“The issue is a very big question because I noticed that they both come from the same state of Kebbi and they may even be related. For me, that is not a very healthy thing because the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the EFCC are supposed to be independent” –Prof. Itse Sagay, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (The PUNCH, Tuesday, February 23, 2021)
After he took over from former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission who was removed from office, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, following his confirmation by the Senate, has so far applied himself to the job with earnestness. He has going for him, the advantage of youthfulness- he is just 40 years- the fact of being a foundation staff of the organisation as well as representing a departure from the practice of appointing to that office police officers.
Those advantages, however, have not prevented critical doubt from being raised about the circumstances of his appointment, and as the opening quote sourced from Sagay, shows his connection to the Minister for Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami SAN.
As almost everyone knows, Magu’s undoing, and subsequent removal were very much connected to clashes he had with Malami, who did his best to subordinate the EFCC to his office and in effect to reduce Magu to an errand boy. That much, was hinted at by the late Prof. Femi Odekunle, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, who said, in the wake of Magu’s arrest, that he was ‘a victim of power play’.
If this was indeed the case, the hypothesis is a compelling one. Bawa’s appointment could be seen as an effort to ensure that no further ‘rebellions’ against Malami break out from an organisation he pretty much regards, and tends to treat as an inferior adjunct of his office.
Obviously, therefore, from this perspective, the best way to secure compliance and fidelity is to engineer the appointment of a kinsman, who will be more than ready to play the tunes that Malami calls. But whose victory are we talking about? The personal triumph of a seasoned political actor or that of the anti-graft agency and the nation?
The fear that Sagay expresses, and he is obviously in a position to know, is that the EFCC chair is emasculated from the onset by the very conditions of his appointment. It would have been healthier if what now appears to be a political conquest in which Malami decides all the aces had not occurred and the new EFCC chair, can be viewed as an actor in his own right.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the case for, as The PUNCH editorial of March 4, 2021 pointed out, Malami “used his constitutional power to withdraw some high profile cases being handled by the EFCC”. That is another way of saying that behind the costly ego fight between Malami and Magu, are serious issues of a moral nature that go to the heart of the anti-corruption agenda.
In broader terms, a more determined government with a reformist orientation would not have allowed the power play to have gone the way it did, considering that it touched upon the character and future of anti-corruption. Indeed, this columnist would argue that Magu’s successor ideally should not have come from the same tainted stock of Magu’s EFCC as it is unlikely that there would be any saints still remaining in an institution that has been so devalued by Magu.
Of course, I know that we live in a political world and that such matters are not determined by moral ideals but by realpolitik. Nonetheless, it should have been possible for the leader of the team, assuming we can use that term to describe an incoherent mass of appointees, to specify the boundaries of the game especially as it touches upon his flagship programme.
One of the enigmas of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)’s rule is the almost decided reversal of an earlier image as war hero, Spartan leader who is hard not only on himself but on his appointees, as well as unbending anti-corruption fighter. Those who rejoiced at his electoral victories in 2015 and 2019 had the expectation that he would somehow rise above the paralysing divisions and bring the magic of order and disciplinary ethos to bear upon the vagaries and vacillations of a constantly drifting polity -if not in every case, at least on those issues which he himself defined and declared to be the centrepiece of his reformist intervention, namely; anti-corruption, beating back insecurity, and fixing the economy.
In other words, historians would ponder on what constantly appears like a negation of Buhari’s earlier image, advertised during the campaigns as what Nigeria required to arrest indecision, decay and sloth in governance. Specifically, in respect of the anti corruption reform, it will be debated on why at critical junctures, firm decisions were not taken and why he failed to rub his personal stamp and moral stamina on such appointments as choosing a successor to the badly tainted Magu.
Were these to have been done, the current anxiety and apprehensions voiced over Bawa’s linkage to Malami would not have arisen. To be fair, no one has accused Buhari himself of been corrupt, there remains yet a residue, though waning of the earlier moral halo. What baffles, is his tendency to allow things to drift on when influential subordinates are going gaga with improprieties and corruption.
Doubtless, it is too late to reverse Bawa’s appointment; the country must make do with a compromised situation in which the chances of genuine reform are almost dead on arrival. This columnist says this, bearing in mind that we are about to enter another election season in which cynical power games, shabby compromises, and the shoving aside of ideals, will characteristically predominate.
Please note too, that we are dealing here with an anti-corruption institution that is waiting to be built into a relatively independent institution fitted with shock absorbers against the intrusions of politics and not with one already possessing institutional coherence and integrity. In the United States, during the presidency of Donald Trump, it was often remarked that American institutions, though not without blemish, are capable enough to resist the ravages of Trump’s cynical power plays. Here, we have no such luck. Not just that, there is de-institutionalisation going on as political appointees seek to build or extend empires rather than ensure that institutions work and do the jobs for which they were set up.
All is not lost however, Bawa should do his level best to disprove the widespread suspicion that he has been picked as a political minion of Malami who will be used to do hatchet jobs for him. He should be conscious too that what will outlive us all are not the short-term political gains of individual politicians but the edifying work of lasting value that we do. In the same vein, Buhari should come more into the space with a moral fervour and urgency to set standards, rule out moral perfidies even sanction them to rescue a noble policy from unceremonious death and burial.
PUNCH
