Mainagate as Buhari’s defining moment
Nigerians received with great shock and disbelief the news that broke last week that the fugitive Abdulrashid Maina had sneaked back to Nigeria and had been restored to the federal civil service with a big promotion. Maina is one of the most reviled names in Nigerian public service. He was the man who, during the former administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, headed a task force on the old pension system, who was accused of embezzling hundreds of billions of naira, who contemptuously shunned invitations to appear before National Assembly probe committees, who was declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] for mega corruption, who was issued with a query and finally dismissed from the civil service and who then sneaked out of Nigeria through an illegal route and stayed in exile for many years, evidently with help from looted funds. It was the biggest of all shockers for Nigerians to hear that he was back in the country, walking the streets free with heavy security escort and was restored to a higher position in the civil service. The explanation provided by top government officials has been the most disjointed and the least credible in recent memory. Minister of Interior Lt General Abdurrahman Dambazau, to whose ministry Maina returned as director of human resources, said he had no hand in it. Head of the Civil Service of the Federation Mrs Oyo-Ita, whose office posted Maina, also said she had no hand in it. Attorney General of the Federation [AGF] and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN, whose office cleared Maina based on an overstretched interpretation of a 2013 court order and told other agencies to comply, said he acted in the best public interest and was waiting for presidential clearance to explain his role in the saga. Two days after the scandal broke, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered that Maina be sacked again from service and he demanded explanations from the Head of the Civil Service. EFCC also moved to seal Maina’s houses in Abuja and Kaduna. The presidency later said a probe is being conducted to determine who played what role in the saga. It was a case of too little, too late. Announcing another presidential probe made many Nigerians to yawn. This is because Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] Babachir David Lawal and director general of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency Ayo Oke were suspended ten months ago while allegations against them were being probed. There cannot be a probe in Nigeria higher than that one; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo headed it, with the Attorney General and the National Security Adviser as members. They were found guilty, according to a leaked report. Although Buhari received the report in September, nothing has been heard from it for two months now. Already, explanations [such as they were] by several top officials and Maina’s family members as well as leaked letters and documents have given the public a rough idea of what happened. The Attorney General said he acted in the best interest of Nigeria and rule of law. All indications are that his office did the exact opposite. The AGF’s office used a 2013 court order which quashed a subpoena for Maina to appear before a Senate committee, even though in the same ruling the judge urged Maina to appear before the committee and clear his name. Since the Head of Service’s query to Maina was predicated on the subpoena, the AGF’s office now said all processes leading up to his dismissal from service were consequentially quashed and ordered the FCSC to restore him to service. AGF’s office stretched interpretation of the court order to breaking point. It did not think of appealing the ruling; it disregarded Maina’s blatant refusal to appear before Senate and House committees to account for billions of naira in public funds entrusted to his care; it paid no regard to Maina’s absconding from work for three years or his being declared wanted by EFCC for mega fraud. To boot, it apparently did not seek clearance from the presidency, given the weighty issues involved, and it stampeded other agencies into carrying out its at best perverted interpretation of the law. This case therefore smacks of compromise and complicity by the AGF’s office and most probably by other high officials as well. Equally bizarre is the claim by presidential spokesman Garba Shehu that PDP elements orchestrated Maina’s recall in order to embarrass the administration. If so, then the APC administration has proved to be supremely incompetent. The episode of Abdulrashid Maina has embarrassed Nigeria no end and has made us to look foolish, unserious and a cesspool of corruption and duplicity in the eyes of the world. It has also severely damaged the Buhari administration’s image and has cast its top officials as duplicitous at worst or lacking in good judgement at best. For the president personally, it also cast him as distant and not being in charge when such a heinous deed could be perpetrated by his top officials without his knowledge. The Maina affair also came on top of other issues that together cast the administration as being in disarray, quarrelsome and harbouring officials whose actions and aspirations are the opposite of its touted Change mantra. We urge President Muhammadu Buhari to seize on the Maina episode and draw the line. He should move fast and get his administration’s act together. Unlike the Babachir and Oke case, we expect the president to speedily identify the culprits in the Maina saga and deal with them firmly. In many ways it is his last chance because if he again dilly dallies on this sordid affair, all his top officials will get the firm impression that they can get away with murder.