In this opinion piece, Emeka Oraetoka, an Information Management Consultant and Researcher hinted that there always are concrete human groupings which fight other concrete human groupings in the name of justice, humanity, order, or peace.
When being reproached for immorality and cynicism, the spectator of political phenomena can always recognize in such reproaches a political weapon used in actual combat-Carl Schmitt (1888-1985)
When an online newspaper reported that a certain Senator scuttled a Senate corruption hearing on CCB chairman, Isa Mohammed some weeks back, rational Nigerians started asking questions about the real problem in CCB.
This writer even thought it was a mistaken identity because the case that I know about was the one involving the Chairman of Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, justice Danladi Umar, who was alleged to have assaulted a security guard at Banex plaza sometimes back.
However, the way and manner the corruption report on CCB Chairman, Professor Isa Mohammed was made public without a concurrent hearing of the same petition by the Green Chamber, shows that there is more to the petition than the ordinary eye can see.
According to the report, five out of six federal commissioners of the Bureau, in a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Secretary of the Government of the Federation, on 29 August 2022, accused Professor Isah of running CCB as a sole administrator and alleged corruption.
The same petition was signed as follows: Dr Emmanuel E. Attah; Professor Samuel F. Ogundare; Ehiozuwa J. Agbonayinma; Dr Olayinka Balogun, CP, Retd and Barrister Ben Umeano, addressed to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Patrick Akinyelure, PDP, Ondo Central, and his House of Representatives counterpart, Ossa Ossai. Why was the spokesman? to the petitioners in a hurry to tell Nigerians about their petition when the House of Reps is yet to sit on the petition as well?
On Monday, October 3, 2022, daily Trust reported about one of the petitioners, probably the spokesman thus: —Addressing reporters, one of the commissioners, Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, said they petitioned the Senate to save CCB from self-inflicted incapacitation.
He said: “The N109bn loot linked to the suspended Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, was first reported to CCB through petitions, but prevented from being acted upon by the chairman.
“Corruption must be killed in Nigeria before it kills us and anybody not ready to join in the fight or war against it should be shown the way out of public service, particularly those saddled with responsibilities of curbing corrupt practices in the country like CCB.”
In the interest of report balancing, the newspaper has this to say: — When contacted a senior official of the CCB, told Daily Trust that the allegations were a figment of the commissioners’ imaginations. The official, who pleaded anonymity, said: “The house is not in order presently, but that is not a reason for them to go to the press to fight.”
According to the petitioners, Board members do not know how many petitions were received by the Bureau as well as the number of cases under investigation and cases charged to the Code of Conduct Tribunal. They equally alleged that high-profile cases brought before the Bureau were suppressed by the chairman.
The big question remains who wants the Chairman of CCB out of office, and for what actual reason? No one can comprehensively provide answers to these two questions without taking a critical look at the surrounding information around the composition of CCB and the possible intentions of the members.
The main allegation against the Chairman of CCB is corruption. What could have possibly informed the petitioner(s) choice of the National Assembly as an avenue for the entertainment of the petition? If the real intention of the petitioner was fighting corruption, one would have thought that petition should have been routed to the ICPC.
The choice of National Assembly (NASS) is a bit cumbersome because as we know, the constitutional function of NASS is to expose corruption, largely via oversight function; although, NASS is not forbidden from exposing corruption via the route of the petition.
If the real intention of the petitioners was genuine, they would have allowed OSGF to intervene in the case, after all, they sent the same petition to the President through SGF’s office. Another disturbing problem here is the petitioners’ lack of patience in also allowing the green chamber to sit on their case as well.
This writer thinks the petitioners preferred the option of NASS; the Senate, in particular, is to generate mob media conviction of Professor Isa Mohammed, at the same time, give the impression that Presidency is slow at moving against “corrupt government officials”.
The petitioner might have also reasoned that there won’t be a media trial and conviction of the CCB Chairman, should the option of ICPC is explored, as due diligence will apply; and that may negate their real intention of media trial and conviction.
But who stands to gain from the fall of CCB’s Chairman? One dangerous problem here is the fact that almost all the commissioners involved in the petition are politically exposed.
This means that they can use their privileged position in CCB to cause a crisis in Nigeria if they seek to encroach on the function of the CCB’s Chairman. And this is why OSGF is the fit and proper place to hear the petition.
The inordinate ambition of some commissioner(s) to probably head CCB may be responsible for the push to get Professor Isa Mohammed out, but if we are to go strictly by Carl Schmitt’s quote above, it will seem the real intention of some or all the five commissioners is to oversee or take charge of petitions written against public and political appointees to make money via blackmail; which some of them might engineer in the first place.
How else can one explain the apparent demand by the commissioners to be having access to petitions against public and political appointees in government when it is obvious that falls outside their function at CCB, according to experts?
To this end, Nigerians can begin to understand the allegation that the CCB chairman was sitting on petitions against public officers with multi-million and billion naira assets not stated in their assets’ declaration forms.
Opinion 2: Who wants Professor Isa Mohammed out @ CCB?
The impious manner Honorable Johnson Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, the spokesperson to the commissioners carried out the media trial and conviction of Professor Isa Mohammed shows disturbing objective and bears eloquent testimony to his disguised intention. How can Honorable Ehiozuwa accuse Isa Mohammed of corruption, when such does not exist?
