By Darlington Anule
Sweeping hardship has turned Nigeria into a zone of near manic, hysteria-stricken majority, therefore, a dangerous space. With frustration, anger, hardship, poor purchasing power, though not restricted to Nigeria, emotion is boiling over.
So, it takes only a little to grow a mob and nearly nothing to whip people into a threatening frenzy. Scapegoating is pervasive. Innocent victims are lynched before their fault is ascertained. Perhaps, it is an escape from the harshness of everyday situation , which provides a sort of catharsis from chilly horizontal corruption, insecurity among others that kept the nation on bended knees.
The recent Senate Public Accounts Committee drama on a N17.8billion, which actually formed part of a humongous nearly N58 billion, which could not be accounted for between 2012 -2015 was one such opportunity for a public release of pent up anger.
For the Senate, it was a decoy that played on the collective short memory of Nigerians to elicit another national uproar against the ruling party, more so when the headship of this committee, chairman and deputy are from the opposition PDP, bent on rubbishing anything APC to capture power. A case of selling old wine in new wine skin it is . How it was able to regurgitate and garnish anew, a decade old financial infractions, serially investigated by the anti-graft agency and the supervising Ministry of Labour, recoveries made, punishment meted, is an exercise in legislative ingenuity and impunity .
Nigerians are of late used to the hullabaloo of National Assembly probes which in times past, ended in self- serving and self-saving interjections like “switch off the mic,” a euphemism for do not spill the beans. But how Nigerians got hypnotized into a formidable army for the media trial, says a lot about the mood of the nation. Remember that a bag of local rice is N30,000 and that university students are at home because ASUU insists the Federal Government grants its unreasonable demands, including paying them for the six months they have been at home doing private businesses. When Nigerians hear of missing billions in a situation we are in, government easily becomes a public enemy . Hence all that is needed to galvanise a mob, is to play up an official sleaze.
The tale of termites at the NSITF perfectly fits. The Senate Committee on Public Accounts had to dust the 2017 Auditor General’s Report, laid in the 8th Senate. Let’s point out here that it was the Minister of Labour that asked the Auditor General for its report upon noticing the NSITF had none between 2012- 2015. It was also the Minister who sought for the report of the EFCC investigations. There is therefore something certainly amiss in Senate Committee initiating a public hearing over a report that has been with it for five years, more so, when the law has taken its due course on the matter. It is a clear case of shutting the stable when the horse is already out and inversely painting black, a one year old NSITF management, when the culprits are appointees of PDP government of President Jonathan.
I was at the Senate public hearing and witnessed the question and answer session between the Senators and former Managing Directors of the fund – Munir Abubakar(2010-2016) Ismail Agaka(2016-2017) and Bayo Somefun(2017-2020)and Michael Akabogu (July 1 2021 – date) .The bad news didn’t make the headlines while the opposite was skewed for mischief by detractors and cash and carry correspondents. The bad news which was hidden from Nigerians is that the former Managing Director, Munir Abubakar in an answer to a question on why N5billion was paid from NSITF accounts in two banks to some persons without vouchers, claimed that the vouchers might be at the NSITF’s strong room or containers where documents were kept . This is contrary to his testimony to the EFCC in 2015 and at the Administrative Panel of Inquiry in 2017, that there were no vouchers and that it was only the then Deputy General Manager, Account who could explain the reason. It is the same Munir who suddenly denied his documented statement ! It was at this juncture that Dr. Akabogu interjected that if the container Munir was referring is the one abandoned to the elements by the same former Managing Directors, then it is their deliberate ploy to allow the vouchers, if they ever existed, to be feasted upon by elements including termites. What made headlines here is termites of course. Hence, termites as an ‘alibi ’ as presented by the press is wrong and not a direct answer from Dr. Akabogu. The mention was a jocular response to Munir that he was lying to the Senate having deposed in separate statements to the EFCC and Administrative Panel years ago, that there were no vouchers . It is therefore outright mischief to draw a comparison between this and a notorious case of N6million alleged to have been eaten by monkey at Kano Zoo or the N32million said to have been swallowed by snake at JAMB Office in Makurdi.
