By Dare Atoye
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 anti-corruption 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
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.
–– Mr Atoye, General Editor of The Congresswatch magazine, contributed this piece from Abuja (aristotle001us@yahoo.com).
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