Let me begin with this story: A few years ago (I choose not to be specific about the year), a Senate committee paid an oversight visit to the Federal Ministry of National Planning. At the meeting with the minister and other top directors of the ministry, light snacks were served. The snacks included one full grilled chicken for each senator, as well as a variety of snacks, including groundnut. None of the senators ate the snacks. They all left everything on the table.
But the story changed, the moment the committee members boarded the coaster bus that took them to the ministry. They saw that the committee secretary had carefully packed his own snacks in a take-away pack. Some of the members asked where he got the snacks and he told them it was his own portion of the ones served to them at the meeting. To his greatest shock, the members, almost in unison, greedily asked him to go back to the venue of the meeting in the ministry and also pack their own for them. He did exactly that, and none of the senators, including a former governor, rejected the packs that would by no means cost more than N5,000 each. Just take a moment and imagine whether the minister, and indeed his directors who witnessed this show of shame, would ever accord any respect to these rapacious legislators. 
The story is told of another senator, also a former governor, who almost had an accident driving from Kaduna to Abuja when the secretary of the committee he was chairing told him N10 million had been brought for sharing to the committee members, and that the CEO of the parastatal who sent the money requested it should be disbursed to the committee members immediately. The senator strongly warned the secretary not to inform any of the committee members about the money, and that it should be kept for him. To the shock of the committee secretary, the senator arrived from Kaduna barely two hours later and collected the money from him. His driver told me they almost had an accident because of the reckless way the senator was instructing the driver to drive.
In a similar vein, some secretariat staff of a Senate committee were approached by an organisation desirous of having an investigation of its activities stopped by the committee. Members of the committee had made a public show of activities of the agency in question and promised to expose its dirty dealings. The secretariat staff were assigned the task of unearthing those underhand dealings. They set to work and were able to dig so much dirt. Eventually, however, the head of the agency was able to approach the members and a settlement was reached.
But one smart member of the committee observed that, if they merely called off investigation or turn out a verdict of not-guilty on the agency, the secretariat staff would become suspicious and possibly leak the matter to the press. He, therefore, advised the head of the agency to settle the secretariat staff separately. He offered to pay them N40 million, which they turned down. But just like that, they were all summoned the following day by the president of the Senate of that time, who collected original copies of the report they had prepared with a strict warning that any of them who leaked the matter would have himself to blame. That was the end of the matter.
From 1999 to at least the 8th National Assembly, people know that one can commit any kind of offense or engage in any kind of corruption and go scot-free because some National Assembly members will protect the corrupt once settlement is reached. A retired police AIG from Niger State once told a shocked nation during plenary that he was dumbfounded, upon assumption of office in the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, to see he had as colleagues some of the people that he arrested for sundry high crimes when he headed the Police Force Criminal Investigation Department.
In 2003, Malam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufa’i was nominated as minister by President Olusegun Obasanjo. As constitutionally demanded, he could not assume office without Senate clearance. All over the world, it is not out of place to lobby members of the National Assembly, to have them soften the ground for nomination to offices. When Nasir approached some senators, however, he was told to pay the sum of N50 million or forget his confirmation. The senior senators who made the demand did not reckon with an el-Rufa’i who was given to rabble-rousing. The man exposed what transpired between him and the senators, earning plaudits first himself and condemnation for those mentioned. He was able to retire them from politics since then, as the electorate could no longer trust them.
The case of Ms. Arunma Oteh, at that time DG of the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot be forgotten in a hurry. In March 2012, Ms. Oteh accused the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market, Hon. Herman Hembe, of soliciting N44 million bribe from her, an allegation he denied. But she audaciously went to the House of Reps chambers and repeated even worse allegations against the man. At the end of the day, Hembe had to resign his chairmanship of the committee, with an ad hoc committee set up by the then Speaker, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.
There are cases that are still ongoing in court, thereby making them subjudicial. One of these is billionaire businessman and philanthropist, Femi Otedola, accusing Hon. Faruk Lawan of collecting $622,000 from him to get his companies exonerated from the list of firms that abused government fuel subsidy. The allegation destroyed Lawan politically, as he has not won any election since then. Yet, not much lesson has been learnt from some of his colleagues that are still in office.
In early March this year, I was visiting a governor friend of mine in his hotel in Abuja, and some of his former colleagues in the House of Reps came visiting. To my hearing, in my very presence, they were discussing how competition was deep among them, about who is richer than who.
