Since the commencement of this administration, nothing has pitched President Muhammadu Buhari against the National Assembly, members of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), the opposition and civil society groups like his last week’s response to the Senate’s recommendation to sack the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Engr. David Babachir Lawal.
It is obvious that various groups within the National Assembly and other places are looking for a way to fight back since the Secretary to the Government of the Federation was given a ‘clean bill’ by the Presidency.
In the past one week, many pundits have not minced words in accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of shifting the goalpost as far as his much-celebrated anti-corruption crusade is concerned. They accused the president of selective justice, saying it was an opportunity for him to prove his ardent critics wrong.
Some senators who spoke to Daily Trust on Sunday threatened that if nothing is done about their recommendations, they may suspend approval of funds to the office of the SGF. Senator Isa Hamma Misau (APC, Bauchi) had advocated the withholding of capital allocation to all agencies under the supervision of the SGF.
Speaking, he said, “Only allocation for salaries and other recurrent expenditures should be appropriated for all agencies under the supervision of a corrupt person”.
“Buhari claims to be a pious leader, but what we see these days clearly violate the concept of fair treatment. It is short of the ideal, and I think he is really caught up somewhere. It is wrong to say that Babachir cannot be prosecuted because the allegations against him were not proven. As you can see, all the clarifications given in the past few days are afterthoughts. Those handling the president have goofed.
“Hundreds of PDP members were arrested and locked, even before any investigation was carried out. They were kept in prison custody before investigation commenced and many are still behind bars. It is only in Nigeria that you see this kind of thing - selective justice, if you like,” A.A Uba, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said.
The Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led PDP was equally not mild in its response. “The Presidency, in today’s dispensation, is the ‘judicial clearing house,’ issuing clean bill of health to all accused corrupt officials who are members of the APC and friends of the administration.
“It is quite disturbing that the president cleared his SGF of wrongdoing despite the weighty evidence of his ‘grass-cutting abilities’ uncovered by the Senate. He was also accused of complicity in the award of contracts relating to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp in Borno State, amounting to over N200 million,” the party stated in a press release issued by its spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye.
Buhari was misled into signing ‘exoneration’ letter
It was gathered that already, many members of the National Assembly and those close to President Buhari within the party are aware of the “diminishing rating” of the ongoing anti-corruption fight. Some ranking senators who are of the APC said the SGF must be sacked for the president to be taken seriously.
The senators, who spoke to our correspondent in separate interviews, expressed shock over the president’s response, which defended the SGF.
Buhari had, in the letter to the Senate, dated January 17, faulted the resolution of the Upper Chamber on Babachir, saying the senators were not fair to the SGF.
The Senate had, in December, called for the sack of Babachir, following the interim report of an ad hoc committee constituted to investigate the N1.3billion contract scandal that rocked the Presidential Initiative on North-East (PINE) under his supervision.
Specifically, the Senate said the SGF’s company, Rholavision Engineering Limited, was awarded consultancy contract for the removal of the invasive plant species in Yobe State.
Speaking to our correspondent, a senator said the president was misled into signing the letter. “Somebody wrote the letter, gave it to him to sign and he did that hastily without knowing the content of the communication. They are saying the Senate’s report was an interim report. Was the report that sent Dasuki to prison not an interim report?
“Buhari’s letter has already deflated his anti-corruption war. The only way out is for him to sack the SGF because aside from the fight against terrorism in the North-East, the anti-corruption war is our selling point, nothing else,” he said.
The ranking senator, who is from the North, said they were totally disappointed with the president’s position on the matter and how it is being handled.
“How do we explain this? We are fighting corruption and the SGF has been found wanting from all angles, yet the president is defending him. Facts are sacred, he should go,” he said.
While admitting that the resolution of the Senate was advisory, he said Buhari must act on it. “He can simply ask the SGF to step down so that investigation can be completed. This can give credibility to the whole thing and the outcome can determine the faith of the embattled SGF.
“Yes, we know our resolution is advisory, but a government that has corruption fight as its policy thrust must act on it,” he said.
Another ranking senator who is close to the Presidency said Buhari’s letter negated the moves to cement the crack between the Executive and the Legislature.
“The letter came at a time when we are trying to bring our caucuses together to work for the country. With this letter now, a new battle-line has been drawn.
