EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu lamented last Wednesday that Nigeria was losing
\nthe war on corruption. It was an honest\u00a0deposition.<\/p>\n
Over two years\u00a0after being sworn in,\u00a0despite much talk and\u00a0relentless\u00a0over
\npouring of\u00a0public support and encouragement, the Buhari-Osinbajo
\ngovernment has failed to lock up a single corrupt politician or their
\nbusinessmen cronies. Not one. The closest Buhari came to locking someone
\nup was with former Adamawa state governor Ngilari, but he was soon
\nacquitted of all charges.<\/p>\n
They say corruption is fighting back. If this is a war then corruption has
\nwon. And if this was England, the Prime minister would have resigned. But
\nalas, it is not. It is Nigeria and we must trudge on.
\nI\u2019ll list\u00a0ten\u00a0notable failures of the Buhari government in tackling
\ncorruption and cases where this\u00a0administration in itself appears to be
\nfighting back on behalf of corruption.<\/p>\n
1. The Buhari government has adamantly refused to release names of looters
\nwho have refunded parts of their stash in return for a secret amnesty of
\nsorts. In spite of a court order compelling the Buhari government to do
\nso, it has persistently defended these corrupt cabal by concealing their
\nidentities.<\/p>\n
2. While the Obasanjo government as criticized as it was, was quite
\nsuccessful in locking up\u00a0dozens\u00a0on charges of corruption, including
\nInspector General\u2019s of the Police, and even state governors by first
\nimpeaching them and then incarcerating them, the Buhari government\u00a0appears
\nto lack even a fragment of such capabilities or interests.<\/p>\n
3. One of the reasons that have been attributed to the Buhari-Osinbajo
\ngovernment\u2019s failures in fighting the corrupt is its open partiality. The
\nJudiciary is not\u00a0persuaded to fulfill its obligations when it sees\u00a0that
\nall you need to do is switch to the ruling party to be\u00a0protected from
\nprobe. The examples are too many to mention.\u00a0Allegations that Buhari
\nremoved the names of Dambazau and Buratai from an army probe report, did
\nnot help matters.<\/p>\n
4. The cases of SGF Babachir Lawal the \u201cgrasscutter\u201d and NIA boss Ayodele
\nOke are perhaps two highly prominent and globally noticed examples of
\nBuhari and Osinbajo\u2019s shamelessness in protecting the corrupt. Buhari has
\nso far shielded these accused individuals from EFCC investigation and
\npunishment for almost a year and continues to. This is a most serious blow
\nto the supposed war against corruption.<\/p>\n
5. As I have repeatedly mentioned, Buhari cannot and will never prosecute
\nformer NSA Dasuki outside of the media\u00a0conviction. For the two plus years
\nBuhari has been in office, he has kept Dasuki in an unprecedented state of
\nlimbo: locked in house arrest and never brought to court. The case
\ncontinues to be adjourned indefinitely. An alleged illegal deal negotiated
\nby the Dangotes, Abdulsalamis and Kukahs which granted Amnesty to Goodluck
\nJonathan is believed to be part of the reason Buhari cannot try Dasuki.
\nDasuki cannot go down without taking Jonathan with him. And then perhaps
\nBuhari does not wish to prosecute a son of the Sokoto caliphate,
\nregardless of tens of thousands of Nigerians that supposedly died due to
\nhis gravid corruption.<\/p>\n
6. The games Buhari played on the Halliburton corruption case involving
\nAPC party sponsor Atiku Abubakar and cabals Obasanjo, IBB, Abdulsalami and
\nthe like, leave little doubt that while tens of thousands of Nigerians are
\nlocked up for petty theft, the cabal will go scot free under Buhari. When
\nhe was heading to USA, under pressure, Buhari announced the re-opening of
\nthe\u00a0Halliburton case. Upon his return he shut it once again. There is no
\nclearer example of his posture against corruption: the cabal are
\nguaranteed immunity.<\/p>\n
7. The whistleblower program has been destroyed. Firstly, the protection
\nof Ayodele Oke and his wife implicated in the over $43 million stash found
\nin an Ikoyi apartment, discouraged whistle blowers. Secondly cases where
\nmoney was found but the culprits concealed by the Buhari government, have
\nweakened public trust and hope in the program. The case of\u00a0N49
\nmillion\u00a0found at the Kaduna\u00a0airport comes to mind. Thirdly,\u00a0the EFCC in
\nAugust conceded that due to the \u201cembarrassment\u201d of \u00a0misses, it was now
\nreluctant to follow up on blown leads. The program is almost dead.<\/p>\n
8. The FOREX subsidy scam, where cabal received emoluments of billions of
\ndollars from the Buhari government in subsidized FOREX is a major dent on
\nthe Buhari government. Reuters reported that\u00a0PDP and APC sponsor Aliko
\nDangote received as much as $100 million dollars gift from Buhari in just
\nthree months. Extrapolated, the effect of the FOREX subsidy scam rivals
\nthe fuel subsidy scam of the previous administration. Former Central bank
\ngovernor and now Emir, Sanusi II lamented that Buhari and his Apex bank
\ngovernor Godwin Emefiele were making brand new billionaires daily, by
\nrunning the scam. Not the posture of a government serious against
\ncorruption.<\/p>\n
9. The refusal of the Buhari government to as much as look at the Panama
\npapers which\u00a0indicted\u00a0 people like senate president Bukola Saraki and
\nbusiness mogul Aliko Dangote among others, makes it hard to say Buhari is
\nserious about fighting corruption.<\/p>\n
10. The ignored cases of Rep member Jubril, Honorable Kopa and Senator
\nHamma, all openly hounded for exposing suspected cases of corruption in
\nthe establishment is a serious dash to the hope in Buhari of fighting
\ncorruption. The Buhari-Osinbajo government has not given any support or
\neven faintly resonated with these whistleblowers. Buhari simply turns
\naway, disinterested in investigating the allegations and netting those
\nimplicated if guilty. Once you are a government official or power cabal,
\nBuhari will not disturb you, it seems.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, perhaps Buhari\u2019s infirmity has left him politically
\nvulnerable and hence afraid to touch the corrupt cabal whose cooperation
\nand support he solicits to retain his office in spite of his being absent
\nform Nigeria for large swaths of time. But\u00a0for whatever reason, be it by
\nsickness or preference,\u00a0Nigeria has lost its hope of defeating corruption
\nand\u00a0seeing the corrupt punished for stealing the future of its citizens.
\nThe starving country must wait till 2019 to fulfill the need to lock up
\nthe wicked thieves\u00a0who have brazenly looted its common wealth and
\nsentenced the masses to pain and death by poverty.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: NewsRescue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu lamented last Wednesday that Nigeria was losing the war on corruption. It was an honest\u00a0deposition. Over two years\u00a0after being sworn in,\u00a0despite much talk and\u00a0relentless\u00a0over pouring of\u00a0public…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n