Cans of worms

The current free shows in town starring the president’s men cannot but be disgusting to any and all who care for decency in public officers and offices in our country. The president’s men are opening cans of wriggling worms almost daily. In the process they are showing a shocked populace how truly dysfunctional the system that undergirds this administration has become.

Ibrahim Magu is on suspension as EFCC chairman, accused of sundry crimes bordering on corruption. But his suspension has since given rise to a new drama starring the attorneygeneral of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, a senior lawyer, no less, and some of the president’s men who are taking advantage of what is happening to Magu to speak up and let the public know that the former acting chairman of EFCC might not be the worst offender in a system that boasts of a plethora of offenders. Serious allegations of corruption against Malami are trending in the social media. Of course, it is unwise to believe everything that trends in that alternative media, at least for your own health, but that these allegations are made against the chief law officer of the federation and the three star general in the anti-corruption war whose letter threw up the alleged dirty and corrupt dealings in the anti-graft body against Magu is bound to give the rest of us no small stomach ache.

But I am more disturbed by the allegations of what amounts, and sadly so, to Malami’s abuse of his exalted and powerful office. Those who should know what they are talking about alleged that he has been sabotaging the anti-corruption war by protecting some men from answering to the EFCC for their alleged corrupt deeds. These are allegations made by people who should know what they are talking about. They are not gossip mongers. It should worry us, even if the smoke is thicker than the fire. If the chief law officer of the federation undermines the antigraft war, it can only mean that huge camels are sauntering through the eye of the needle and, I would imagine, snickering.

Let me take two of these allegations against the AGF. President Buhari as part of his anti-graft war, set up the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property in his first term in office. Obono-Obla was the chairman of the body while Oluwatosin Ojaomo was the prosecutor. However, in 2019, according to the Punch newspaper of July 19, 2020, the president sacked Obono-Obla and dissolved the SPIP and directed that Malami should take over all

I am more disturbed by the allegations of what amounts, and sadly so, to Malami’s abuse of his exalted and powerful office. Those who should know what they are talking about alleged that he has been sabotaging the anti-corruption war by protecting some men from answering to the EFCC for their alleged corrupt deeds. These are allegations made by people who should know what they are talking about. outstanding investigations by it. While the other members of the panel were sent home, Ojaomo is still in office after a fashion, as it were. He told the newspaper that the attorney-general’s office retrieved over 500 case files from the scrapped panel and thereafter the department of public prosecutions in the federal ministry of justice set up an eight-man panel to review the files.

And there began the tangled web of protectionism.

Ojaomo is particularly angry that Malami refused to authorise the prosecution of cases investigated and brought before him. He cited the case of two wealthy brothers, Ibrahim and Tijjani Tumsah, who were in the net of the SPIP for alleged corruption. SPIP seized their assets, a real estate and 80 vehicles, none of which is a tokunboh vehicle, on the legitimate orders of a federal high court. The brothers were once civil servants. They are now free men and their property has been released to them because Malami refused to authorise SPIP to prosecute them. The court of appeal threw out the case against them because it said SPIP had no powers to institute the criminal case against them. Tijjani is now the interim national secretary of APC.

Here is Ojaomo’s lament: “Most of us that are ready to support the anti-corruption war have been hampered by the action of the AGF.” Weep, beloved country. And that leads us to this. Professor Itse Sagay is the chairman of the presidential advisory committee on anti-corruption. Here is what he told the Punch: “My own experience with Malami is that he is very lukewarm to the anticorruption war; he doesn’t play his own part. There have been occasions where the ministry had withheld information, withheld documents and generally refused to cooperate with the other agencies and various bodies charged with the responsibility of the campaign.

“So, I am not surprised that he is sitting on files because I have seen things before. He has entered nolle prosequi for cases being prosecuted by EFCC without any rational explanations. I don’t think Malami can be regarded as a reliable partner in the fight against corruption; he is at the very best lukewarm, if not hostile to it.

“In spite of that attitude, there is a lot of progress being made. The anti-corruption agencies went on regardless; that is where the whole idea of this insubordination (one of the AGF allegations against Magu) came in. But now, with the way things are, it is obvious that time has come to reappraise the whole thing and to bring his role to that critical assessment that we are talking about.”

I have quoted Sagay at length to underline my sympathy for Buhari in his anti-graft war. He staked his integrity on making sure that Nigeria would no longer be found in bed with Bangladesh by the time he leaves after two terms as president. He has been at it since 1984. I am not sure the war is going the way he thought it would. It has become self-contradictory and selective. The war commanders and their foot soldiers are using the instrumentality of the EFCC to blackmail and tarnish people’s reputation – and make them pay for it.

The president must accept that things are not what they seem on the anti-corruption war front. It is now necessary for him to reappraise the prosecution of the war and make necessary personnel and institutional changes. If he fails to do so and revamp the war, then he might as well forget the one legacy he hopes to the bequeath to the country. Because at the end of his eight years in office, this country would not have been transformed into a corruption-hating nation. It would still be found in bed with Bangladesh.

Nigeria.