Ningbo, P. R. China

Anybody following events in Nigeria need not be told how enraged Nigerian lawmakers were, following recent President Olusegun Obasanjo’s nationwide broadcast on the N55 million bribe-for-budget scandal involving Education Ministry and some members of the Senate.

The Senate is enraged because, according to Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, the Senate believes that the public broadcast of the damaging allegations against some of the federal legislators “creates the impression that the National Assembly is being targeted for public and international ridicule." To support this assertion, that Presidency is out to discredit them, the lawmakers complained that: (1) investigations of the bribe allegations are still on-going - according to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), chairman Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu, (2) they (lawmakers) were not contacted regarding the allegations before the ‘inconclusive’ findings were handed over to the President, and (3) the individuals involved in the damaging allegations were not heard nor given a fair hearing before the scam was made public by the Presidential broadcast to the nation and to the world.

However, when the EFCC chairman, Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu appeared before the House of the Representatives Committee on Ethics and Privileges (on March 31, 2005), the lawmakers had no serious questions for him to answer other than why he (EFCC) dealt directly with Presidency instead of through them. One of the Senators who spoke with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) even accused President Obasanjo of “hijacking” EFCC from the federal legislators who set-up the commission in the first place. The internationally respected intellectual, Senator Jubril Aminu called it an “ambush” by the President when asked, “Why are members of the legislature always caught in these crimes (Daily Champion: Tuesday, March 29, 2005)?”

The above comments by the lawmakers simply betrayed the fact that they had wanted the EFCC findings to be handed over to them for rubbishing and silent burial, as usual. After all, what is wrong with ‘ambushing’ and defeating your enemy in a battlefield? Or, “hijacking” the responsibilities of others who have proved themselves incapable, unwilling and uninterested in a just cause to save the nation?

Nigerian lawmakers have shown beyond reasonable doubt that they are not interested in fighting any war against corruption. They are now accusing EFCC of taking action when investigations are inconclusive, but was there any conclusive investigation before the lawmakers swiftly suspended Dr. Haruna Yerima for having the courage to allege that some lawmakers demand and receive bribe before discharging their official duties? What have they made of Dr. Yerima’s allegation to date? What did they do with the allegations of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai against principal officers of the Senate, except for stating that El-Rufai lacked evidence? As things stand now and whatever direction the lawmakers decide to move, the embattled Senate President is certainly leaving. Would this have been the case were his fellow lawmakers entrusted with handling the bribe-for-budget case? The President and indeed the public have simply realized that the lawmakers will never treat any criminal allegation involving their own members with the utmost seriousness it deserves.

Alh. Nuhu Ribadu’s encounter with the lawmakers also revealed that the lawmakers were not being very honest with Nigerians. The EFCC boss dismissed as false, the impression created by the lawmakers that they were in the dark regarding everything about the bribe-for-budget scandal. He told the Committee on Ethics and Privileges that the leadership of the legislature was confronted with the charges against the lawmakers before the President was contacted.

It can now be said that the lawmaker’s so-called 'impeachable' crimes compiled against the President was done not out of patriotic duty, but simply as a tool with which to intimidate and blackmail Mr. President into allowing them to partake in corrupt practices leading to the destruction of the nation. How else can the lawmakers explain their silence over such a huge national economic destruction, which they call 'impeachable' crimes of the President till now? What were they waiting for? Our lawmakers have turned lawbreakers! They can be found in all dirty-deals in Nigeria - like the secretly allocated Federal Government houses in Ikoyi, Lagos (This Day: Friday, April 1, 2005), in addition to Alh. Ribadu’s troubling remarks that the bribe-for-budget scandal is simply a tip of the iceberg with more damning revelations underway.

Well, Nigerians and the international community are waiting to see what the lawmakers make of the serious allegations they claimed to have compiled against Mr. President. Some of these allegations as published by the lawmakers in our national and international media (BBC and VOA) included amongst others: National Identity card scam, NITEL/Pentascope deal, AJAOKUTA, ASCON (Ekot Abasi) and the entire privatization process. The lawmakers also claimed that while Oil sells for US$57 for a longtime now, Nigerian budget has been based on US$30 only, with no trace of the balance of US$27 in addition to their not knowing the quantity of Oil exported daily by Nigeria.

The above is the least required of the lawmakers in order to gain back their individually and collectively lost credibility, or at least some of it. The alternative is to do nothing and go down in Nigerian political history books as the set of lawmakers that constituted themselves into lawbreakers, collectively and individually partaking in the impoverishment of the Nigerian nation. This may lead to, amongst other things, Nigerians asking any one with the title “Honorable” or “Senator” before their names in what regime or what period they “served” to ascertain if he/she deserved such high-sounding title or worthy of trust.