21022018 - APC CRISIS LATEST :Governor demolishes senator's house

Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018—31
IGERIANS are fast losing count of
Nthe number of casualties lost in the
series of attacks attributed to armed
herdsmen across different parts of northern
Nigeria and the rest of the country. Each
day comes with different news and it all
looks like it has got to the point where people
have become so desensitised they simply
take these killings and related violence in
their strides. Nigerians now wake up daily
to reports of violent deaths in different parts
of the country. It is apparent most of the
attacks that result in the deaths are hardly
reported except where the casualty figure is
so high it counts in its scores. There is death
everywhere and most of it is today ascribed
to herdsmen that allegedly pay furtive,
nocturnal visits to farmsteads they
thereafter proceed to waste and lay bare.
They don’t stop at burning and looting these
farms, they inflict unimaginable injuries on
those fortunate to escape whereas others are
literally cut up into bits and pieces that
make the attacks all look like some ritual
practice.
Whatever are the intentions of the
attackers, what the various narratives have
in common about them is that Hausa-
Fulani-inspired armed militias are
responsible for the attacks. Another
undeniable fact of these series of attacks is
that almost to the last incident in Zamfara
where more than forty Nigerians were
reportedly murdered, nobody has been
apprehended for these heinous acts. The socalled
Fulani herders have apparently
grown wings that enable them to escape
from the site of the attacks without trace.
Which is probably why many of the victims
and others speaking for them have held the
security agencies, particularly the police,
either complicit or responsible for the
attacks. The police have been less than
responsible in their conduct as far as the
killing saga involving cattle herders are
concerned. This is a very regrettable state
of things considering that an increasing
sam@starteamconsult.com
Like Baru, like Yusuf: Corporate
governance failures in PMB’s govt
ONE of the greatest virtues
President Muhammadu
Buhari, PMB, is associated with is
Integrity. This popularly marketed
virtue is the back bone of the faith
Nigerians have in PMB to fight
corruption. This was the primary
promise made to the people of
Nigeria and this was also the main
reason Nigerians voted him into
power.
Therefore one would expect that
the President would ordinarily not
do or permit to be done anything that
would impugn his integrity. When
the story about his former SGF
Babachir Lawal broke, following
Babachir’s indictment by the
National Assembly, many Nigerians
were shocked that it looked as if he
was being shielded from facing the
law.
PMB quickly set up an-in house
committee to investigate the
indictment and he was soon
absolved. This was not a surprising
outcome. Because friends will
always stand behind their friends.
The FEC can not investigate itself.
That is antithetical to good corporate
performance practices. But the
National Assembly stuck to their
gun, supported by the civil society
and subsequently forced PMB to set
up another investigative committee
now headed by the Vice President. It
took nearly six months for the report
to be acted upon. Babachir was found
culpable by the VP’s Committee
which showed the strength of
character of the VP and PMB had to
replace him. Since then, we have read
that the EFCC has begun to question
him on the grass-cutter deal. It was
bewildering to many that PMB
would drag his feet in dealing with a
corruption matter.
Given Nigerians' current revulsion
to issues related to corruption and
their expectations, they thought that
such a weighty accusation should
have involved the EFCC
immediately the accusation was
made by a responsible government
body like the Senate of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria. Then enter Dr.
Maikanti Baru who was appointed
the Group Managing Director of
NNPC by PMB. Some time last year,
Ibe Kachikwu the Minister of State
The Zamfara massacre: making sense
of nonsense
number of the casualties are themselves
police officers.
Just over a week ago, four of them were
abducted by armed men. While two or three
of them later returned to their camp,
reportedly, one or two others did not. In fact,
the decomposing body of one of the
abducted men would be found days after
their abduction. Whatever way the issue is
viewed police officers like other security
personnel are sharing in the onslaught
against Nigerians by armed bandits
masquerading as herders. But the Inspector
General of Police, IG Ibrahim Idris, has
overdrawn all the sympathy and empathy
Nigerian politicians and
elite in various sections of
the society have succeeded
beyond anything imaginable
in the manner they have
employed ethnicity as a tool
of separation among
Nigerians
that could be extended to the police
especially the rank and file that are at the
centre of making peace in communities
overrun by militias. Since the IG chose to
take the partisan position of defending one
side in the series of violent encounters,
whatever else the police have been doing
have been overshadowed by the
unpardonable utterances of the man.
Ibrahim Idris is a past master of avoidable
controversies that show him up as an
unprofessional officer. For the moment, he
seems to have stayed out of controversy in
Zamfara. But Abdulaziz Yari, the Zamfara
State governor, has been less than impressed
claiming the security agencies, among
whom we must include the police failed,
perhaps we are to interpret that as a refusal
for Petroleum wrote a memo to PMB
which eventually became public that
‘Kanti Baru was awarding contracts
without the approval of either the
Minister of State or the NNPC
Board.
Indeed Ibe accused Baru of
insubordination and sidelining of the
NNPC board which he chaired. It
was then reported that for some of
those approvals Baru either went to
meet PMB on his sick bed in the UK
or went to meet PMB’s Chief of Staff.
Baru was reported to have responded
that he did not need the approval of
the NNPC board to award either
procurement or sales contract.
Rather he only needed to go to the
NNPC Management Procurement
When we were hoping
that we had seen the
end of this kind of
troubling incidents,
then entered Prof.
Usman Yusuf who was
(or is) the Executive
Secretary of the
National Health
Insurance
committee which he Baru chaired.
This explanation was supported by
the Presidency and the matter was
closed after Ibe was admonished to
mind his business, know his limits
and to concern himself with the
mundane assignments of the
minister of state with his lame
statutory board.
