Buhari Has No War Against Corruption - Don't Believe The Lie

President Muhammadu Buhari

By Femi Aribisala


I was invited to a Roundtable on Corruption by the Law Faculty of
the University of Lagos, only to discover that some “Buharideens”
had highjacked the occasion and were inclined to use it as a
platform to promote the onslaught of “democratic dictatorship” in
Nigeria.

The topic was on corruption in Nigeria, but the mast-head in the
hall was more specific. It read: “Winning the War against
Corruption. This was easily seized on by government agents to
imply that Buhari was well on the way to dealing a mortal blow to
corruption in Nigeria.



WAR AGAINST LIBERTY

The composition of the invited discussants was biased. Most of
those on the panel with me were dyed-in-the-wool government
apologists. The Chairman was Professor Itse Sagay, currently the
Chairman of Buhari’s Presidential Advisory Committee against
Corruption. As it turned out, he was not prepared to entertain any
meaningful discussion about corruption in Nigeria. His agenda
was to showcase ostensible government achievements in the
anti-corruption campaign and to proclaim new promissory notes
grandiloquently for public consumption.

What we have is a government attempt to decimate the
opposition and create a de facto one-party state under the guise
of fighting against corruption.

Also there was Oby Ezekwesili of # BringBackOurGirls fame. She
used to pitch her tent with the PDP. But now that the APC is in
power, she has been romancing the new government. It was even
speculated at one time that Buhari would reward her with a
ministerial portfolio. Not surprising, she is no longer as strident in
demanding government rescue of the kidnapped Chibok girls as
she had been under Jonathan.

The kingpin of the government apologists on the panel was Femi
Falani, a lawyer and human rights activist. He was chosen to give
the keynote address. Falana had been heavily touted as Buhari’s
attorney general. In fact, on the eve of the ministerial
appointments, a list was widely publicized in the press that had
his name penciled in for the post. But someone apparently put an
eraser to it. Nevertheless, in order to remain in the good books of
the government, Falana seems to have jettisoned his earlier
dedication to the defense of human rights.
Guilty Without Trial

Falana did not attend the roundtable. However, he wrote a
speech which he sent someone to deliver on his behalf. This
speech was nothing short of alarming. It told me definitively that I
was in the wrong place and would have to take a stand before
making a quick getaway. Falana, human rights lawyer
extraordinaire, was sent to test the waters for extreme policy
prescriptions apparently in government pipelines hankering back
to the discredited days of Buhari’s infamous military dictatorship
of 1984/85.

It seems the government and its allies are looking for ways and
means to circumvent the criminal justice system so that the
current media trial of opposition politicians can be easily
translated into automatic jail-terms. The courts have rightly been
a firewall against this. Therefore, Falana proposed the
establishment of Special Courts, separate and distinct from the
tried and tested ones; to dispense quick and summary justice
against whoever the government decides to prosecute in its anti-
corruption campaign.

According to Falana, those accused of corruption by the
government should be presumed guilty without trial. The onus
would then be on them to prove their innocence. This would
overturn the principle, long-supported by legal luminaries like
Falana himself, that an accused must be presumed guilty until
proven innocent. Falana also insisted it should be made
impossible for anyone accused of corruption to be bailed. In
short, once you are accused, you would be presumed guilty and
would rot in jail at the pleasure of the government.

Thus, Falana became an appointed mouthpiece of an authoritarian
government tired of democratic niceties. He echoed President
Buhari’s complaint that the judiciary is the principal impediment to
the government’s anti-corruption campaign. Therefore, Falana
tabled proposals for sidestepping the judiciary, so that the
government would go after its enemies without hindrance or
restraints.

I sat and watched with incredulity as Oby Ezekwezili who, like me,
was only invited as a discussant, hugged the floor for over 40
minutes, extolling the virtues of the government’s anti-corruption
agenda without any word of caution about the proposals
emanating from Falana. On the contrary, Ezekwesili was
concerned that those accused were not yet in jail. To this, the
Chairman reassured her, in a side-discussion on the podium, that
the jails would soon start filling up before the end of the year.

University of Lagos students listened to these speeches in
silence. The speakers conveniently read this as approval; after all
“we are all against corruption.” It is presumed that while the
Buhari government has been a monumental failure in its ten
months in office, its one claim to fame or plaudits is its anti-
corruption campaign. Therefore, in the context of blackouts and
fuel queues, the government would have us fill our tanks and light
our homes with bombastic anti-corruption rhetoric.

ALARM BELLS

It was in this context that I had to make my ten-minute
contribution. I knew I would, once again, have to go out on a
limb. I knew I could not subscribe to the agenda of my fellow-
panelists. I had absolutely no idea how I would be received.
Indeed, I wondered why, given the agenda, I had been invited at
all. Nevertheless, I could not but be true to my conscience.
I had a certain advantage over my fellow panelists. I am not an
employee of the Buhari government and I am definitely not
looking for a job from this or any government. Indeed, I am the
last Nigerian President Buhari would appoint to anything, either in
advisory or substantive capacity. Therefore, I was free to exercise
fully my freedom of speech under the Nigerian Constitution.

