With his petulance, foul temperament and imprudent conduct, former President Olusegun Obasanjo impoverished the sobriety and dignity of the National Assembly in a letter, in which he accused the lawmakers of corruption and needless lavish spending that have negative impacts on the country’s resources, especially when Nigeria is in dire economic situation. But rising to the defence of the NASS, Senate President Bukola Saraki said he and his colleagues were mindful of the need for good governance and accountability. On the face of it, there is nothing in OBJ’s letter that has not been in the domain of public discourse. However, given the quantum and the gravity of the issues raised, and by virtue of the writer and the position he occupies in the state of affairs in Nigeria today, the letter is an epistle that should be taken seriously. By which is not meant the kind of derisive Saraki response, which only advertises a certain pettiness at the highest level of Nigeria’s leadership.
Nigeria’s economy has been groaning under the weight of the cost of governance which takes over 70% of its budget to the detriment of capital and infrastructural projects, which are de-emphasized to foot the cost of governance. To make matters worse, legislators continue to demonstrate insensitivity, self-centeredness and greed by insisting on sumptuous and mouth-watering perquisites for doing so little, at a time when moderation is required. In determining their entitlements, Nigerian lawmakers are always the judge and jury, in defiance of the principle of natural justice. Although by virtue of Section 32(d) of the 3rd schedule to the 1999 Constitution, it is the responsibility of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission to determine the remuneration appropriate for political office holders, including the legislators, what obtains in reality is a situation where lawmakers decree for themselves what suits their ego and appetite, such that four per cent of the annual budget goes to the National Assembly alone, making its members the highest paid legislators in the whole world.
While tasking the legislators to collaborate with the president in observing fiscal prudence and transparency, OBJ accused them of impunity and corruption, saying after the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission fixed their salaries and allowances, the lawmakers “by different disingenuous ways and devices, overturned the recommendations and hiked up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spell out in detail.” OBJ regretted that even when the emolument which the commission recommended for the lawmakers could take care of their legitimate requirements, other allowances and payments were added unconstitutionally by the National Assembly for members’ emoluments. He challenged the lawmakers to have the courage to publish their recurrent budgets for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 in line with the demands of transparency, adding that comparisons in emoluments could also be made with countries like Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and even Malaysia and Indonesia which, according to him, are richer and more developed than Nigeria.
Although the letter reiterates OBJ’s propensity for periodic self-imposition as a moral ombudsman and conscience of a drifting nation, it raises issues that have been of concern to all Nigerians. Like every concerned citizen, OBJ has an inalienable right to comment on how Nigeria is governed. Given the privileges with which Nigeria’s national history has endowed him as a two-time head of state and as an elder, both traditionally and politically, he has elevated this right to a moral duty; hence, his consistency in the tradition of letter-writing to successive heads of state from President Shagari, to Babangida, Abacha, Yar’Adua, and Jonathan.
While OBJ raises cogent issues in his letters, their appearance in the media tragically shifts attention from the message to the messenger, given that his submissions always generate controversy. But beyond the specifics of avuncular admonition, it is pertinent to ask whether OBJ, at this point in time, has any moral justification to pontificate to anyone on the present state of affairs to which he is a major contributor. Honestly, it defies logic for OBJ to challenge lawmakers to publish their budgets for year 2000 and 2005, when he failed to do so as president.
Nigerians have not forgotten that dramatic night of Wednesday, September 27, 2006, after Nuhu Ribadu, then EFCC chairman, did the unthinkable: He went to the Senate to present the commission’s annual report, as required by law, and indicted most of the state governors for corruption. Those indicted included Uzor Kalu, (Abia); Boni Haruna, (Adamawa); Chimaroke Nnamani, (Enugu); Ayo Fayose, (Ekiti), Joshua Dariye, (Plateau), Jolly Nyame, (Taraba) and Ahmad Sani, (Zamfara). The governors of Osun, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Borno, Delta, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Edo, Ebonyi, Katsina, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Rivers, Sokoto and Ogun were being investigated for various cases. Ribadu told Senators that Uzor Kalu had “privatized” state funds; Chris Ngige (Anambra) had diverted funds specifically through one Princess Uzor Okonkwo, and Sani (Zamfara) had engaged in “direct stealing (from the safe); no third party, outright stealing by the governor himself.”
The EFCC report came three months after the same Ribadu, as chairman of an anti-graft Joint Task Force set up by OBJ, had recommended the prosecution of 15 governors found to have breached the code of conduct for public officials. They were: Ayo Fayose, Adamu Aliero, Atahiru Bafawara, James Ibori, Boni Haruna, Gbenga Daniel, Lucky Igbinedion, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Saminu Turaki, Achike Udenwa, Ahmad Makarfi, Goodluck Jonathan, Chimaroke Nnamani, Sam Egwu, and Bola Tinubu. Most of them were indicted for false declaration of assets, acquisition of assets beyond legitimate means, running private businesses while in office, and operating foreign bank accounts.
OBJ however dismissed these reports as “spurious.” With OBJ’s intervention, the reports and indictments and investigations were buried. Nigerians were therefore shocked and scandalized that just months after, OBJ hand-picked two of the indicted governors, Yar’Adua (Katsina) and Jonathan (Bayelsa) who were obviously unable and unprepared to run the country, and foisted them on Nigerians. The corruption which his letter harshly condemns is traceable to the impunity fostered by his actions and his failed third term ambition. Regrettably, his intemperate language and patronizing tone, reeking of self-righteousness, proffers no solution and does little credit to the former president.
It is high time Baba comported himself in the way other former presidents in and outside Nigeria are known to do. He craves to be seen as the “father of modern Nigeria”. There is nothing wrong with this aspiration except that elderly comportment is an essential attribute which demands reserve, reticence and caution from a man who all but transformed Nigeria into Corruption Inc. OBJ’s quest for stature as the father of the nation will be helped by a huge dose of circumspection but will be doomed by his renowned hubris. He is not the right person to pass judgment on corruption in Nigeria because of his fundamental role as an effective cause of the perfidy, ineptitude and political monstrosities he is lamenting. In any other country, a man like Obasanjo ought to be hiding his head in shame.