Baru was vindicated and Ibe was
humiliated. In all my years in
corporate governance practice, I am
yet to come across this kind of
arrangement where a corporate
statutory board does not have an
approving power over certain levels
of contracts or procurement, and the
Nigerian Government under PMB
believes it is okay. Up till today, I
find this arrangement
bewildering. While we were still
trying to understand how this
NNPC’s troubling corporate
governance structure promotes
transparency and ethical conduct,
the story of Maina broke out.
Abdulrasheed Maina was accused
of misappropriating billions of
Naira when he was chairman of a
Presidential Task Team on Pensions
Reform, PTTPR, set up by President
Goodluck Jonathan. He was
relieved of his appointment and
dismissed from the civil service and
later invited by the National
Assembly and the EFCC.
He declined the invitations and
was declared wanted by the EFCC.
Maina took a walk across the border
and waited for the fall of President
Goodluck Jonathan. PMB came to
power and authorised the Attorney
General, Malami, to visit Maina in
the UK and negotiate his return.
Maina made a triumphant return
and between the DSS, AGF, Minster
of Interior and the Presidency he got
reabsorbed into the federal civil
service and received double
promotion. The current head of the
civil service briefed PMB that the
reabsorption of Maina into the
service was going to affect PMB’s
to respond, to the
distressed calls
of the people of
Birane Village in
Zurmi Local
Govermment
Area.
Beyond the
c o m m o n
complaint that
the security
agencies have
been largely reactive in their approach to
combating the armed militias ravaging
different parts of the country, we may need
to take a close look at the claim that the
Hausa-Fulani have not just been the
aggressors but also that their intention is to
extend Fulani control to communities
hitherto free from their influence. The
reason one is saying this is that if, as it has
been shown, Fulani-sponsored militias have
been behind the attacks across Benue,
Taraba, and Nassarawa states and the
dominant narrative has it that their intention
is to establish and entrench Fulani influence
in these parts, is that the same reason for the
attacks in Zamfara state? And for some
reason, the people of Zamfara have said
nothing about anyone or group of persons
trying to dominate them politically beyond
blaming the security agencies for their
failure to respond to prior reports of planned
attacks. How do we explain the difference
in reaction between the attacks in Zamfara
and the others in Benue, Taraba and
Nassarawa among others, even when the
victims in all these cases acknowledge the
failure of the security agencies in responding
sooner?
What I am driving at here is, perhaps, the
need to reexamine the ascribed motives for
the attacks. This may appear to weigh
nothing but when viewed from the
perspective that the highly emotive nature
of the anger against the herders and the
government that appears to be doing far less
than it can in the face of the attacks, is to a
great extent because of what many perceive
as the desire of the Fulani to establish their
influence and eventually take over control
of communities not controlled by them. The
anti-corruption fight. She was
ignored and Maina resumed and
was paid his arrears of salary at the
new level from 2013 when he was
sacked by Jonathan. Maina was
posted directly from Presidency to
the Ministry of interior, with a copy
of the letter sent to the Head of
Service.
The civil society and the media
raised the red flag and after dithering
for a while, PMB authorised his sack.
The EFCC invited him again, he
refused and rather took another
walk across the border back to his
base in self exile. EFCC then declared
him wanted a second time. And
nobody was queried or sanctioned.
It was just an ordinary matter.
Neither the DSS, nor the Police, nor
the Immigration, nor the Ministry
of Interior was put to any task. Then
the National Assembly set up a
committee to investigate how all
these happened under the watch of
PMB. The AGF goes to court to stop
the investigation. Truly bewildering!
When we were hoping that we had
seen the end of this kind of troubling
incidents, then entered Prof. Usman
Yusuf who was (or is) the Executive
Secretary of the National Health
Insurance, NHIS. Yusuf was accused
of impunity, corruption and other
elements of malfeasance. The
Minister of Health, the distinguished
Professor Isaac Adewole did a
preliminary investigation and sent
Yusuf on suspension to enable him
do a more detailed investigation.
Yusuf resisted going on suspension
claiming that he was appointed by
the President and, therefore, could
not be disciplined by the Minister.
After some ding-dong, he succumbed
and proceeded on an indefinite
suspension.
nepotistic tendencies of the Buhari
administration have served to muddle up
matters even further. The herdsmen attacks
are seen as one with the desire of the Buhari
government to fill every space with Fulani
faces. But then is it possible, as some have
alleged, that interpretation given the attacks
have been politicised by some people? This
is without prejudice to the fact that most of
these attacks have been traced to Fulanisponsored
militias who appear to enjoy the
confidence of members of the leading cattle
herders’ association, the Miyetti Allah. But
could politics be playing a part in how some
people have been interpreting the attacks
by Fulani militias?
May be then, what we should do is focus
more on the criminality of the attacks while
seeking justice for the injured by insisting
that the attackers be brought to book and
made to account for their action without
reading motives for the attacks beyond the
fact of a clash of interest between farmers
and herders. Nobody is served well by the
fact that Nigerians are killing one another
or may be hiring foreigners to hack down
their compatriots. Even when they find it
necessary to put the blame on others,
Nigerian politicians and elite in various
sections of the society have succeeded
beyond anything imaginable in the manner
they have employed ethnicity as a tool of
separation among Nigerians. A crime is a
crime irrespective of who is responsible or
the motivation for the attack. Let every
criminal act be accorded its due reward
without concern for whether it was
perpetrated by a Yoruba, Fulani or Birom
person. Let every action as are crimes be
treated on their own merit.
C
M
YK