They mentioned a particular lawmaker from a state in the South-West, who they said is notorious for extorting money from federal parastatals, saying he is the richest member of the National Assembly, and that he had virtually nothing at the time he won election into his first term in the House of Reps. The guy, they said, is a smooth operator who uses tens of millions to purchase information about underhand dealings of chief executives of parastatals and even ministers, and deploys that information to blackmail them to give him fat contracts that he ends up not executing. The guy has properties, including expensive schools and other businesses in Nigeria and abroad.
It is shocking that the National Assembly is inhabited with so many bad eggs, who cohabit with some of the most decent individuals this country has ever known. Whereas some senators and reps members deploy all means, fair and foul, just to mass wealth, there are decent personalities like Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, former governor of Kano State in the Red Chamber, people who could not be pinned down to any case of corruption when they held sway in top executive positions. Not even Kwankwaso, Shekarau’s chief political opponent at that time, could pin down anything on Shekarau When the latter took over from the former as governor. There are also people like Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege, a man of peace who swam against the tide by contesting for political offices under APC, a political party that was hugely unpopular in the south-south region that he hails from, because of his firm belief in President Muhammadu Buhari’s ability to rid this country of corruption. Of course I am aware of allegations against the two individuals mentioned, but it is all political and nothing else.
There is a ray of hope, though. I am aware that incumbent Senate President Ahmad Lawan is partnering with Senator Agege, his deputy, as well as Senator Shekarau and a few other senators who personify integrity at its best to change the course of things for the better. Their goal is one, though big, and it is to give the National Assembly a good name and have it serve Nigeria, not just individual members thereof.
They have a big task before them because right now, the rating of the National Assembly before most Nigerians is at a very low ebb.
Now, courtesy of that low image, some chief executives of parastatals, as well as some ministers feel so free to talk down on the National Assembly, knowing very well that they have the full support of Nigerians. One recalls with nostalgia the Second Republic when ministers get jittery whenever they were summoned by the National Assembly. Even the country’s president was reported to develop cold feet whenever he was having meetings with members of the National Assembly of those days.
Not anymore. Now ministers and chief executives know it is all about money. That is why even heads of rotten agencies like the NDDC could have the audacity to walk down on the National Assembly. It is also for the same reason a minister did virtually the same penultimate week, and another one would dress down a member of the House of Reps right in the committee meeting room of the National Assembly three days ago. It is also the reason why a minister, who was seen to have personified corruption before his appointment, could afford to talk recklessly, disrespecting the National Assembly and its leaders and members with glee. No one in his senses would support the actions of Godswill Akpabio. Or Ngige. Or even to some extent, Festus Keyamo. But then these bad eggs in the two chambers of the National Assembly are the causative agents of all that.
Of course one could not even talk about the sheer disrespect exhibited by Professor Pondei of the NDDC. He walked down on the House of Reps because he knows he is being backed by the powerful Godswill Akpabio. And he has the audacity to illegitimately share billions of naira to members of his staff “to take care of ourselves” because he is very sure his supervisor will protect him. So reckless is this minister and his boy, the CEO of the NDDC that it doesn’t matter to them, that they are by their actions seriously portraying the Buhari Administration in bad light. They feel that the federal legislators could be purchased two for a penny. But where they are hugely wrong is that there are in both chambers of the National Assembly, some of the most decent Nigerians, who have through integrity and personal example, given Nigeria a solid name in the comity of world’s decent nations.
Senate President Ahmed Lawan, his Deputy Omo-Agege, House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila and other leaders of the National Assembly have another additional responsibility to make sure the National Assembly stops playing to the gallery. They should stop the ill-informed ones in their midst, or the bad eggs among them, from taking undue advantage of their being members of the National Assembly to be sponsoring motions that tend to lower the image of the Assembly in the eyes of right thinking Nigerians.
Whereas, for example, Hon Tahir Monguno is a respected legislator, his sponsorship last week of a ridiculous motion seeking to investigate resignation of some soldiers from the military leaves a lot to be desired. It was a motion that inadvertently also sought to promote dissent in the military, by citing the example of a Lance Corporal who openly insulted the leadership of the military, an institution deeply rooted in discipline. In the same House of Reps earlier, some members even sought to “rescue” the same renegade Lance Corporal because he was being detained by the military for his subversive activities.