I was also acutely aware that my freedom was being threatened
before my very eyes. If Falana’s proposal were to become law, I
could easily be arrested on spurious allegations of corruption and
would be presumed guilty until proven innocent. I could then be
thrown into jail and locked up. These champions of speedy
justice would become silent, as the government might ensure
conveniently that it takes me no less than three years in jail to
prove my innocence.

It was also not lost on me that if Falana’s proposal of “guilty until
proven innocent” had been the norm, President Buhari himself
would have been jailed when $2.8 billion of government money
went missing under his watch as Commissioner for Petroleum in
the 1980s. How soon they forget! At the time, Vera Ifudu, an
NTA reporter, revealed to Nigerians that Senate Leader, Olusola
Saraki, told her in an interview that the missing money was
moved from the NNPC’s Midland Bank account to a private
account.

It is amazing that, in spite of our nasty experience at the hands of
General Buhari and his kangaroo courts in 1984, a civil rights
lawyer would propose today that similar kangaroo courts should
again be established under the same Buhari in the bogus name
of democratic justice. But I guess we deserve that in Nigeria for
being foolish as to elect as president under a democratic
dispensation the very man who truncated our earlier experiment
with democracy through a military coup.

DEJA VU

In Buhari’s first coming, the Femi Falanas were few and far
between to whitewash his authoritarianism. The special courts of
that era, now being proposed under a different disguise, were
military tribunals established to try civilians instead of regular
courts of law; in clear violation of internationally accepted legal
norms. Buhari created a secret police (NSO) under the infamous
Lawal Rafindadi to harass and imprison Nigerians without trial. It
is this same injustice that Falana was hired to re-table.

It is unconscionable that a so-called human rights activist would
be used to champion this revanchist authoritarianism. As a
military dictator, Buhari ran so rough-shod over our judicial
system that the Nigerian Bar Association proscribed Nigerian
lawyers from appearing in any of his kangaroo courts.

Buhari sent both corrupt and non-corrupt politicians to jail,
sometimes for up to 300 years. He tried octogenarian Michael
Ajasin before his military tribunal. When he was discharged and
acquitted; he tried him again. When he was discharged and
acquitted again, he tried him a third time. When he was
discharged and acquitted yet again, Buhari nevertheless continued
to keep him in detention and refused to release him.

A judge claimed Buhari pressured him to jail Fela Anikulapo Kuti
for failing to the declare foreign-exchange he had legitimately
procured for the up-keep of his band on a foreign trip; while the
same Buhari sent his aide-de-camp to Murtala Muhammed airport
in Lagos to facilitate the smuggling into the country of 53
suitcases by the Emir of Gwandu during the currency-change
exercise.
Therefore, the onus fell on me at the Roundtable to warn our
student audience that it would be madness to entertain proposals
that seek to bring back Buhari’s sharp practices of the past under
another guise. It is necessary to point out that, as Nigerians were
deceived through vain promises promptly jettisoned after the
election, so are government agents trying to deceive us again
today. There is actually no real war against corruption going on
today. There is not even a fight against corruption, how much
more a war. What we have is a government attempt to decimate
the opposition and create a de facto one-party state under the
guise of fighting against corruption.

ENRAGED "BUHARIDEENS"

Once I started making these points, the students started
cheering. It became apparent that they were not fooled by the
government’s praise-singers and were glad that I was there to
expose their duplicity. Before I proceed to elaborate on why I
insist there is no real fight against corruption in Nigeria today, let
me point out at this juncture the reaction of my fellow-panelists.
I only spoke for ten minutes, but the chairman, Itse Sagay,
became enraged. He not only abused me, he also abused
UNILAG students. He called them all “ignorant” for applauding my
positions. He shouted: “We are here on a very serious business.
And students, don’t behave like American electorates who are
ignorant. The appreciation of unserious people shows ignorance.”
“How can someone come here and say there’s no war against
corruption and there is clapping? This is a very serious
discussion and I want us to be serious about it. If you are anti-
government, please go and campaign against government and let
your party win in 2019. This is not a venue for PDP campaign.

We are here on serious business. Let’s maintain that
seriousness.”

#BringBackOurGirls icon, Oby Ezekwesili, also asked for the mike
a second time to contribute to this berating of UNILAG students
for applauding my presentation. She said, among other things: “I
wasn’t surprised that some of you were clapping. The reason you
were clapping is that you are a page in your own level of
corruption. There are many whose exam malpractice is the basis
upon which they have come to school. So when you are talking
about the need to wage a war against corruption, they are
completely disconnected from it. There is a complete dissonance
from it.”