And who will recommend Adeosun’s sack?

It was headline news, a few days ago, when the minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun pompously told a house committee hearing that she will be writing President Muhammadu Buhari to recommend the sack of Mounir Halliru Gwarzo – the embattled DG of SEC.  My simple question here is: Who will write PMB and recommend […]

It was headline news, a few days ago, when the minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun pompously told a house committee hearing that she will be writing President Muhammadu Buhari to recommend the sack of Mounir Halliru Gwarzo – the embattled DG of SEC. 

My simple question here is: Who will write PMB and recommend her own sack from office? This step is necessary, if this government has any wish to prove that it’s anti corruption drive is real and all-encompassing. 

I mean here is a minister who summoned the head of one of her parastatals and demanded that due process be flouted in the discharge of his duties, because she did not want a certain company investigated. And because this same officer refused to do her bidding without a written instruction to that effect, the minister resorted to threats and blackmail in order to have her way. 

According to Mounir Gwarzo, in his testimony at the House committee hearing, Mrs Adeosun had summoned him to her office and demanded that he stop the forensic audit of Oando Plc which the commission had already started. Gwarzo said he argued against the request by stating the implication of doing that but Kemi Adeosun insisted that he must stop the audit and instead decide on a fine to be paid by Oando for any wrongdoing in the capital market. 

At this juncture, according to Mounir Gwarzo, he demanded a written directive from the minister to enable him comply with her request.The finance minister repeated her verbal directive and added that Mounir Gwarzo should either do as he was commanded or resign his appointment. She added, for good measure, that he would be treated like the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir David Lawal, if he refused to do her bidding. 

After Gwarzo left her office and continued to insist on acting only on a written directive from the minister, Mrs Adeosun dug up an old petition against Mounir Gwarzo, in which he was accused of financial impropriety and other official misconduct in his capacity as the director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The minister now used this petition as an excuse to suspend him and automatically end the forensic audit of Oando Plc, as well as slap charges bordering on corruption and abuse of office on the SEC DG. 

But like Gwarzo himself had asked, during the hearing which I watched live last Tuesday, why was the issue of the petition never brought up by the minister, in the almost two years he worked with her, until she failed to get him to comply with her directive on Oando Plc? 

Though the minister had denied giving Gwarzo any such directive, and it is her word against his since they met all alone at her office, but Gwarzo had sworn four times ‘to Almighty God’ that what he said was what transpired at the minister’s office. In any case, if the matter of Mounir Gwarzo’s suspension was a stand-alone issue, like Mrs Adeosun claimed, why was the Oando audit stopped, why didn’t it continue even in the absence of the SEC DG?

Again why should the petition, which was earlier referred to both ICPC and EFCC and both agencies had cleared him, now be the basis for Gwarzo’s suspension? 

For all intents and purposes, it is clear to see that the Finance Minister had resorted to blackmail and arm-twisting when it became obvious that Mounir Gwarzo would not do her bidding. 

In his defence, the suspended DG had explained that they had done a similar forensic audit of five companies since Kemi Adeosun became the finance minister. Three of these five were done successfully without the minister’s interference but in the case of Oando and one other, the minister suddenly intervened and decided to stop it.

 

When Mounir Gwarzo read the names of the owners of the five companies, it became obvious why Mrs Adeosun was particularly interested in the last two companies. They were the ones owned by Yorubas and she probably saw it as her duty to save the faces and businesses of her fellow tribesmen. It is amazing that even with her Oyibo accent, the Finance Minister is just another tribal champion.

Though she gleefully celebrated her success at the hearing, by announcing that she will make President Buhari sack the SEC DG, it is pertinent to remind the government that Mrs Adeosun’s actions are themselves questionable. 

If the anti-corruption mantra of this administration is to be taken seriously, there should be a thorough investigation of what Gwarzo said had transpired between them, sometimes in the presence of witnesses, whom he laboured to name at the hearing.

By all means let another investigation continue, into the allegations against Gwarzo and he should be penalised accordingly, if cases of wrongdoing are established against him, but so also must the government probe the involvement of Kemi Adeosun on this matter.

If a case of high-handedness and blackmail is established against her, the government must do well to save its image by sacking her as minister of finance of the Federal Republic. 

Failure to do this will embolden Mrs Adeosun to use the same arm twisting methods against the head of any parastatal under her ministry, if they failed to do her bidding.

And the forensic audit of Oando Plc must go on because, like Mounir Gwarzo argued at the hearing ‘If that isn’t done, it will rubbish SEC.’ 

But it isn’t only the Commission that will be rubbished, it is also the Buhari administration’s claim to have zero tolerance for corruption.