Also just three days ago, the respected Senator Ali Ndume was raising a motion of urgent national importance when a senator from Osun seized the moment, and without full knowledge of the situation on ground, recklessly sponsored a motion calling for the removal of service chiefs. Very shockingly, the same motion was passed by the Senate, even when the senators knew no part of the Nigerian constitution gives them the power to remove or appoint any head of the military or the security services. It was such an embarrassment to the institution of the legislature that the presidency had to lecture them by reminding the senators that that power rests only in the President of the country, who has cogent reasons why he is keeping the service chiefs in office.
It was such a shameful display of ignorance because the same Senator Ali Ndume who sponsored the motion had informed his colleagues that the Army in particular, which constitutes about two-thirds of the nation’s military, was not given a dime out of its capital releases until last week when they were paid only half. I cited on these pages last week the example of MQ-9 Reaper Drones that Nigeria could purchase for the military to wipe out Boko Haram and all forms of terrorism and banditry in no time, and without any casualty, if only members of the National Assembly could in unison pass a motion asking the executive to deploy the N37 billion earmarked for refurbishment of the National Assembly to equipping our military, or tremendously improving the welfare of our troops.
The National Assembly has a duty to ensure its members do not derail the military with reckless summons and irresponsible motions. They must also be ready to make personal sacrifice to ensure the best for our troops. You cannot be collecting the highest salary in the world and complaining about poor welfare for our troops, especially since the same assembly knows that the little appropriated is being timely passed to the troops.
Government pays each member of the National Assembly enough money to hire competent hands to help him or her in research and other legislative matters. A member therefore, is not supposed to ridicule himself by raising a motion that tends to lower the institution of the National Assembly in esteem. Sadly, that is what is obtained since 1999 when democracy was restored to the country. While we have brilliant and decent minds as legislators, we also have charlatans who are only concerned about their pockets and stomach.
Of course the electorate has a big share of the blame in all these shenanigans. They allow so-called godfathers to always impose on the rest of us people with criminal records, or those whose general pedigree is rather too negative. That’s why we keep voting into power people with excess baggage, who are there only to feather their nests. One of the reasons Nigerians keep getting poorer is because those legislators that are supposed to be the closest to the people are abdicating that important responsibility.
The forthcoming general elections in 2023 is another time for Nigerians to right the wrongs of 2019 and the previous elections since 1999 when we voted many wrong people into power. No president, however good or effective he might be, could serve much purpose when we voted for him a rotten legislature or allow him to appoint into offices, people that personify corruption.
Welcoming Senate resolution on NDDC and House of Reps decision to sue Akpabio
One of the most bizarre things that have happened in government circles in the last one year or thereabouts is Senator Godswill Akpabio’s consistent blind support and defence of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) at virtually every slight prompting. Akpabio will go to any length and weather all kinds of storms to defend the indefensible, the acts of unprecedented sleaze in the NDDC that he supervises as minister. He is ready to insult anyone, whether individual or group and rubbish our national institutions just to defend the NDDC.
An example of this has been playing out in the National Assembly, whose chambers Akpabio left only last year when he was defeated in the 2019 general election. The Senate was magnanimous, as reportedly obtained in its rules, to ask Akpabio to take the traditional bow and go, accorded to all former lawmakers during confirmation hearings for appointment as minister. He thereby ended up making a distinction in an examination he did not write.
Last week, while making his presentation before the House Committee probing the sleaze in the NDDC, the Niger Delta Affairs Minister made a shocking revelation that 60 per cent of contracts are allocated to members of the National Assembly, thereby accusing the legislators and bringing their integrity to question.
An enraged Speaker of the House of Reps, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila issued a 48 hour ultimatum on Akpabio to reveal the names of those lawmakers he made reference to. But during plenary yesterday, just as the House passed a resolution to sue the minister for defamation, he sent a letter explaining that he was misunderstood, that, in making the allegation, he did not in particular refer to the ninth National Assembly.
But he has forgotten that a vast majority of members of that committee were members of the eighth assembly, and that included himself as he was a senator between 2015 and 2019. In essence, therefore, the accusation against them, and against their colleagues who were in the previous assemblies still stands.
Our law is very clear: he who alleges must prove his allegation. Even though out of obvious fear Godswill Akpabio is now eating his words, this column urges the minister to go beyond exonerating the ninth Assembly to go the whole hog and publish the names of the legislators that have cornered juicy NDDC contracts for themselves. This is a responsibility he owes the Nigerian nation, and the House of Reps must insist he still names the names.
It is shocking that the same Akpabio, who had before now mentioned some of the acts of corruption in the NDDC will be the one now stoutly defending it, in a manner that shows expertise in speaking with both sides of the mouth.
