Of Corruption, NASS and Obasanjo’s Questionable Antecedents
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest attack on the 8th National Assembly is misplaced. Granted that Obasanjo had an axe to grind with the 4th and 5th sessions of the National Assembly, especially the 5th session, for frustrating his planned tenure elongation through his ill-fated Third Term agenda, should he then commit himself, for as long as he lives, to a selfish project of whimsically and continuously denigrating the institution of the Legislature?
Obasanjo would appear, from the outset of his administration on May 29, 1999, to hate the Legislature. Such disposition was in tandem with his dictatorial approach as a retired Army general and former military Head of State who would love to rule without checks and balances. He had indicated his intention to subjugate the Legislature by influencing its choice of leadership. In the Senate, he had ensured the emergence of Senator Evans Enwerem as senate president at the expense of a more popular Chuba Okadigbo, while in the House he had pushed through the candidature of Salisu Buhari as speaker.
But for legislators like Okadigbo, who succeeded Enwerem and later lost the seat in the supremacy battle with Obasanjo, and Hon Ghali Umar Na’Abba who replaced Buhari as speaker and served out his term, Obasanjo would have put the Federal legislature in his pocket for eight years. Indeed, Obasanjo had fancied a situation in which he would issue orders and the legislature would merely rubberstamp them. However, both Okadigbo and Na’Abba had galvanized the institution to fight for and defend the independence of the institution
And, because he did not succeed in “conquering” the National Assembly, Obasanjo had resorted to blackmailing the institution and its members. It is true that the National Assembly itself was not very prudent in its relationship with the Obasanjo administration, especially in the handling of the annual federal budgets, and therefore fell into some avoidable traps. For instance, in exercising its appropriation power, the National Assembly had and has allegedly always padded the budgets in connivance with the heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). That was one area of disagreement between Obasanjo and the National Assembly.
The second area was the issue of constituency projects. It was the Obasanjo bait which the Legislators fell for. In order to foster a cordial relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, members of the National Assembly were asked to recommend projects in their constituencies which would be accommodated in the budgets. There were reports that they even nominated contractors to execute the projects, for which money was released and with many of them allegedly colluding with the contractors to divert the money released for the projects. It was thus convenient for Obasanjo to lampoon the legislators as a bunch of corrupt men and women who should be treated without respect. The 8th session of the National Assembly under the All Progressive Congress (APC) is not culpable yet.
But the question to ask at this juncture is: what qualifies Obasanjo to continue to lambast members of the National Assembly on the issue of accountability and corruption? This question becomes imperative against the backdrop of the ignoble role he played in the N50-million-bribe per legislator in 2006 to vote for elongation of his tenure during the ill-fated constitution amendment that was facilitated for that sole purpose. I reliably gathered that the current Presidential Liaison Officer to the National Assembly, Hon Solomon Ita-Enang, who was then Chair of the Committee of Rules and Business in the House, rejected the bribe on the ground that it was against his faith.
Now, is it right for a patently corrupt man to point a finger of guilt at another supposedly corrupt person? Obasanjo is disqualified in all ramifications to pontificate about anticorruption war. He is a discredited moral crusader and should no longer relish in putting others on the spot on the issue of corruption. In fact, what baffles me in Obasanjo’s attitude is the pretence that is so barefaced. After running a government that, for eight years, unraveled as an epitome of both spiritual and moral corruption, it is indeed preposterous that he is trying to rewrite history, thinking he can pull the cloak over our faces. Nigerians, especially those who were direct victims of the corrupt practices that were redolent in the Obasanjo administration, cannot be deceived by his seeming sanctimoniousness.
Many of the persons he destroyed on account of his failed tenure elongation plan are alive today watching Obasanjo as he does his sainthood dance and, perhaps, marveling at the sheer hypocrisy of a supposed anti-graft crusader who had since lost his temporary occupation of the moral high ground. He had viciously turned round to use the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to persecute and prosecute some of those whom he had used to fund the failed tenure elongation plan. Knowing how the multi-billion naira funding was sourced, he simply directed the EFCC to the sources. There was no way the funders could then deny or close their tracks, having from the outset confided in Obasanjo how the funds were sourced.
His former “attack dog”, Ribadu, once said “that by far and even more than the Abacha days, corruption under Obasanjo’s eight years was far worse.” (Vanguard, September 11, 2011). The truth remains that it is the height of moral corruption and insincerity for Obasanjo to selectively deploy the EFCC to hunt down perceived political enemies and those who were not in his good books. This, however, is not to excuse those hapless victims. Perhaps, if they had done things properly, Obasanjo would not have had any reason to unleash the EFCC on them.
The point being made here is that selectivity in the fight against corruption which was the bane of the Obasanjo methodology and which President Muhammadu Buhari is now being accused of, is a dubious way of prosecuting the anti-graft crusade. For Buhari, he has the opportunity to rejig the strategy to drive the anti-graft war. But unfortunately for Obasanjo, whose opportunity to recreate a new Nigeria has come and gone without taking it, he no longer has the moral voice to criticise the National Assembly or any arm of government for that matter on the issue of corruption.
The legacy of corruption in Nigeria would appear quite evident in the squandering of over $16 billion on the power sector under the Obasanjo administration at the end of which the administration left Nigeria in darkness. In the oil sector in which Obasanjo was the minister, the massive fraud in the award of contracts at the NNPC remains one of the filthiest in the annals of corruption in Nigeria. Was it not for his pecuniary interest that he established the so-called Transcorp Conglomerate and sold Nigeria’s prime assets to this group. Is it true that he allegedly kept in the blind in the conglomerate a personal N200 million worth of shares?
Besides, how does one relate with the report that under his administration, as much as N231.4 billion was allegedly withdrawn from the Federation Account without due process or National Assembly’ authorization? (Daily Sun of February 5, 2009). How does one describe his N7-billion-library purportedly built with illegally acquired public funds? Is it not particularly curious that Obasanjo’s latest attack on the National Assembly came at the time there were indications that the Federal Government may revisit the Halliburton and Siemens cases involving some foreign nationals and in which some former public officials have been indicted and yet to be prosecuted; whereas those involved and indicted in other countries are already serving jail terms? The questions to ask are: did these scandals not take place under Obasanjo’s government? Was one of his aides not indicted in the scandals? Obasanjo may find it convenient to say that his small aide was not his proxy and that he acted on his own in the international bribery conspiracy, but I certainly will be at pains to agree with him if he says so.
Finally, it will be recalled that in 2008, there was a strident call in the media by Civil Society Organisations demanding the probe of Obasanjo for these various criminal violations and in all areas in which the former President was alleged to have committed economic crimes against the nation (Daily Trust of November 17, 2008). Indeed, rather than wax sanctimonious on corruption issue, which I think is a lame strategy to divert attention from himself and his perfidious past, Obasanjo should submit himself to a public inquiry to answer for his years of alleged corruption in Nigeria. It is after he has come out clean that his attacks on the National Assembly and, indeed any other arm of government, will be meaningful in the context of driving the anti-graft war on the strength of his so-called record of accountability in office.
In fact, what baffles me in Obasanjo’s attitude is the pretence that is so barefaced. After running a government that, for eight years, unraveled as an epitome of both spiritual and moral corruption, it is indeed preposterous that he is trying to rewrite history, thinking he can pull the cloak over our faces