Now, whither the facts about this uproar? The full issue is that in 2015, the EFCC acting on petitions and tip-off from whistle blowers investigated the accounts of the NSITF and discovered massive looting to the tune of N62Billion. It consequently arrested and charged the former chairman of the board of the fund, Ngozi Olejeme and two other board members, Aderemi Adegboyaga and R.U Uche representing NLC and NECA respectively to court. Others equally charged included former top management – former Managing Director , Munir Abubakar, the Deputy General Manager Finance, Henry Ekhasomi, General Manager Legal, Adebayo Aderibigbe and one other .
As I noted before, the office of the Auditor General of the Federation on the invitation of the Minister of Labour equally raised the red flag on periodic check having discovered that the agency breached all financial regulations to the extent that it has no audited report for five years (2012-2017) It is this Auditor General’s report submitted in 2017 that this Senate Committee is acting upon even when Labour Minister in that same 2017, following presidential assent, set up an Administrative Panel of Inquiry into that financial haemorrhage. The Panel was led by K.C Awotu, a chartered accountant and former Director of Finance at the Ministry . The Awotu Report submitted on July 18, 2018 made more damming revelations. About N30billion was established to have been carted away in one instance, out of which N5billion vanished without vouchers in one day! The internal audit mechanism according to the report, broke down irretrievably and unable to check even as of 2017 as some avoidable breaches and the massive fraud that was still ongoing . It further noted that it was anomalous for the chairman and non-executive directors on part time, to assume executive powers.The Panel further made far reaching recommendations for the reform of the agency.Also, four management staff members and others directly and indirectly involved in the fraud were directed to proceed on compulsory leave including those charged to court but still at work against the public service rule. Though the matter is still in court, the EFCC has made recoveries which include 48 property worth billions of naira from Olejeme and has equally secured permanent forfeiture of the items. Various sums in cash have equally been recovered from other accused persons through plea bargain.
So, what’s new that nudged the Senate Public Accounts Committee out of long slumber in the twilight of its exit, general elections around the corner? More so, a committee populated by opposition legislators! What do they want to achieve in a case the EFCC has already investigated and taken to court? A case that the Ministry of Labour took the bull by the horn, probed and offenders punished? A case where recoveries have been made and the administrative lacuna that occasioned the sleaze blocked? Is it not a case of double jeopardy? Can an individual suffer another punishment over a crime already punished? Which vouchers is the Committee looking for when it was already established and reported that billions of naira disappeared from the fund without vouchers? Do the lawmakers think these indicted officers would not use cronies to vitiate the remaining incriminating evidence in a case committed between 2012 -2016, long when the current managing director was not even a staff ? As a matter of fact, what does the Financial Regulation say on the life of a voucher ? The irony of this is that the incumbent management with incredible high water mark in performance, resolutely implementing the presidential directive on reforms, returning the agency to its founding mandate, is being unnecessarily painted black.
Question therefore is whether this probe is in the public interest, or politically intended to generate the usual dusts that feather defined interest rather than that of the nation. As an aside, the National Assembly has often shown shallow knowledge of the NSITF in discharging oversight functions. First is that it is either Senate or House of Representatives Committee on Labour that has oversight over the NSITF, but too often, you see committees with little knowledge of the fund haranguing its officials. Not quite long ago, the House of Representatives was hounding the agency over a so-called non-remitted operating surplus fund between 2013 and 2020. The House suddenly re-conceived the NSITF, a non-treasury funded agency with 1% contribution from employers to an internally generating revenue agency, whose surplus must be returned to the federal treasury! Good the House later back-pedalled.
The Senate is obligated to its constitutional oversight functions but a lee to encourage agencies whose management has shown commitment to the growth is important. In other words, any probe must be a piggyback on the ongoing reforms in the NSITF. The current management of the fund which is a year old has demonstrated it has all it takes to reposition the parastatal with over 5000 workers. It is clearly a new day at the NSITF with increased and re-tooled staff strength, where a wall is being built against the past under strategic reforms .
• Anule writes from Abuja