CHUKS OLUIGBO
Too many scandals have rocked this country of ours in recent times
that have been swept under the rug or simply dumped in the trashcan or even
incinerator of history. And they have almost always followed the same pattern.
First, they would filter in as newsbreak, then the trickles would form a deluge
and explode into Armageddon, then the “self-appointed activists, the idle and
idling, twittering collective children of anger, the distracted crowd of
Facebook addicts, the BBM-pinging soap opera gossips of Nigeria” (apologies to
Reuben Abati) would feast on it, then the mainstream media would devour it with
gusto for a week or two, then we suffix a “gate” to the name of the man or
woman or institution at the centre of the storm, then everything would fizzle
out and we return to our normal lives – we forget. We behave like a typical
village mother hen which grandstands and shouts to the high heavens each time
she loses a chick to a roving hawk and thereafter retreats to nurse her pains,
without internalising the lessons of that encounter, only to repeat the futile
exercise when the episode recurs.
There is the Halliburton scandal, for instance. There is the probe
by the Ndudi Elumelu-led House of Reps Committee on Power into the massive
investment made in the power sector under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration
(1999-2007), which opened putrefying cans of worms, as did the Senate probe
into the operations of the BPE in 2011 which made mind-boggling revelations on
how public corporations were sold at rock bottom prices, the probe on the
management contract of the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (2002), the
Petroleum Technology Development Fund probe (2007), the pension fund
administration probe (2012), and the fuel subsidy scam probe (2012). The BPE
probe, for instance, revealed that while the Aluminium Smelting Company of
Nigeria, established at a cost of $3.2 billion, was sold for $130 million, the
Delta Steel Company, which was set up in 2005 at the cost of $1.5 billion, was
given away for $30 million. The pension probe uncovered how Abdulrasheed Maina,
chairman of the pension task force set up by the Federal Government to reform
the dysfunctional pension system, turned out to help himself and his cronies
with the pension fund.
But apart from the publicity, funfair and razzmatazz that
accompanied these probes and their entertainment value, many of them were
inconclusive, and the reports of those that were concluded are gathering dust
in the shelves.
But one scandal that has refused to go away is that involving
Farouk Muhammad Lawan, a renowned stalwart of the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) who represented his Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State in
the Nigerian House of Representatives for a whopping 16 years (1999-2015).
Lawan, a graduate of Bayero University Kano, who was a registrar
at the Kano State Polytechnic until he won election in 1999, served as chairman
of the House Committee on Finance under Aminu Bello Masari’s speakership.
Regarded as one of the power brokers in the House of Representatives, he played
a key role in Patricia Etteh’s emergence as speaker in 2007, and also during
the corruption scandal that rocked her boat later that year, he was the leader
of the Integrity Group that was at the centre of Etteh’s ousting. He became
known as Mr Integrity and was even then touted as a strong candidate for the
governorship of Kano State. But Mother Fate had other plans for him.
In the wake of the January 2012 protests against the attempt by
President Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidies and fully deregulate the
downstream sector of the Nigerian oil industry, the House of Representatives
set up an ad hoc committee to investigate alleged fraud in the Federal
Government subsidy regime. Lawan was appointed to chair the House Ad-hoc
Committee on Fuel Subsidy. In April of the same year, the committee released
its report uncovering a huge scam in which Nigerian oil marketing companies
were being paid hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies by the government
for fuel that was never delivered. The scam was estimated to have cost the
country $6.8 million.
A big dent
It was all very mind-boggling and Nigerians looked in utter
bewilderment, mouth agape, as the revelations tumbled in. But in a quick twist,
the hunter became the hunted as Femi Otedola, billionaire oil tycoon whose
companies Zenon and Synopsis were allegedly earlier indicted in the committee’s
report, accused Lawan of accepting $620,000 from him as part of a $3 million
bribe Lawan had solicited from him in order to have his companies removed from
the list of companies implicated in the committee’s report.
It opened like a typical blockbuster full of theatrics, intrigues,
accusations, denials and counter-accusations. Lawan, Otedola and Boniface
Emenalo, secretary to Lawan’s committee, were the key players; the House of
Reps, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Nigeria Police were
the supporting actors, while the generality of Nigerians were the spectators in
what was quickly baptized Otedola-gate or Lawan-gate depending on your
perception of who was guiltier.
Otedola alleged that he had paid Lawan bribes on April 21
($250,000), April 23 ($250,000), and early morning of April 24 ($100,000) to
have Zenon and Synopsis removed from the list of companies indicted by the
committee, but claimed it was a sting operation and that he acted with law
enforcement agents who planted visual and audio devices to trap Lawan after he
had pestered him to pay bribe.
Lawan admitted receiving the amount, but insisted it was meant to
expose the businessman and to convince the House of the pressure the committee
faced. He said he had communications with the chairman of the House Committee
on Financial Crimes and the Inspector General of Police, alleging that Otedola
pestered him to accept bribes in order to influence the outcome of the
investigation.
“I think it is important to note that I have been a member of the
House of Representatives for the past 13 years, of course together with several
other colleagues of mine past and present, and we have done so much to build
the House of Representatives. It means to show that I should enjoy the respect
and confidence of Nigerians,” Lawan had told reporters in the wake of the
allegations.
