By Godwin Etakibuebu
I wonder if my readers did hear the question loud and clear. For sake of clarity, l must reframe the question. President Muhammadu Buhari’s Attorney General of the Federation doubles as his Minister of Justice and his name is Abubakar Malami. It is this officer that decides who should be charged to court for any known, and sometimes unknown, breach of laws of the land.
We may not forget in hurry what he did with those investigative agencies which were not processing some highly classified individuals to court through his office. The Presidency ordered all those agencies [Police, EFCC, ICPC and others] to submit to the authority of the Attorney General. Since then, only those the powerful Minister consented to go on trial that go and for those he favours never to be troubled, they and their cases’ files remain sine die in his office.
By the way, it is the office of the same Attorney General [and Minister for Justice] that encouraged the Whistle blowing policy of the Buhari Government, ostensibly to give teeth to the battle against corruption. Both Lai Mohammed [Minister of Information] and Professor Itse Sagay [SAN]; another top employee of the Buhari administration, have since told us how successful the whistle-blowing policy has been in this crucial battle of “killing corruption”.
Something strange however happened to the whistle-blowing policy last week, which by all purposes and intents, might not only destroy the policy but unquestionably, be compromising the future of every whistle-blower. The Bible says that “the righteous shall live by faith” but by what happened last week, Abubakar Malami; the Attorney General, is now saying that “the righteous shall die by faith”. Whistle blower may end up going to jail for reporting anything about corruption, according to the new sacrosanct epistle of Abubakar Malami. Hear me out with the details before jumping to conclusion.
Last week, in a stunt defense of the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police [IGP], the Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice charged a serving Senator of the Federal Republic to Court for blowing whistle of corruption and nepotism against the former. What l intend doing here is more of reportorial than looking at the merit or otherwise of the case because the matter is already in the domain of a court of appropriate jurisdiction.
Senator Isah Hamma Misau (APC,Bauchi) is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy and a few months ago, he made some damning revelation against the person of the IGP on the floor of the Senate. The allegations bordering on corruption, indecent behaviours and nepotism, were seen by many as the boldest attempt by any individual in accusing a very highly-placed serving official of government for that matter, more so, when the accuser audaciously, said he had factual evidences to prove his case.
In fact the Nigeria Police Force came out to say that the accuser or rather the whistle-blower absconded from the Force and that the “so-called certificate of discharge from the Police Force with which he contested the election” [which brought him to the Senate] “was forged”. While the Police embarked on this mission of perfidy, the Police Service Commission [PSC], trying to give the NPF a back-up in its nefarious claim, set a “commission of enquiry to probe the circumstances under which Senator Isah Misau left the Police”.
The Senator bravely fought back as he refused to attend to the call of the PSC, saying that the PSC under the leadership of retired Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro; “who also lacks moral credibility, going by N300million scam and others hanging on his neck since 2011 during the presidential primary election of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, where he served as the head of the security committee”. The PSC thereafter did a somersaulting by pronouncing that “Deputy Superintendent of Police [DSP] Isah Misau’s certificate of retirement from the Police Force was properly processed and approved by the PSC”.
In view of all these unfolding scenario most Nigerians thought this was the greatest dividend of the whistle-blowing policy of the government till date until last week when the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice charged Senator Misau to court, maybe for embarrassing the incumbent IGP. Abubakar Malami thus set the notorious example, for the first time in Nigeria’s history where the government, using tax-payers money, comes out defending an individual accused of corruption. It is really very sad because the same Inspector General of Police, being so defended and shielded from such grievous accusations by a Government that is “marching fiercely towards killing corruption” supposedly, has approached a court at the same time, asking that the Senate of the Federal Republic must be stopped from summoning him from appearing before it [the Senate] to defend his alleged atrocities. What a dramatic drama of absurd.
Time to answer the question: When Shall Buhari’s Justice Minister Charge Aisha Buhari To Court? has come because, the patriotic wife of the President has just blown a whistle, albeit a very revealing one in that matter, about the reeling corruption at the State House Clinic where there is no Panadol, Syringe and there is no functional X-Ray machine. She revealed this in the presence of the Nigerian Minister for Health and the Medical Director of the comatose Clinic. What more? She even called for a genuine probe into the affairs “in view of the budget allocation to the clinic”, in her words.
My fear is since there is a dramatic change of policy on the whistle-blowing as any genuine whistle-blower may be heading to prison as the case of the “Federal Government versus Senator Misau” now in court portends, what stops the Attorney General of the Federation; Abubakar Malami, from charging the President’s wife; Mrs Aisha Buhari, to court within the next few days for ever alleging that there is corruption practices somewhere around the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja.
God forbid bad thing. The Senator may go to jail for blowing the correct whistle but my beautiful First Lady; the ebulliently hilarious Aisha Buhari, must not go to jail. I am urging all Nigerians to sign this petition please. I so submit.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.