Kate Henshaw, on her Facebook page, opined that “every right thinking Niger Deltan should be on the streets protesting. No one should be allowed to enter that edifice of fraud called the NDDC office. We should occupy that building.
“Everyone who has ever been Director, Chairman or member of board of NDDC should be besieged. We should keep vigil on their houses, send them text messages, demand answers from them, question the source of their wealth, ask them deep questions about their integrity. We should demand that they be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.
“They didn’t only steal ‘NDDC money’, they stole the development of the region, they stole the future of a people. By their corruption, they stole education and made countless Niger Deltans illiterate, they stole healthcare and killed countless children, they stole money meant for generating employment and made millions jobless. They stole money for road construction and caused the death of our people through accidents.
“These are murderers. They have killed this region and its people. This is the time to call out these heartless thieves.
See the list of criminality below:
These views shouldn’t be strictly mine… it should be the view of every Niger Deltan, every Nigerian.
Please share let’s #EndNDDCCorruption
Notes on Corruption in NDDC
• “People were treating the place (NDDC) as an ATM, where you just walk in there to go and pluck money and go away” -Godswill Akpabio
• “NDDC has 12,000 abandoned projects in the Niger Delta” -Godswill Akpabio
• “N2.5billion budgeted by NDDC for desilting and clearing of water hyacinths inflated to N65billion”- Senate Public Accounts Committee
• “A particular NDDC contract was awarded 55 times”- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• Over 55 NDDC Interim Payment Certificate issued for a contract awarded in a particular state- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• Fake photographs of completed jobs are submitted for NDDC payments. Sometimes the same photos are submitted for different projects -Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• “People collect contracts for the same roads from the state government, from FERMA and then they come to NDDC and collect the same road project”- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• $70million of NDDC money was stored in a commercial bank since 2006- Godswill Akpabio
• N170 million NDDC funds abandoned in a bank for years- Godswill Akpabio
• Some banks deliberately withhold money belonging to NDDC- Godswill Akpabio
• NDDC pays N300 million annually as rent for its office space while its headquarter building started 23 years ago is uncompleted- Godswill Akpabio
• NDDC pays fee of N1billion monthly to a consultant that collects money from International Oil Companies (IOCs), on its behalf- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• NDDC gave N4.3billion cash grants to NGOs, 90% of which were not registered- Godswill Akpabio
• Past NDDC management awarded 1,921 ‘emergency contracts’ at N1.070 trillion in seven months, against an annual budget of about N400 billion- NDDC Interim Management Committee
• NDDC contracts worth over N67billion were never executed- House of Representatives Committee
• NDDC made excess payments of N5.8 billion to contractors- House of Representatives Committee
• NDDC awarded a N34million consultancy for ‘Reputation Management’- Kolawole Johnson
• N641million was paid to consultants for ‘Media Support for Forensic Audit’. Johnson Kolawole
• Payment for contracts are routinely channeled into the private accounts of NDDC staff’- Johnson Kolawole
• Money meant for NDDC contracts were paid into the private account of Bureau d’ Change Operators- Johnson Kolawole
• NDDC leadership paid funds meant for student scholarships into private bank accounts’ -Johnson Kolawole
• ‘No Forensic Audit on NDDC is currently going on’- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• Contracts are given to unregistered companies and companies still undergoing registration – Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• “Godswill Akpabio asked me to award N5billion contract for the supply of materials that were already in the NDDC Warehouse”- Former Acting MD Joi Nunieh
• 60 Percent of NDDC Contracts are awarded to National Assembly Members- Godswill Akpabio Minister of Niger Delta Affairs
• While the Probe Panel was still sitting, another fraudulent payment of N691 million was made by the NDDC- House of Reps Probe Panel
• NDDC had up to 311 accounts in various banks- Godswill Akpabio Minister of Niger Delta Affairs
• In one day, NDDC made multiple transactions of N49milion out of the Commission’s account. Godswill Akpabio Minister of Niger Delta Affairs
• NDDC spent N1.5 billion for staff as ‘COVID-19 relief funds’. Kemebradikumo Pondei head of NDDC IMC.”
Brass Tacks calls on Minister Akpabio to appreciate the good grace shown to him by President Muhammadu Buhari and ensure his actions do not continue to rub negatively on the administration. The Senate is also right on its resolution calling for the sack of the incumbent Interim Management Committee of the NNDC, and in the need for the management to ensure full refund of all monies it illegally gave its members of staff in the corrupt name of “taking care of themselves.”