President Muhammadu Buhari's trump card in 2019 presidential election wouldn't be signposted on the war against corruption. That's if he is strong enough to take a shot at the presidency for a second time. It would be something else, unknown to Nigerians. Because the anti-corruption plank upon which he stood to pull the rug off former President Goodluck Jonathan's foot is weakened and has lost its lustre. President Jonathan's corrupt dealings can now be properly said to be mere stealing, while under Mr. Buhar, corruption is the air the nation breathes.
Dead on economic recovery direction, lack of initiatives on power generation, killing and kidnapping of Nigerians by his Fulani herdsmen, inequality of education, and other woes plaguing the nation, President Buhari has shamed himself as an ethnic potentate whose bigotry is beyond comprehension. Buhari's Presidency which stands on antigraft solo soil has been romanticising with the nation's past and present financial criminals from Northern Nigeria who allegedly sponsored his presidential election to the office where he hopes to prosecute his war against graft!
Nations approach tipping point as a result of unremitting corruption which leads to economic turmoil by fostering staggering poverty and broken economic systems on the people and society and kneecaps a nation’s ability to function.
Again, President Buhari's resistance to restructuring specific power structures and government architectures has provided an easier means for corrupt officials to exploit his government.
The questions on my mind has been since President Buhari has been plagued with delicate health or as a unregenerated military dictator, would that also have eroded his consciousness on key national and international sensitive issues bothering on concrete governance of the country? Did Buhari ever abreast himself with the happenings in Nigeria? Is it deliberate? Is it ethnically motivated?
From investigation, Abdulrasheed Maina alone allegedly contributed N1.8 billion to President Buhari's presidential campaign in 2019, the same Mr. Buhari who was regaling Nigerians with his inability to procure APC N20 million nomination form. If this is real and to be believed, then Nigeria has gone to the dogs. My earlier emotional investment and that of millions of Nigerians who voted for him in like manner, to take the country out of the woods have been truncated in the worst primitive form. Otherwise, how do you explain behind the scenes reinstatement of a dismissed fugitive looter into the public service, millions of naira paid to him while retirees across the country can't receive their minimum N20,000 (two thousand naira) pension on a monthly basis?
On 13th February 2013, the Senate gave President Goodluck a two-day ultimatum within which to sack the Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, from the Federal Civil Service. Mark spoke tough after a debate on a motion entitled, “Dismissal of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina for refusal to appear before the Senate” sponsored by Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) and 107 senators, urging Jonathan to sack Maina from the public service.
The Senate then threatened that President Jonathan risked dire consequences if he failed to end Maina’s tenure. Mark declared that the Senate as an institution had been pushed to the wall and could no longer tolerate the insolence of public officials working for the executive. “The executive has to choose between the Senate and Maina. He has crucified himself. If Maina remains, then the Senate would react appropriately. The Senate is not lacking in ideas on what to do. Nobody in this country is bigger than our democracy. I have been extremely patient with Maina so that when we react, they will know that we have been fair,” Mark told his colleagues.
Apparently mindful of the fact that he was sending a message not only to the Villa but also to Nigerians since it was in the full glare of media cameras, Mark threw a challenge to the Police about whether they would be on the side of the law or that of Maina, “This Senate is not going to allow this to linger, if in two days they (Police) have not done anything, we can come here and convene and take a decision. This Senate will bite when it needs to bite, and when we decide to bite, there will be no room for escape. We have been pushed to the wall. The reaction is the correct reaction; no matter the depth of the Maina situation nobody in this country will be left to go free, if he is associated with Maina, no matter who is behind Maina, we are not going to accept it.”
Before then, the Chairman and the Co-Chairman of the Joint Committee, Senators Aloysius Etok and Kabiru Gaya, gave accounts of their experiences with Maina. Gaya said the committee received 7,800 petitions during its assignment and that Maina coordinated the process of mismanaging pension funds.
A literally eviscerated Etok said of Maina, “We called him to account for his stewardship in all the offices he was overseeing. When we exposed some things, he decided not to appear again. Instead of appearing before the committee, he would go on the media, condemning the entire Senate. He said he was not given fair hearing, but when we offered him fair hearing, he refused. He drives two bulletproof cars, in a country where pensioners are hungry. He used N1 billion for jamboree in the name of verification abroad. He spends more than N8 million every two weeks on personal security.”