“As far as the issue relating to me is concerned, I believe
ultimately, I will be vindicated. I believe in the end Nigerians will come to
believe and see that for the 13 years that I have invested in championing good
governance, responsibility and probity in this country that this last trial is
a trial from God and I believe in the end we shall prevail,” he had said.
The House hit back at Otedola, saying they were not convinced the
procedure that caught the lawmaker was a sting operation and that Otedola was
as guilty as Lawan.
“The giver [of bribe] is as guilty as the taker,” said a
spokesperson of the House.
On the morning of April 24 during the House Plenary Discussion on
Subsidy Report, the House had reportedly voted to have Otedola’s companies
delisted from the original, but quickly re-listed Zenon Oil for investigations
after the scandal broke, a decision Otedola described as a “celebration of
corruption”.
A scandal that won’t go away
There is a line in the late Kofi Awoonor’s poem ‘Songs of Sorrow’
that reads: “The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces into which
I have stepped / When I clean it cannot go”.
Lawan-gate or Otedola-gate may have faded from the consciousness
of Nigerians, especially because too many others have happened since then and
Nigerians have lost count, but this is one scandal that has left a permanent
scar. Regardless of whether Lawan is eventually found innocent or guilty, he
has clearly stepped into Awoonor’s chameleon faeces which he cannot easily
clean off.
After initial attempts to prosecute Lawan, the fireplace
apparently grew cold and nothing was heard again. Even Nigerians weren’t
listening anymore because they had in the past watched such high-profile cases
end in futility.
But like an angry ghost that won’t rest in the grave, the case has
recently been reopened by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).
The case appeared before the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Lugbe,
Abuja, on February 2, 2016, but the presiding judge, Justice Angela Otakula, adjourned
till February 9. On February 9, the case was again adjourned till March 7 and 8
to enable the first prosecution witness, Boniface Emenalo, to conclude his
evidence.
Emenalo was initially charged along with Lawan with respect to the
bribery charge. Both of them were first arraigned before Justice Mudashiru
Oniyangi, then of the FCT High Court on February 2, 2013. But a later amendment
to the charges by the ICPC saw Emenalo’s name removed as a defendant. Lawan is
now the sole accused person in the case, while Otedola is scheduled to testify
against Lawan as the second prosecution witness.
The case was reassigned to Justice Adebukola Banjoko after Justice
Oniyangi was elevated to the position of a Justice of the Court of Appeal. The
case was further reassigned to Justice Otakula of the FCT High Court, Lugbe
Division, following the withdrawal of Justice Banjoko from the case in November
2014. The amended charges, comprising three counts instead of the previous
seven, now indicated that Lawan corruptly asked for $3m from Otedola and did
corruptly collect $500,000 from the businessman. The offences are said to be
contrary to sections 8(1)(a) and 17(1) (a) of the Corrupt Practices and Other
Related Offences Act, 2000 and punishable under sections 8(1) and 17(1) of the
same Act.
When the case reopened on March 7, Emenalo told the court that he
collected $100,000 from Femi Otedola as part of the alleged $3 million bribe
promised to the then chairman of the committee, Farouk Lawan.
Emenalo, testifying as
the first prosecution witness before Justice Angela Otakula, said he collected
the sum of $100,000 from Otedola in $100 bills.
“I came across Femi Otedola during this assignment on April 24,
2012. I received persistent calls from Mr. Otedola in the morning and reported
to Lawan and he asked me to play along with him, that he was with him (Otedola)
the previous night,” he told the court.
“When Otedola called again, he asked me to come over to his house.
He gave me the description (of his house). When I got there, he also confirmed
that he was with my chairman the previous night. He gave me two bundles of
dollar bills in $100 denomination. Each bundle was $50,000 making it $100,000
that were not converted. When I got back to the office, I wrote a memo
forwarding the money to my chairman that same April 24, 2012, which he took
from me,” he further said.
A copy of the memo was tendered before the court and marked
Exhibit PW1 C. The defence, led by Mike Ozekhome (SAN), did not object to the
admissibility of the document. However, Ozekhome sought an adjournment to serve
the prosecution with a notice to produce an additional statement made by the
witness as contained in the prosecution’s proof of evidence. The case was
adjourned till April 12 and 13, 2016 for continuation of trial and
cross-examination.
At the resumed trial on April 13, the case was again adjourned to
May 18 following the prosecution’s failure to produce its witness before the
court.
End of a political career?
Farouk Lawan’s gubernatorial ambition might have been scuttled by
the bribery scandal, but it could not prevent him from seeking and obtaining a
ticket to make a fifth bid for the House of Reps, notwithstanding the eyebrows
raised by PDP stalwarts in his constituency.
But his people of Shanono/Bagwai Federal Constituency of Kano
State thought differently. And they showed Lawan the door by choosing a
greenhorn, Sule Aliyu Romo, instead. At the March 28, 2015 presidential and
National Assembly elections, Lawan went home with 18,864 votes, while Romo, who
was until the election the secretary of Bagwai Local Government Council, got
48,548 votes.
Whatever happens hereafter, analysts say the 2012 bribery scandal
may yet be the end of Lawan’s otherwise sterling and promising political
career. They add, however, that he will always be remembered for bringing the
name of his constituency to limelight as well as for his quality contributions
in lawmaking processes at the lower chamber.
