Tag: Senate

There is an unsettling, squirmy feeling in the stomach when you watch self-labeled ‘distinguished’ lawmakers at the Upper Legislative Chambers pontificate about the ‘unfitness’ of Col. Hammed Ali (rtd.) to hold public office just because he failed to honour a summon by these eminent noisemakers. I laughed at the drama that played out before the gentlemen’s advice to Ali to honorably resign his appointment as Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service. I giggled as Senator after Senator revved into fits of rage, tearing Ali apart for daring to shun an invitation from a respectable body like the Nigerian Senate. Somehow, one couldn’t miss that glint of comic relief as the lawmakers struggled to speak truth to power. In that crowd of pretenders are people with files of their corrupting influence sitting in the cabinets of the Economic Crimes and Financial Commission; well-known political thugs who suddenly came into stupendous wealth without any record of entrepreneurship; confirmed drugs barons fleeing from the arms of the law; lackeys imposed by powerful forces and all shades of characters that should ordinarily be anywhere but definitely not that hallowed chamber. Yet, the reality of the Nigerian story is that its Senate is mostly peopled by charlatans who have turned delusion into an art. They are the drama kings and queens of this infamous democratic experiment.

How I wish the Senate could remove the speck blocking its vision before offering to help another pluck out the log in his eyes. In truth, the faceoff between Ali and the Senate is nothing other than a contest of ego. It is as simple as that. Sadly, in its brash angst, the Senate just threw away the baby with the bath water by focusing on the less-important issue of Ali’s appearing in a Custom uniform instead of the more significant matter of collection of import duties on old cars brought into the country in the last seven years. By the way, would the heavens fall had the Senate chosen to ignore the ego show and humble Ali by interrogating him on the car duties matter even if he had honoured the invitation in knickers, rumpled shirt and bathroom slippers? Would it not have been ennobling if the Senate had played its expected role by triggering a downward review of the policy or its outright cancellation through a positive engagement with the Customs chief? Whatever its decision, the one that has bitten the dust in this needless ‘war’ is the Senate. This is worsened by the fact that the Senate’s resolution on the matter is not worth the paper it was penned on. I’m sure they know President Muhammadu Buhari would have no problem ignoring the so-called resolutions.

It is laughable that, after all the tantrums and drama, all the Senate could do was to draft a five-point agenda with an advisor that an ‘unfit-for-public-office’ Ali should honorably pen his resignation and quit. And to give a bite to the toothless resolution, the Senate also directed that “the resolutions be sent to the House of Representatives for concurrence so that it will be a National Assembly resolution.” Talk about an unfit legislature and you have truckloads of them in that chamber. Just last week, this same bunch of jokers adamantly refused to sanction the appointment of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC over a Department of State Security report that he “failed integrity test.” They lashed on a report that an alleged friend of Magu spent less than N40m to rent and furnish a building for his use. Even when the allegation was yet to be substantiated, it was enough reason for the set of patriots to nail Magu in the sun to dry. By the time they came out of the Red Chamber that day, there was this feeling of accomplishment that a would-be nemesis of the corrosive poster boys of corruption has been stopped in his tracks. It never mattered if Magu cried blue murder. The ‘victory’ was made sweeter by the fact that Magu’s ultimate fall was made possible by a report that was surreptitiously obtained from an agency under the control of the same Presidency that forwarded Magu’s name. For the lawmakers, it was time to clink glasses and pat backs for a job that was professionally executed with pin-point accuracy.

Just a little scratch beyond the smokescreen and you would be confronted with the rottenness that defines this Senate. Among those who concurred to a questionable and strange report on Magu were about 10 or more former state chief executives whose files of blind looting of their states’ treasuries were in Magu’s office. In fact, Magu directly investigated some of them and they are presently facing trials at the courts. There are also those dancing to the tunes being played some political godfathers who would get a good kick out of the humiliation of the police officer. But then, the question needs to be asked: If Magu was adjudged to have failed an integrity test for ‘flirting’ with a benefactor said to be under the radar of the EFCC and Ali declared unfit to hold public office for failing to wear a uniform, what then would be the verdict on a National Assembly with members that appropriate billions of naira for its upkeep without availing the public of any details? How come not one exemplary senator currently being investigated or tried by EFCC was bold enough to excuse himself from Magu’s screening? Or is that not what is expected of people with integrity and self-worth?

Besides, there is an intriguing twist to the Ali tale that cannot be ignored. Was Ali being punished for daring to demand that the National Assembly leadership pay the right Custom duties on the treated SUV specially imported for the use of the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, or was it a case of curious coincidence in which a retroactive policy met its waterloo at a time the issue of the imported toy was yet to be resolved? For a man who sits at the top of an agency that fetches billions of naira daily for the Federation Accounts, it is shocking that the lawmakers could make a song and dance of the decision not to wear uniform while cleverly ignoring the propriety or otherwise of the purchase of a car worth over N330m for the luxury of its leader. In his response to the allegation, Saraki’s spokesperson, Yusuph Olaniyonu, was swift to deny any link with his principal. While not denying that the car was for the use of Saraki, he argued that the supplier engaged to deliver the car had tried to outsmart the Customs by paying lesser charges on the expensive toy. He contended that the Senate could not be held culpable since the vehicle was yet to be delivered to it. By this thread of thought, I want to assume that the Senate President was eternally grateful to Ali’s men for halting the delivery of a ‘smuggled’ state-of-the-art Range Rover Sports to his fleet. For all we know, the Office of the President of Senate could have dispatched a letter of commendation of the Customs for a job well done. .And that, I also imagine, explains why the National Assembly quickly drafted a letter to the CG of Customs, demanding the immediate release of the vehicle to the owners!

I honestly don’t get it. Was it up to two years that the Senate leadership spent millions of Naira to change the fleet of cars in the convoy of its principal officers? And under which subhead did the management rake the funds to purchase a treated car with a street value of N298m and brought into the country with fake documents to avoid paying appropriate duties? If the matter at hand was a simple case of disagreement between a car dealer and the Customs, why did the National Assembly hierarchy, with military fiat, dispatch a letter to the Customs requesting an immediate release of the car on the day it was impounded? Or could it be that the O. A. Ojo that signed the letter was not the Secretary of Procurement, Estate and Works in the National Assembly? Can the National Assembly avail the public with copies of the car purchase contract to enable us determine the veracity of the tale that nothing untoward transpired in the course of executing the contract? Could it be true that the price of the car was significantly undervalued which enabled the dealer to pay a “measly Customs duty of N8 million” instead of N78 million? Could this be the real reason why Ali has been declared a persona non grata, despicably unfit to hold public office? If that is the case, does the entire Senate still score itself high on the integrity ladder? Who among the Ali, Magu and the lawmakers should be resigning for failing to hold the morality torch with dignified pride? Who knows, maybe when these guys stop playing to the gallery they would make sense out of the glaring senselessness in an era when the business of lawmaking has gone to the dogs. Just maybe.