Nadir For Anti-Corruption War
President Muhammadu Buhari’s letter to the Senate last week, in which he brushed aside allegations of impropriety and corruption levelled against Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal and Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] Ibrahim Mustapha Magu came as a rude shock to Nigerians because it was a total departure from his globally acclaimed stance against corruption and misdeed. The letter, which was read on the Senate floor last Tuesday, amounted to the application of double standards in the anticorruption war.
In the letter addressed to Senate President Bukola Saraki, Buhari rejected the Senate’s call to sack and prosecute the SGF for corruption in the handling of funds of the Presidential Initiative for the North East, PINE. The president gave three reasons for his decision, all of them factually, procedurally and morally untenable. Buhari said following receipt of the Senate’s letter, he set up a review team to consider the Senate’s recommendations and conducted further investigation based on Lawal’s response to the allegations. He did not say if this was the review that he ordered Attorney General of the Federation [AGF] Abubakar Malami to undertake.
Buhari said Senate’s demand for Engr Babachir Lawal to resign and be prosecuted was based on “an interim report as against a final report.” He said only three members of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crises in the North East signed the report, which he said “makes it a minority report.” He also said neither the SGF nor Rholavision, the company that Babachir admitted to owning, was given an opportunity to appear before the committee to defend themselves. “In the light of the foregoing, I am not able to approve the recommendation to remove and prosecute Engr Lawal on the basis of the Senate ad-hoc committee report dated 15th December, 2016.”
All three reasons advanced by the president are tenuous and amounted to a clutching of straws in order to protect a personal friend and political ally. It is true that the Senate committee report was interim but then, the Senate approved it at plenary, which was why it was sent to the president. Besides, President Buhari himself once acted on an interim report when he ordered many serving and former military and civilian officials to be arrested and prosecuted based on an interim report of the committee that probed funds meant for weapons purchases during the Jonathan era.
Nor was it true that three members signed because seven of the nine members did. Similarly, the claim that Lawal was not given a chance to defend himself before the panel is not true. Apart from the public invitation published in the newspapers, leaked documents from the committee included a letter from a permanent secretary in the SGF’s office acknowledging the invitation for Lawal to appear. The fact that he failed to appear before it cannot in any way invalidate its work, since top government officials regularly resort to the trick of refusing to appear before legislative probe committees. This excuse also shows a very high degree of inconsistency in the Buhari regime’s anticorruption war since Attorney General Malami charged Senate President Saraki to court over alleged forgery of Senate rules even though Saraki was not even questioned by the Police DIG that conducted the probe.
In the same letter, President Buhari also asked Senate to again consider Ibrahim Magu for confirmation as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC], the Senate having rejected his confirmation last month. The reason for the rejection was a Department of State Services [DSS] report sent to the Senate Clerk which indicted Magu of some misdeeds. It is noteworthy that DSS has not withdrawn this letter. The President, too, sidestepped the allegations in his letter last week, saying only that he was “convinced that the Acting Chairman of EFCC carries out anti-corruption crusade in line with the vision of the administration.” He said, “In view of my conviction, there is need to maintain momentum of anti-graft fight, while I urge the Senate to reconsider Ibrahim Magu as substantive EFCC Chairman.”
The neither here nor there character of the president’s letter made it possible for “a top administration official” to tell reporters later last week that President Buhari “has not cleared the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal of allegations of corruption made against him by the Senate.” According to the official who spoke anonymously, “What this means is that the president wants to be able to handle the matter on his own terms, based purely on proper adherence to extant public service rules and procedures relating to abuse of office by public officers. If he is going to discipline his own appointee, he would rather do it properly, not railroaded.”
This volte face was most certainly occasioned by the huge uproar that greeted the president’s earlier letter. It is however a case of too little, too late. The presidency has not said what, if any, investigation is still going on with respect to the substantive allegations made against the two top officials, the procedural niceties apart. It is quite clear from this episode that the administration has a different anti-corruption procedure that gives maximum benefit of doubt to accused persons where its own loyalists are concerned. This is in sharp contrast to the shoot first, ask questions later approach that it applies to others, especially officials of the former regime.
Unless urgent and decisive measures are taken to end this perception of unfairness and double standard, this episode could spell the death knell of the Buhari regime’s anticorruption war, which is the main fulcrum of its legitimacy in Nigerians’ eyes.