Maina was one of the supper corrupt individuals for allegedly misappropriating N159 billion of pension funds who sank the graft boat of President Goodluck Jonathan's government in 2015. At the time the Senate was debating him, Maina was being driven around town, including to Aso Rock, in a convoy of several vehicles with a retinue of policemen. It was the one scandal that made many conclude that the Jonathan administration did not ‘give a damn’ about public perception. After his failure to honor numerous invitations by the Senate joint committee, the upper legislative chamber ultimately issued a warrant for Maina’s arrest, prosecution, and sack.
A few days later, the House of Representatives followed suit and endorsed the decision of the Senate for Maina’s arrest and prosecution. The lawmakers said in a motion that the House was “conscious of the need to present a common front with respect to the institutional integrity of the National Assembly” as they were “aware of the need to send a strong signal to the executive arm of the government of the resolve of the national assembly to stop impunity and disregard of due process in the conduct of government business.”
However, President Jonathan eventually caved in and gave the go-ahead for disciplinary action to be taken against Maina, who was dismissed by the Head of Service for absconding from duty and evading arrest. Nothing was heard from Mr. Maina until he was seen in a photograph with President Buhari recently in Aso Rock, which his media aides denied. But Buhari has yet to deny his Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, twisted a 2013 high court judgment to ensure that Mr. Maina was recalled and promoted by the Federal Civil Service Commission, FCSC.
Mr. Malami had in a letter directed the FCSC to give consequential effect to a judgment he said voided the process that led to Maina’s dismissal from service. In line with the directive, the Ministry of Interior, at its Senior Staff Committee meeting held on June 22, placed reliance on the AGF’s letter and recommended that Maina be reinstated into the Service as Deputy Director on Salary Grade Level 16. Contrary to claim by the AGF that Maina was given clean-bill-of-health by a court of competent jurisdiction, a copy of the judgment made available to the public revealed that the court merely quashed a warrant of arrest that was issued against the former pension boss by the Nigerian Senate. The judgment delivered on March 27, 2013, by Justice Adamu Bello (now retired), of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, only faulted the process that led to the issuance of the warrant of arrest against Maina.
The court never cleared Maina of the allegation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, that he embezzled pension fund to the tune of N2billion. The court, in its judgment, equally did not insulate Maina from EFCC’s investigations. Instead, Justice Bello advised Maina to surrender himself to the authorities investigating the alleged N2 billion fraud.
President Buhari's decision to sack Mr. Maina is ridiculous. He did not sack his interior minister who facilitated this fraud in the Interior Ministry. He did not sack his attorney general or the COS who are all part of this fraud. He ordered the sack of Maina even when he knew that the Civil Service Rule did not give him the powers to sack any civil servant.
To further prove his active connivance as the head of these moral criminals, economic gangsters, Mr. Buhari ordered that MainaGate be investigated and the report submitted to his Chief Of Staff, Abba Kyari, the same Abba Kyari who reportedly masterminded the reinstatement and double promotion of a wanted criminal.
When did Abba Kyari become a saint? This is same Abba Kyari who purportedly collected N500 million from MTN management to mitigate its legal punishment for defrauding Nigerians. While MTN top management staffers who bribed Abba Kyari have been sacked, Abba Kyari remains Buhari's COS. You may wish to ask again why did Buhari refuse to act on the report that indicted his COS? What happened to the report on Mr. Grasscutter who stole millions from IDPs and was even defended by Buhari? What of the Ikoyi Dollars?
Was Zakari Biu, the sacked police commissioner who facilitated the escape of Boko Haram Kabiru Sokoto, not recalled and re-instated? Is the discredited Ibrahim Lamorde not currently serving as a senior police officer? How about Buratai and his Dubai property? What of Abdulrahman Dambazau, Buhari's interior minister, and his U.S mansion?
The 2015 presidential election was not a victory for President Buhari, it was a rejection of President Jonathan's corrupt government. Nigerians wanted a replacement for a girly-girly President who believe stealing is not corruption. President Buhari has turned out to be more corrupt now than his predecessor.
Even at that, Buhari's past can't be separated from his present glorification of corruption. He did not only served the most brutal and corrupt government of Abacha, he equally swore by all the seven gods of Daura that Abacha was not corrupt. This is same Buhari who violated his first campaign promise of publicly declaring his assets. It's only a question of time before Nigeria goes completely downhills as the most intrinsically corrupt country in the world, after Somalia.
Erasmus, A Public Affairs Analyst Writes from Lagos.
Email: [email protected]
Follow me on twitter @ikhide_erasmus1