs of the Continental Bank towards the end of colonialism, many people thought it was designed to embarrass Dr.Azikiwe, just as the Coker Commission of Inquiry was perceived as a way to call Chief Awolowo a bad name in order to hang him, for refusing to jump on the bandwagon of a one-party system, preferred then by the group in power immediately after independence. It was not until the first coup of 1966 that corruption became a major war to fight, particularly when some of the coup planners claimed that they struck because they wanted to end a corrupt government. Those who unseated General Gowon also cited corruption as a social or political cancer they wanted to excise from the body politic of the Nigerian State. The post-coup policy of fighting corruption descended not on military rulers but more on civil servants, and the rest is history. Even when a coup to remove a major warrior against corruption, General Mohammed Buhari in 1984 occurred, the two reasons given for the coup included fighting corruption anew. Again, when the first victory of an opposition party against a ruling political party self-destined to rule uninterrupted for 65 years happened, it did so on the strength of fighting corruption.
Of the two problems that President Buhari had focused on since he came to power, it fighting Boko Haram terrorism and fighting corruption are the two that come to most people’s mind, largely because of the aggressiveness with which he has been doing the fight. Honestly, nobody can deny the commitment of President Buhari to use all resources at his disposal to identify and prosecute men and women who have taken advantage of their political or bureaucratic positions to steal public funds. But if the fight against corruption is not to be partially won to the extent of making the fight against corruption a permanent item on the agenda of governance of the country, the ongoing controversy about budget padding should not be allowed to go without proper investigation. It is not surprising that a National Assembly that has become famous or notorious for always invoking herd instinct orespirit de corps is already organising its principal officers to scapegoat Jibrin, the newly arrived whistleblower in the House. The most respectable way to bring the matter of allegation of budget padding to proper closure is to allow law enforcement agencies to do a proper investigation of the claims of Jibrin, who has himself acknowledged his own role in this sordid matter.
As things are, our democracy seems organised for the elite, rather than to solve the problems of the masses. There is no better institution that illustrates at this perception at the moment than the National Assembly. Senate leaders were quick to identify with their principal officers facing trial to the extent that they felt at ease to shut down the senate in order to follow their leading members to court. There is no evidence that they would not return to this herd mentality when courts resume sitting on the matters before them. House members are now invoking the herd instinct in respect of Jibrin’s allegations that budget padding has been an integral part of the House since he became a legislator. It is dangerous to allow the House to silence Jibrin for exposing what looks like an unsavoury aspect of the parliamentary culture of our lawmakers.
All legislators are equal, having been elected by their respective constituencies to represent their people. For a group of officers in the House to want to take sides in the matter by attempting to take disciplinary actions against Jibrin, it is important for citizens and lawmakers to note that it is not just Jibrin that is being embarrassed, members of his constituency in Kano who sent him to the House to represent them have to be given an incontrovertible evidence thatJibrin had committed a crime for which he must be suspended from the duty his constituents sent him to do. House rules should not be superior to the country’s rules, which expect proper investigation before prosecution, and proper prosecution before punishment. Constituents not only in Kano but all over the country are eager to know what actually happened in the legislatures in respect of how the budget proposal was handled. No legislator, officer or no officer, should panic about investigation or do anything to prejudice investigation by taking a position that one of the parties, particularly the whistleblower has behaved in a way to embarrass the House. In other presidential systems, the House would have set up a bi-partisan investigation before the matter festered to this level. Having become a matter of interest to the public at large, it should be left to proper impartial investigators to handle.
In the last one year that President Buhari has been fighting corruption, observant citizens have no difficulty to know that corruption has been fighting back on many fronts. It is still fighting back as surreptitiously as it could. What legislators, particularly principal officers in the House should not push is to do anything that can make citizens see the House as hiding behind one finger: Speaker Dogara in this instance. In fact, the Speaker should discourage any attempt by leaders of the House to do anything to indicate that Jibrin has exposed and embarrassed the House and its members. Doing this may water down the authority of the House after this matter is brought to a closure. It may even paint the House more negative internationally as one legislature that would rather shut up its member for drawing attention to corruption in the legislature, rather than allow for full hearing on matters that concern not just lawmakers but the citizenry at large.
The fight against corruption must not be made to look like a fight restricted to corruption during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. From revelations so far, there is no doubt that political and bureaucratic corruption had a field day from efforts to hide the true picture of President UmaruYar’Adua’s health and passing to the end of Jonathan’s acting and substantive presidency in May 2015. The anti-corruption fight is likely to be given additional integrity if leaders in the executive and the legislative branches of government act transparently on the allegations and counter-allegations between former chairman of the Appropriation Committee and the Speaker. At this point, the matter requires intervention from a neutral investigator and objective investigation. And that is what all parties involved or concerned should allow to happen in a verifiably transparent manner.Should principal officers in the House apply the stick on Jibrin, they would, without intending to do so, be moving the fight against corruption from actual battle to a rhetorical one.
- To be continued