Sylva Undermining Buhari’s Anti-corruption Pledge

When President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, declared that anybody with a whiff of corruption won’t play any role in his government, I was encouraged - even though I was cynical and doubtful whether he would have the political will to carry through that pledge. My cynicism was based on the fact that corruption is all around him. I wrote an article last week calling on APC to adopt Buhari’s zero tolerance for corruption as the new operational philosophy in all appointments into sensitive positions, be it for senate president, speaker, majority leader, etc. I was doubly glad when I read in the SUN newspaper, last Friday that Buhari had called for credible men and women of unblemished integrity to be elected to leadership positions in the National Assembly.

You can therefore imagine my shock and horror when I also read in the news last week that the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva, is Co-chairman of the 27-man Buhari’s inauguration committee. I asked why? What is Sylvia doing on the panel? What message is Buhari sending out so soon after he made his anti-corruption pledge? What happened to his pledge that anybody with a whiff of corruption won’t hold any position in his government? For those who don’t know, Sylvia is currently facing multiple counts of money laundering, corruption and outright stealing of public money in a Federal High Court in Abuja in suit No. FHC/ABJ/CR/23/2012. The case has since been stalled in court just like cases against so many former governors who are now strutting around as agents of change today - some are even aspiring to higher offices in the land. Is it not an irony that these are the very same people who now want to help Buhari midwife the rebirth of a new Nigeria? What qualifies Sylva to even be on that panel, more so, co-chairing the panel? Does this not violently undermine Buhari’s zero tolerance for corruption? Look, nobody is saying Sylva is guilty, but let him go and purge himself of those charges before he gets any appointment. It is appalling that some people will even try to defend him. We must set an example - we must send a strong message to the world that this change is real and meaningful. We cannot continue in the very same way these people condemned President Goodluck Jonathan on the campaign train when he appointed Femi Fani-Kayode as presidential campaign spokesman when he had a pending criminal case with EFCC in court. It is time to walk the talk: anybody with a whiff of corruption must not be allowed close to public office until he or she purges self of those charges in a court of law, period! It will be a strong message from the president-elect to Nigerians. You cannot give the keys to a vault to a man who had once robbed a bank and expect to meet the vault intact.