Arise O journalist, Buhari’s call obey
Sonala Olumhense
Sonala Olumhense
As everyone now knows, Dr. Reuben Abati,
who was President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman for four years, was
recently arrested by the anti-corruption agency, the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission.
Unrefuted reports say he was confronted
with an allegation he received N50m from his government’s National
Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki and his $2.1 billion military
equipment fund that was diverted to other uses.
Hopefully, some of this is false,
otherwise it is professionally insulting. I mean, others were picking
up money by the truckload but Abati only got one Ghana-Must-Go? At the
lower levels, Olisah Metuh, who was not even a government man, is
talking transactions in the hundreds of millions. Doyin Okupe, who was
brought into the government merely to relieve Abati of a few duties, has
confessed to picking up from Dasuki N50m on two occasions; yet Abati
himself received only a miserly N50m?
But that is not why I am here. I write
this because of what Abati is said to have done with the N50m. He
reportedly told the EFCC that he gave the money to journalists in a
media relations effort.
Parenthesis: Almost by definition,
nobody who got money from Dasuki spent it on themselves. Each of them
passed it on to others.
Anyhow, the former presidential adviser
is said to have informed the investigators that, alas, he is unable to
remember who the beneficiary journalists are.
I know there are Nigerians who do not
believe Dr. Abati on this point. How can he say, they ask, that he
cannot remember the people to whom he distributed just N50m in the last
two years?
I would not say that. For one thing, I
forget things too. And I imagine it is easier to be forgetful when
trained investigators give you the hottest sit in the room, having wired
it by themselves ahead of your arrival, and then start to ask crafty
questions.
The truth is that it is not important
what Abati remembers. What is important is what the journalists—and it
is safe to presume these are media chieftains and perhaps State House
correspondents—remember.
Each of the journalists who picked up
something—a brown envelope, a stuffed GMG, or a case of vintage Akinloye
champagne—remembers. And I hereby encourage them, because we know they
all support President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption, to
return what they received.
The way I see it, if all the media
people involved return what they were given, and Abati is invited back
to add it all up, it will come to N50m. The media people would have
done the best by their country and by the former presidential spokesman
who, only because his memory failed him last week, did not embarrass
them.
The Abati investigation raises the
query: exactly how were the Dasuki funds being distributed? Was there a
committee, or could anyone in the government just walk to him? Who
authorised the payments or raised the vouchers, if any were required?
Did Dasuki originate, authorise and disburse? Did you have to sign one
of those big civil service registers as Dasuki walked to his cashier
cage, counted out the money and handed over through his little cashier
window?
President Jonathan has recently said
that Dasuki did not steal any money. Of course not, especially as
“stealing” is hardly the charge, but did GEJ know any of those cash
outlays were being outlayed? If so, when did he know it, and did he
simply laugh, knowing that no stealing was going on, and that even if it
was, stealing was not corruption?
The point is that GEJ has not been asked
any questions by the Buhari government about anything ethically
unseemly. The answer seems to be in the recent revelation that the
government is not interested in putting anyone in jail, and just wants
all stolen funds returned.
A related revelation came last Sunday
from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who told some Nigerians in the United
States that his government does not teleguide the security agencies and
the EFCC and would not interfere if they moved against Mr. Jonathan.
He meant, I think, that the rule of law prevails, and that the anti-corruption thing in Nigeria is not political.
I’ll take those three items back to
front. Any serious anti-corruption initiative anywhere is, and should
be, political. Whenever and wherever it is a conscious policy to
identify and punish corruption, it is political, and should be. It is
political will that provides strength and sustainability for an
anti-corruption endeavour.
Legality: An anti-corruption initiative
must be founded in law if it is to be respected by the people, and
honoured by time. But legality does not simply mean due process, it
also means obeying court orders.
In that regard, of the infractions of
this standard that the Buhari government has committed in its first 18
months, the most notable is its refusal to obey the February 2016 order
by the Federal High Court to publish up-to-date information on recovered
funds since 1999. It stated that that governments during the period
have “breached the fundamental principles of transparency and
accountability for failing to disclose details about the spending of
recovered stolen public funds, including on a dedicated website.”
That was nine months ago, but the government has carried on as if the order was never made.
Third, Vice President Osinbajo did not
specify the EFCC during his remarks in Houston; I do so to make the
point that when the Buhari government speaks of combating corruption
these days, it talks about the EFCC. As we know, hardly any other
agency has any form of credibility or presence in the field. Consider
that with barely a whisper from the executive recently, the Senate
amended the Code of Conduct Bureau Act to transfer control from the
Presidency to the National Assembly. Also recently, in response to the
bungled arrest of judicial officers by the Department State Services,
President Buhari ordered that the matter be transferred to the EFCC.
Yes, the EFCC happens to have credible
leadership now. Acting Chairman Ibrahim Magu is a gift to the country,
and to Buhari’s war, but he doesn’t even have a letter of appointment.
That is: not only has his appointment not been confirmed by the Senate,
there are reports of a conspiracy to kick him out of the job.
And yet, on his shoulders appear to rest
the fate of the anti-corruption offensive in Nigeria, and in effect, of
the government. Not only has the government sub-leased its essence, it
has done so to a clearly over-burdened agency.
Still, it is to the EFCC that the
journalists who allegedly received the Abati campaign largesse must
refund what they received. While the professional standard is simply
that a journalist ought not collect gifts from those they report, dear
colleague, you had no way of knowing its illegitimate origins let alone
that it was blood money.
But now you do, and may plead
differently only at the risk of being exposed as an accomplice to the
crime. Who knows what worse revelations may be on the way?
Arise, dear colleague, and set the right example.