DID you
notice? Before President Muhammadu Buhari finally reluctantly sacked the former
Secretary to the Government of the Federation , SGF), David Babachir Lawal
(“heh-heh, who is the Presidency”) and Director General of the Nigerian
Intelligence Agency, NIA, Ayo Oke, the Abdulrasheed Maina scandal had the
Presidency in knots.
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Minister, Lai Mohammed, mum was the word. Femi Adesina became tongue-tied. But
the impulsive ones among them could not hold themselves in check. Garba Shehu,
who is now a notable crap-talker, blamed the People’s Democratic Party, PDP,
for bringing back Maina through the backdoor into the civil service. Okoi Obono
Obla, the President’s Special Assistant on Prosecutions, went on television and
spoke against his own logic that Buhari’s appointees who are accused of
corruption are still on their jobs because they have not been convicted by any
courts. He had strenuously argued against this point when the security agencies
had conducted their midnight “sting operations” against some judges last year.
Even the usually tongue-tied and obdurate Comptroller-General of the Nigerian
Customs, Hameed Ali, “joined mouths” with Garba Shehu in blaming PDP for the
corruption scandals that have engulfed Buhari’s government. Before we even go
further, let’s examine the absurdity, if not asininity, of this allegation. The
names being mentioned in connection with Maina’s sneak reinstatement and double
promotion are Buhari’s core party men: Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General
and Minister of Justice who reportedly wrote the Head of Service, Winifred Oyo
Ita, instructing her to effect the re-absorption of Maina; Abdulrahman
Danbazzau, the Minister of the Interior, in whose ministry Maina was posted to
and the “Lion King” himself, Muhammadu Buhari, whom Oyo Ita openly disclosed,
“knew” about Maina’s reinstatement, adding: “I warned him”. Who can be more
“Buharist” than Buhari himself? Not a single one of them came from the “new”
PDP clan of the All Progressives Congress (APC) amalgam. Pray, how can anyone
in his right senses describe them as “PDP” people? Even if they were of the old
PDP, they are no longer there now. They left over three years ago. And it was
their movement into the APC that turned it into a platform that could depose
the former incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan, at the polls in 2015. Apart
from a few of them like Chibuike Amaechi who provided the critical funds that
helped the party to win, they are not accommodated in Buhari’s cabinet. Those
appointed to the boards of federal parastatals by the past regime have since
been flushed out and replaced with APC members (except, of course, for those of
them who quickly turned coats). Buhari had made it clear he would consider
those who “suffered” with him in his fourteen years of futile presidential
aspiration. He surrounded himself with them. And true to the nature of
politicians, they have been helping themselves to the spoils of their victory.
This is where the corruption is coming from. For them to turn around and blame
PDP for their own corruption shows just how “intelligent” these Buharists are
(or how stupid they think Nigerians are). Tales of corruption have been
swirling within the Buhari government almost from Day One. But the regime and
its agents chose to pursue only elements of the Jonathan regime whom they
accused of “looting” the treasury. The shallow one-sidedness of the Buhari
anti-graft war has become so obvious that even an APC stalwart who still has
conscience, Senator Shehu Sani, described the effort as “insecticides” for the
opposition and “deodorants” for Buhari’s untouchable sacred cows. For nearly
thirty months of the Buhari second coming to the Presidency, some of his
supporters continued to invest an outside hope that he would wake up and
recharge his avowed anti-graft war. His illness can no longer be given as an
excuse. He looks fifteen years younger than his age now. I wonder the magic
Buhari’s doctors did to restore him from a man waiting for the shrouds to a man
now full of health with his old age seemingly reversed? That is another story
waiting to be told. Age and ill-health are no longer obstacles in the way of
President Buhari to run an effective government and deliver his campaign
promises. Everybody now knows he is warming up for the rigours of his second
term electioneering activities come next year. For a long time, Buhari had foot-dragged
on most elements of his campaign promises. Apart from failing to act decisively
to check the burgeoning corruption in his inner government, the only aspect of
security that progress has been made is the war on Boko Haram. But as we count
the gains of that, we also count the grim havoc being wreaked by the Fulani
herdsmen who, under Buhari’s watch, have become the world’s third most dreaded
killing machine. I will not applaud Buhari for sacking Lawal and Oke. He was
pushed to take action through intense public opinion and the imperatives of the
unfolding atmosphere surround his second term ambition. The Maina scandal
provided what the French call le point de basculement or the tipping point.
Mainagate is the clearest evidence that the war on graf for which Buhari got
the support of millions, especially in the South, has been lost irretrievably,
or perhaps it was never really meant to be in the real sense I have always said
that the war on graft was part of the grand design to consign the PDP to the dustbin
of history and enthrone Buharism as the new political order. While its enemies
were chased with military, DSS, Police, Economic and Financial Crimes, EFCC,
operatives and virulent propaganda, Buhari’s political cubs were given the
licence to sweep our national patrimony. That way, Buhari and those who would
succeed him in the future would no longer need “outside help” to bestride the
political firmament of the nation till kingdom come.
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