By CHARLES ONUNAIJU
A legend has it that the former Egyptian leader and the most militant exponent of Pan-Arabism, Gamel Abdel Nasser was an avid listener to the British Broadcasting Corperation, BBC. He was said to relish with immense satisfaction the routine bashing of his government by that foremost global broadcaster, taking it to mean that his government was working assiduously in the best interest of Egyptians in particular and the Arab world in general.
According to this legend, the Egyptian pan-Arab leader worries at any exceptional instance, where the BBC broadcast a positive report about his government, taking it to mean that a serious lapse had occurred in his government service to and protection of Egyptian national and pan-Arab interests. In fact, President Nasser was said to use any positive report of the BBC to identify lapses in his government which the relevant head was admonished to correct in good time.
Just as former President Abdel Nasser was said to use the routine negative reports on his country by the BBC to assure himself of genuine service to his country, what Nigeria’s National Assembly, especially the Senate rejects, would definitely be good and in the best interest of Nigerians. These men and few women in the National Assembly for whom Nigeria is a mere metaphor for casino machine that dispenses unfathomable wealth, it would not bother them a hoot if Nigerians survive.
The Senate’s recent rejection of the nomination of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a position he has held for nearly a year in an acting capacity, did not come as surprise
For Magu to be summarily rejected by the Senate with a determination never to reconsider him, is to say with all authority of rational judgment and good conscience, that Magu has so far done his job without fear or favour. The political ambush of Magu and the use of the hubris of its constitutional role as a smokescreen, the Senate has demonstrated the vehemence of the political establishment to sustain Nigeria as a façade and its laws as automation, subject to technical manipulation of its components.
The implication of the separation of the various arms of government is not to create rival power centers but to address core concerns of governance through efficient aggregation of the machinery of government. The Nigeria Senate pursues a legislative agenda in the protection of the interests of its members, thereby appropriating a key institutional mechanism for the advancement of public good, to its own narrow aim.
The purported contradictory reports of the Department of the State Services, (DSS) on Magu does not provide any compelling proof on integrity deficit and by the way, when did the Senate begin to swallow, hook, line and sinker reports forwarded to it, without the benefit of public inquiry. The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, whose alleged corruption albatross is in the public domain for which he has employed serial legal technicalities to obstruct and delay, has yet to excuse himself from presiding over the second arm of government. While the Senate flexes muscle to shield its presiding officer from a more odious and reprehensible allegation of infractions, it pursues with gusto the rejection of Magu on allegations that are hardly in the public domain.
Nigerians can understand the travails of Magu.. He has chosen a course of clear departure in the prosecution of the anti-corruption war by focusing more on politically exposed persons than internet fraudsters and other allied crimes. Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer chairman of the anti-graft agency pursued a narrow agenda of chasing after former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s political enemies. For all his fire and brimstone utterances, Ribadu treated serious corruption infractions with kid gloves. His presidential run in 2011 was seen as a decoy ostensibly designed to benefit the then incumbent, as his party then was well known to have collaborated with the ruling cabal to emasculate the real opposition.
His immediate successor at the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has taken the political wanderer to the cleaners recently, after enduring Nuhu Ribadu’s relentless attacks on her own integrity.
Magu on the other hand, had very little public visibility, a virtuous quality for any serious crime buster and the body language of President Muhammadu Buhari that he is free to trap the “tigers and flies”, in the anti-graft war does not seem to sit well with the National Assembly, especially the Senate. But the Senate cannot arrogate to itself the right to undermine a key concern of Nigerians which is how reduce to the barest minimum, the menace of unbridled graft among public office holders. Magu may never be the best on offer in the war against corruption, but he has so far shown single-minded devotion to undermining the political elite’s main business of stealing from the common patrimony. He is definitely a step in the right direction in curbing greed and avarice that animates many in the search for public office.
In spite of the Senate’s understandable rejection of Magu, President Buhari should assiduously retain him in acting capacity and Nigerians must take a cue as Nasser did with the BBC, that what is in the interest of the Senate members and their allied political principals is in the least of serious consideration for our national renewal.
Onunaiju writes from Abuja.