EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu lamented last Wednesday that Nigeria was losing
the war on corruption. It was an honest deposition.
Over two years after being sworn in, despite much talk and relentless over
pouring of public support and encouragement, the Buhari-Osinbajo
government has failed to lock up a single corrupt politician or their
businessmen cronies. Not one. The closest Buhari came to locking someone
up was with former Adamawa state governor Ngilari, but he was soon
acquitted of all charges.
They say corruption is fighting back. If this is a war then corruption has
won. And if this was England, the Prime minister would have resigned. But
alas, it is not. It is Nigeria and we must trudge on.
I’ll list ten notable failures of the Buhari government in tackling
corruption and cases where this administration in itself appears to be
fighting back on behalf of corruption.
1. The Buhari government has adamantly refused to release names of looters
who have refunded parts of their stash in return for a secret amnesty of
sorts. In spite of a court order compelling the Buhari government to do
so, it has persistently defended these corrupt cabal by concealing their
identities.
2. While the Obasanjo government as criticized as it was, was quite
successful in locking up dozens on charges of corruption, including
Inspector General’s of the Police, and even state governors by first
impeaching them and then incarcerating them, the Buhari government appears
to lack even a fragment of such capabilities or interests.
3. One of the reasons that have been attributed to the Buhari-Osinbajo
government’s failures in fighting the corrupt is its open partiality. The
Judiciary is not persuaded to fulfill its obligations when it sees that
all you need to do is switch to the ruling party to be protected from
probe. The examples are too many to mention. Allegations that Buhari
removed the names of Dambazau and Buratai from an army probe report, did
not help matters.
4. The cases of SGF Babachir Lawal the “grasscutter” and NIA boss Ayodele
Oke are perhaps two highly prominent and globally noticed examples of
Buhari and Osinbajo’s shamelessness in protecting the corrupt. Buhari has
so far shielded these accused individuals from EFCC investigation and
punishment for almost a year and continues to. This is a most serious blow
to the supposed war against corruption.
5. As I have repeatedly mentioned, Buhari cannot and will never prosecute
former NSA Dasuki outside of the media conviction. For the two plus years
Buhari has been in office, he has kept Dasuki in an unprecedented state of
limbo: locked in house arrest and never brought to court. The case
continues to be adjourned indefinitely. An alleged illegal deal negotiated
by the Dangotes, Abdulsalamis and Kukahs which granted Amnesty to Goodluck
Jonathan is believed to be part of the reason Buhari cannot try Dasuki.
Dasuki cannot go down without taking Jonathan with him. And then perhaps
Buhari does not wish to prosecute a son of the Sokoto caliphate,
regardless of tens of thousands of Nigerians that supposedly died due to
his gravid corruption.
6. The games Buhari played on the Halliburton corruption case involving
APC party sponsor Atiku Abubakar and cabals Obasanjo, IBB, Abdulsalami and
the like, leave little doubt that while tens of thousands of Nigerians are
locked up for petty theft, the cabal will go scot free under Buhari. When
he was heading to USA, under pressure, Buhari announced the re-opening of
the Halliburton case. Upon his return he shut it once again. There is no
clearer example of his posture against corruption: the cabal are
guaranteed immunity.
7. The whistleblower program has been destroyed. Firstly, the protection
of Ayodele Oke and his wife implicated in the over $43 million stash found
in an Ikoyi apartment, discouraged whistle blowers. Secondly cases where
money was found but the culprits concealed by the Buhari government, have
weakened public trust and hope in the program. The case of N49
million found at the Kaduna airport comes to mind. Thirdly, the EFCC in
August conceded that due to the “embarrassment” of misses, it was now
reluctant to follow up on blown leads. The program is almost dead.
8. The FOREX subsidy scam, where cabal received emoluments of billions of
dollars from the Buhari government in subsidized FOREX is a major dent on
the Buhari government. Reuters reported that PDP and APC sponsor Aliko
Dangote received as much as $100 million dollars gift from Buhari in just
three months. Extrapolated, the effect of the FOREX subsidy scam rivals
the fuel subsidy scam of the previous administration. Former Central bank
governor and now Emir, Sanusi II lamented that Buhari and his Apex bank
governor Godwin Emefiele were making brand new billionaires daily, by
running the scam. Not the posture of a government serious against
corruption.
9. The refusal of the Buhari government to as much as look at the Panama
papers which indicted people like senate president Bukola Saraki and
business mogul Aliko Dangote among others, makes it hard to say Buhari is
serious about fighting corruption.
10. The ignored cases of Rep member Jubril, Honorable Kopa and Senator
Hamma, all openly hounded for exposing suspected cases of corruption in
the establishment is a serious dash to the hope in Buhari of fighting
corruption. The Buhari-Osinbajo government has not given any support or
even faintly resonated with these whistleblowers. Buhari simply turns
away, disinterested in investigating the allegations and netting those
implicated if guilty. Once you are a government official or power cabal,
Buhari will not disturb you, it seems.
In conclusion, perhaps Buhari’s infirmity has left him politically
vulnerable and hence afraid to touch the corrupt cabal whose cooperation
and support he solicits to retain his office in spite of his being absent
form Nigeria for large swaths of time. But for whatever reason, be it by
sickness or preference, Nigeria has lost its hope of defeating corruption
and seeing the corrupt punished for stealing the future of its citizens.
The starving country must wait till 2019 to fulfill the need to lock up
the wicked thieves who have brazenly looted its common wealth and
sentenced the masses to pain and death by poverty.
Courtesy: NewsRescue