Diezani and the National Assembly!

They too were going to Abuja and had walked up to pay me respect at the departure lounge of the Aminu Kano International Airport Kano where we were all waiting. The officers recalled with gratitude the ample gains they made from a lecture I delivered on “Communication Skills” at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria […]

They too were going to Abuja and had walked up to pay me respect at the departure lounge of the Aminu Kano International Airport Kano where we were all waiting. The officers recalled with gratitude the ample gains they made from a lecture I delivered on “Communication Skills” at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria Abuja some three years back. According to them, they had spent a few minutes before I came in; relating the strategies I enumerated during the lecture to the communication style of aero airline. They were upset that their previous flight to Kano five days earlier was similarly delayed for the same number of hours for what the airline described as “operational reasons”.
When I confirmed that I had the same experience a day after theirs, we all agreed that making the same announcement continuously to a disconnected set of receivers suggests that the airline is not into effective communication.  Rather, it is engaged in stereotyping- a communications style in which organizations with management failure and corporate inertia offer the same apology for doing the same thing wrongly by the day. Our experience reminded me of a play in which a typist having gotten used to explaining his daily lateness to work with ‘I had running stomach’ once  told his boss to kindly note that he would be late to work the next day because he “would have running stomach tomorrow”. Back to the issue of permanently delayed flights, we sought to compare the harm to the nation by our unconscionable commercial airlines with that of those opting for chartered flights. This led us into a long conversation on the intriguing relationship between Minister Diezani and the National Assembly-a discussion that was greatly illuminated by reports in the media the night before.
One of the reports credited to Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Chairman Senate Committee on Finance indicted the former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido for allegedly raising false alarm that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, misapplied $49.8 billion accruing from crude oil sales. Markafi confirmed that only $20 billion was missing adding that after a rigorous investigation the committee could not see how Sanusi arrived at his allegations. The report tended to have cleared Diezani Allison-Madueke our oil Minister, her Ministry and the NNPC of any wrong doing. Interestingly, Senator Bukola Saraki a member of the same Markafi committee was quoted by another segment of the media as having stated that he was not privy to any clearance of any wrong doing by anyone.
Reading through the statements credited to the two Senators, it would obviously be hard for people to comprehend the discordant tunes from the senate. People are thus entitled to accepting whatever version confirms their predisposition. One is free for instance to imagine that the committee lacked unison and that each member merely disseminated the standpoint of his political persuasion. Another person would be free to suggest that the committee merely disbelieved Sansui’s figures but did not confirm that no amount was missing. This latter view sounds comic because if all that the Senate committee has been able to find is the inaccuracy of the Sanusi figure, it means we have not moved forward as everyone including Sanusi himself, was not in doubt that his original figure was inaccurate. Does this imply that neither the public nor the Senate knows precisely what the probe panel was out to unravel? Perhaps it was just an investigation which the legislature, these days, appears to see as a priority over and above law making.
Since aero gave us-its stranded Kano-Abuja passengers, no less than three hours to chat away, each of us commented freely on the missing oil money, the suspension and eventual replacement of the whistle blower and the alleged abuse of office through the use of chartered flights by the oil Minister. When I cautioned the team that some of the issues particularly those concerning chartered flights were already before the courts and that it would be subjudice to discuss those, it was as if I inadvertently raised more posers. First, what and what in specific terms are before the court? Second, was the probe by the House of Representatives seeking to uncover if a documented subsisting practice of chartered flights in the NNPC exists or did it merely want to determine which of the flights were unofficial? Third, has the House stopped or is it going ahead to deal with a subject already in court under the pretext that it was yet to receive an injunction? Put differently, does anyone understand the exact issues pitching the National Assembly against the managers of our oil sector? Is it cake sharing?
Well, the legislature has powers to investigate any matter- the letters of our constitution in Sections 88 and 89 clearly say so. For this reason, we cannot question the legislature for complying with the law. Indeed, all public officials invited by the legislature ought to promptly report to it and answer all charges to pave the way for good governance and accountability.  But when we take a careful look at the spirit of the constitution, it is also obvious that no one anticipated that the provisions would make our legislature to become more proactive on the subject than our anti- corruption bodies and the police. No one knew for instance, that reporting to the National Assembly would be turned into the most important daily function of a Minister. Now that it is so, it is time to review our gains from the Elumelu power probe, that of Farouk Lawan on subsidy and the Hembe investigation of the stock exchange to mention only a few. If probes would sanitize our polity, all well and good; if not, it is time to limit those who approach equity to only those with clean hands.