It is very wrong for him to do that, considering that many Nigerians sympathized with him when he was asked to recuse himself from sitting as the Chairman of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing PenCom, on account that his daughter was sacked by PenCom over a forged certificate. Nigerians felt that his daughter was an adult who should be responsible for her actions.
Even when the House of Reps removed Honourable Johnson as the chairman of the committee he was heading at a time, on the strength of what they called a questionable certificate, watchers of events at NASS felt that the House leadership should have given him benefit of the doubt, as no court ruled he has a fake certificate.
Here is how the Guardian Newspaper of 19 April 2019 reported what transpired at NASS: The chairman of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee probing an alleged N33 billion malfeasance at the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma, has stepped down, accusing a panel member of working in cahoots with the officials being investigated for selfish ends.
Barely 10 minutes into the committee’s proceedings yesterday, the Edo lawmaker stunned stakeholders when he claimed that Wale Oke was undermining the inquiry through his alleged romance with the PenCom personnel.
Agbonayinma had last week disclosed that billions belonging to pensioners were allegedly withdrawn from the PenCom account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under questionable circumstances.
He described Oke’s alleged conduct as infamous and unbecoming of a lawmaker who should pursue justice at all times.
The exact words of Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma read thus: “From the inception of the investigations, his actions have been infamous and uncomplimentary. He made overtures in subverting the mandate of the ad hoc committee, which was disregarded on March 20, 2019.“
He brought the Acting DG of PenCom and the Director of Operations to my office to know what it will take for me to scuttle the investigations.
My reply was that the commission should submit requested documents as the committee intends to work judiciously as directed in the resolution of the House.
“From our findings, the body language of the honourable member is that of a commissioned agent and with a directive to stifle the investigations and subvert the report of the committee. Sadly, a ranking parliamentarian is involved in these unwholesome acts. This is the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob.”
This is how Honorable Wole Oke reacted to Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma’s allegations: — “How and in what way? Let him substantiate his allegations with facts. They are false and untrue. He should not drag me into his woes and that of his daughter over their allegations of certificate forgery.
“The committee has the constitutional powers to do its job and submit its report to the floor. I have no business with PenCom. I do not own any PFA nor am I a director in any.”
An online newspaper, THE WHISTLER, in its April 4, 2019 report, re-echoed honourable Wole Oke’s line of thought on Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma’s family, concerning certificate forgery.
This is the caption of that report: Scandal Hits Lawmaker’s Family, Daughter Sacked for Working with Fake Degrees.
While this writer is not concluding that both The Whistler and Hon Wole Oke were correct in their view on Hon Ehiozuwa and his daughter, it will be an uphill task for Ehiozuwa himself to deny that he is not pursuing sinister agenda at CCB that may unfold after getting Professor Isa Mohammed out as the Chairman of CCB. Rational Nigerians will surely see a disturbing trajectory in his accusations.
How can he explain to intelligent Nigerians that his earlier vendetta-laced involvement in the PenCom probe and the latest untidy participation in accusing the CCB Chairman of corruption is a mere coincidence?
It is worth noting that, one of the petitioners who happen to be a retired Police Commissioner was said to have expressed shock that his phone number and a forged signature were included among those who signed the petition.
The retired CP, as a Board Member, opted out from signing the petition after discovering that most of the issues raised in the petition could not be substantiated.
The report said his signature was forged, and his phone number was added to their petition. Is this not a clear case of impersonation and forgery, which is criminal?
The reported scuttling of the corruption hearing by Senator Philip Aduda is at best laughable because the Senator in question was elected in the same manner Senators in the Senate committee on ethics and privileges committee were elected.
Besides, this writer was told he belongs to the opposition party, PDP. He is the minority leader in the Senate as well as a ranking Senator. By right, he has the right to witness the hearing from the opposition’s point of view.
What he did at the hearing even elevated him as an elder statesman. Nothing prevents him from calling a world press conference to accuse the ruling APC-led government of publicly exposing their corruption.
But he elected to advise the combatants to go back and settle their differences and report back to the committee in two weeks.
His position also tallied with the position of a senior official at CCB, who told Daily Trust thus: “The house is not in order presently, but that is not a reason for them to go to the press to fight.”
The commissioners at CCB are only out to give a dog a bad name to hang it. The real issue in their petition is not corruption, but how to use it, corruption to engineer the removal of Professor Isa Mohammed to pave for the Chairman that will surrender his mandate to the commissioners, particularly, access to petitions against civil servants, public and political office holders, so that they feast on them via blackmail.
Imagine what Honorable Johnson may do to Wole Oke and other members, as well as top officials at PenCom, should the commissioners have unrestricted access to their asset declaration forms.
And the insidious part of it is that the five commissioners are trying to portray President Muhaamodu Buhari as one who is slow or not interested in fighting corruption because they should have waited for the President’s response to their petition, by implication. If not, why forward the petition against Professor Isa Mohammed to the President via the SGF when they don’t want it to be treated there?
Emeka Oraetoka, Information Management Consultant and Researcher writes this opinion.