You know that before now, there were issues frustrating us in our caucuses. Frankly speaking, the letter was unnecessary and those that wrote it are enemies of the president,” he said.
Rather than send the letter, he said the president should have invited the leadership of the Senate alongside the party (APC) top echelon to thrash out the issue.
He said that with the new development, it would be difficult to convince the senators to have a rethink on the issue.
Meanwhile, our reporter gathered that the final report of the ad hoc committee chaired by Senator Shehu Sani would be ready by the end of February.
The report would be considered when the Senate resumes plenary. The Senate suspended plenary till February 21 for budget defence.
A source close to the committee said, “Another public hearing will be organised because a lot of prominent personalities have been mentioned in the PINE contracts scandal. The final report will shake the country.”
But another senator said the SGF issue was dead. “I have been in the National Assembly for 12 years and I have never heard of interim report. Why are they rushing? If the allegations are facts, they don’t need to rush into considering the interim report,” he said.
President caught between loyalty and morality
Sources said President Buhari was not unaware of the weighty allegations against Babachir and their implications on his personal integrity and the “plummeting rating” of his government. A senior official of the APC, who does not want to be named, said the grass cutting allegation was just one out of many contentious issues that would have warranted the sack of the SGF.
“So many issues are waiting for presidential action. One of them is the messing up of board appointments by the SGF-led committee, which is now being handled by the vice president.
“Although the SGF had denied compromising the list of the prospective appointees, many APC members across the 36 states of the federation are not happy with him,” he said.
Another APC source said even members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) are at a crossroad with the SGF.
“He really looks down on some ministers, making their work extremely difficult because they don’t have access to the president. Nothing is moving; the government is at a standstill,” he said.
In a recent interview, Chief Ikeobasi Mokelu, a chieftain of the APC who served as the late President Sani Abacha’s last information and culture minister between 1997 and 1998, said, “you can always assess the weaknesses and strengths of a president or head of state from the perspective of the engine of the government proper. When a government is perceived to be weak, it’s because the engine of the government is not driven properly, or is driven by inexperience or by ineptitude. The Presidency is not the engine of government. The engine of government is the cabinet office (Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation),” he said.
But another source said Buhari was caught between rewarding loyalty and morality.
“The president is morally bound to suspend the SGF, but Babachir is one his closest allies who sacrificed a lot during difficult times,” he said, adding that Buhari has never doubted his loyalty, and if recent events are anything to go by, he will sack virtually everyone close to him.
“And by sacking the likes of Babachir, the president will literally strip himself of immunity because the odds are many,” he said.
Presidency to decide SGF’s fate
A senior Presidency official told Daily Trust on Sunday that Buhari would ensure that the matter is concluded with fairness to all involved. The official, who asked not to be named, said the president’s recent letter to the Senate, rejecting its recommendation to remove and prosecute the SGF, did not indicate his ultimate decision on the substantive allegations against Babachir.
The official clarified: “In his letter to the Senate, the president explained why he could not accede to the request by the Senate based on the circumstances, clearly leaving open the conclusion of the matter by other means.
“He (Buhari) said he could not accede to the recommendation of the Senate on grounds of lack of fair hearing, and that the resolution was signed by a minority of the Senate panel, and that the panel report itself was an interim one.
“This does not mean that President Buhari is done with the investigation of the said allegations, or that he has condoned alleged corrupt actions by the SGF. 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 rules and procedures relating to the abuse of office by public officers.
“If he is going to discipline his own appointee, he would rather do it properly, not railroaded. No one should be in doubt of the resolve of Mr. President to sustain his long-held reputation for integrity and his zero-level tolerance for corruption. But things must be done properly, and seen to be so. And that is what the president is keen on ensuring.
“Actually, the president had expected the Senate to conclude its report substantively and tender a full report while he continues his own investigation through a team he had set up to review the matter with the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.
“The president’s letter to the Senate was very clear, even though media reports focused only on a few aspects of it. For instance, in the second paragraph of the letter to the Senate President, President Buhari explained thus: ‘I set up a review team to consider the recommendations from the Senate committee. I have also conducted further investigations based on Engineer Lawal’s response to the allegations and issues raised in the Senate’s resolution, and I have come to the conclusion that I believe will guide the Senate in the proper review of its interim report.
“This is a forward-looking indication. The president expected a broader and thorough job from the Senate, and he won’t be opposed to a broader job by the legislative chamber. Besides, the president is determined to get to the root of the matter, considering the weight of the allegations.
