The president’s men and my nightmare

I am beating my head trying to wake up from the nightmare of President Muhammadu Buhari presiding over an administration that places low premium on the rule of law, due process and its own public image. It is a nightmare for me because I had expected Buhari to run the most disciplined and transparent administration […]

I am beating my head trying to wake up from the nightmare of President Muhammadu Buhari presiding over an administration that places low premium on the rule of law, due process and its own public image. It is a nightmare for me because I had expected Buhari to run the most disciplined and transparent administration in the country so far. It is a nightmare for me because I believed that Buhari would never allow his aides to egregiously abuse their positions in a manner that would compromise his integrity and the integrity of his administration. I thought he would always be conscious of what Nigerians expected of and from him before they chose the historic path of sacking an incumbent president. 

The administration is today riddled with the sort of scandals one would never associate with one presided over by Buhari. It is so sad that the president’s men and women are busy sticking the pin in his balloon of integrity. It is painful because people like me have invested their hope in Buhari’s capacity to clean up our country and reposition it as a country of laws, not of men.

The latest scandal involving the reinstatement of Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the presidential task force on pension through an egregious abuse of due process, may perhaps be the worst of these series of scandals that now attend the administration but it is by no means the most embarrassing to Buhari and his government. Let me recall some of these.

Remember the embarrassing altercation between the minister of state for petroleum, Dr Kachikwu and the group managing director of NNPC, Alhaji Baru? It has simmered down but it left a sour taste in the mouth. 

About a year ago, the secretary to the government of the federation, Babachir David Lawal, was accused of awarding jumbo contracts to either his company or companies in which he has interest. He was suspended so that the allegations would be investigated. But before the committee chaired by the vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, could do its work the president cleared him. Yet the committee went ahead, carried out its assignment and duly submitted its report to the president in August. It did not find Lawal smelling roses. But mum has been the word from the president since then. His dithering over a matter that borders on corruption cannot do his reputation much good.

The tango between the senate and the acting chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu is pretty well known. Twice the president submitted his name to the senate for confirmation and two times the upper legislature turned him down. The senate acted on the basis of a report from the director-general of DSS that indicated that Magu has palm oil on his fingers. 

Whatever might be the politics of his trouble with the senate, the fact is that the law provides that the senate must confirm him for the job. If it refuses, the president must respect the rule of law and find someone else. But the president has ignored the senate, not least because Professor Itse Sagay, chairman of the presidential advisory committee rendered what was clearly a spurious legal opinion to the effect that Magu does not need to be confirmed by the senate. Laws are obeyed as they are, not as one would wish them to be.

Last week, the senate complained that two of the president’s appointees had assumed duty without confirmation by the senate. One is Lanre Gbajiamila, who has assumed duty as acting director-general of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission. Section 8 (1) of the enabling law of the commission stipulates that the appointee must be confirmed by the senate. He has not. 

The other is Nurudeen Abdulrahman Rafindadi, who has assumed duty as managing director/chief executive of the Federal Emergency Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA, without waiting to be confirmed, thus violating the law setting up the agency. Is the president not concerned?

Both men are acting illegally and in defiance of the act setting up the agencies over which they now preside. It is possible that the president does not know but it would be foolish to suggest that his aides are unaware of these illegalities. This is not the hallmark of an administration that should place high premium on the rule of law and due process.

In 2014 Louis Edozien was sacked as executive director, technical services, Niger Delta Power Holding Company for his failure to produce either an NYSC discharge certificate or a letter exempting him from the service. Mrs Maryam Dana Mohammed exposed him. But a year later, Edozien, who has never worked in the civil service was appointed a permanent secretary. And in 2016, Mohammed was sacked. He was rewarded for breaking the regulation but she was punished to drawing attention to the breach of the regulation.

Maina’s case is in a class of its own. For about four years, the assistant director dismissed in 2013, and with charges of alleged corrupt practices hanging over him, was on the run from the law. He was all the time hiding in plain view of the security agencies. Then, suddenly, he was back in office on a higher level. His reinstatement was backdated to when he was fired in 2013 and his salary arrears and all his entitlements were promptly paid to him. We may never have heard of this travesty but for the vigilance of Premium Times that broke the story. Was an unshockable nation shocked by one more needless scandal? At least, it gets us all talking about an administration trying to overdraw its deposit in the bank of public goodwill.

The president has ordered Maina’s immediate sack. The man promptly went back into hiding. In plain view of the security forces, of course. This time EFCC suddenly found five of his houses, each a mansion, and sealed them off. It is all very sordid.

The nation is perversely entertained by the president’s aides shifting responsibilities for this scandal. The actors in this drama of shame are the minister of interior, Lt-General Dambazau, the attorney-general and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, the head of service of the federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita and Maina’s family. We might enjoy this drama but we will laugh only to cry. All the instances I enumerated above show what little real progress we have made as a nation between yesterday and today. We still carry the shadow of yesterday’s failures around with us. 

I thought that after President Goodluck Jonathan, we would never again be victimised by the culture of impunity and pockets of godfatherism. I thought Buhari’s aides would always feel him looking over their shoulders and would be minded to do what is right, if only to preserve the president’s integrity and his intolerance for indiscipline and corruption. Alas! 

Despite investigations ordered by the president, what is certain is that the Nigerian public will never know the truth of what happened and how it happened and who should be held responsible for the Maina scandal. We are forced to munch on loads of lies, misinformation, fiction and obfuscation. Maina would never be found. You can bet on it. 

It is depressing. But if you think anyone would be punished for it, I advise you not to keep your fingers crossed. You might develop painful whitlow.