“In the letter to the Senate, the president noted that a final report ‘ought to have been presented to the Senate in plenary for adoption as a binding and final report before submission to the presidency, given the weight of allegations in the report.’
“No one who knows the president very well will think this case is over. Wait and see; this case will be concluded with fairness to all involved, including the Nigerian people.”
CSOs differ
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have expressed divergent views on the “presidential clearance” of the SGF.
Is separate interviews with Daily Trust on Sunday, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC); the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD); the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED); the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and the Protest to Power Movement (PTPM), expressed reservation on the success of the anti-corruption war.
The executive director of CISLAC, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani; the director of the CDD, Idayat Hassan; the executive director of the CHRICED, Dr. Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi; the lead director of the CSJ, Eze Onyekpere, and the national coordinator of the PTPM and co-convener, Say No Campaign (SNC), Jaye Gaskia, however, expressed divergent views on the way forward.
Rafsanjani said the problem in the Senator Shehu Sani committee report and his comment on President Buhari on the SGF was due to lack of legislative understanding.
He said since the committee’s report had not been debated by the whole chamber for a collective decision to be taken, it cannot be a basis for executive action.
“If there was no fair hearing, it would be difficult to take a decision to sack the SGF.
“Comments and attacks on the efforts of the president at fighting corruption based on the report and the observations by the presidency are not sufficient to condemn the whole fight against corruption in Nigeria. There are obvious efforts to minimise corruption,” Rafsanjani said, adding that Senator Shehu Sani should not join those determined to frustrate efforts at fighting corruption in Nigeria. He, however, said he expected the SGF to step aside pending when the allegation is properly investigated.
“If that is not done, his integrity and that of the government would be perceived wrongly by the general public. It is my view that since there is a conscious effort by some people to bastardise the fight against corruption in Nigeria, we have to be careful and not allow them to continue with their evil plan to destroy Nigeria and Nigerians,” he added.
On her part, Idayat Hassan said President Buhari made his decision on the SGF more on process than substance. “The president emphasised the lack of fair hearing and failure of all committee members to sign as part of the basis of his decision. However, the core question on Babachir’s innocent or otherwise cannot be glossed over at all.
“This does not augur well for the fight against corruption. It was the same administration that abused the law and due process to keep some accused persons in prison for reasons best known to them and forcefully entered judges’ houses in the interest of justice. So they cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time. Why can’t an investigation be launched? The fight against corruption remains uncoordinated with quick wins so far,” she said.
Dr. Zikirullahi said the fight against corruption was working to the extent that influential persons are being tried in courts today. He said it was working because it is known that “the likes of Dasuki, Olisa Metuh, Diezani, Yuguda, and many others looted Nigeria dry”.
New frontier for Senate, Executive war opens
Barrister Onyekpere said the president’s refusal to act on the Senate recommendation to sack the SGF was a demonstration of the comatose state of the war against corruption. He said it showed “presidential insincerity and hypocrisy”.
“It is a sad testament to the fact that there are now two sets of laws for Nigerians, one for Buhari’s elected saints and the other for us, the other people of Nigeria who do not belong to his elect,” Onyekpere said.
He said the development would definitely sour the relationship between the Senate and the Executive, “as no reasonable person expects the Senate to take this slight without a fight”.
“The Senate could consider standing down the 2017 appropriation to the office of the SGF until a fit and proper person is appointed to occupy the office,” he added.
On his part, the national coordinator of the PTPM and co-convener, Say No Campaign (SNC), Jaye Gaskia, said the president’s response to the Senate on the resignation and prosecution of the SGF was very unfortunate and condemnable.
“The response of the Presidency is quite shocking and demonstrates that the fight against corruption is not being institutionalised at all. Even if the processes of the Senate could be faulted with respect to the report being an interim one, any serious government would have responded to the allegations against some of its key officials and nominees by actually directing an open and transparent investigation into the allegations. But what do we have here? It is a pathetic attempt to dismiss the allegations as trivial. If the Senate has any honour at all, it would reject the letters and insist that proper investigations be done,” he said.
Meanwhile, Babachir has not shown any sign of distress as he was seen throughout last week attending to his schedules. Workers in his office were, however, seen expressing mixed feelings. Some welcomed his “clearance” while others said the president had dealt a blow to the anti-corruption war.
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