THE Senate is in the news again for the wrong reason, even as the dust raised by the emergence of Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki as Senate President in controversial circumstances on June 9 is yet to settle. This time, the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions has launched into a seemingly pre-determined investigation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde’s alleged diversion of N1 trillion loot recovered by the agency.
In its rush for quick result, the committee sidetracked established Senate rules, raising more dust in the process. The probe, as would be expected, has thrown up a deluge of reactions. Some watchers of events at the Senate have dubbed the probe of the EFCC boss a mission impossible, while others labelled the investigation a scam orchestrated to cover other scams. Yet, some others are asking why now, especially with the obvious disregard of due process in the probe?
A huge gulf has already emerged in the upper chamber, creating as it were, a sharp division among the occupants of the chamber. Both APC and PDP senators are kicking. Some who are thrown off guard are gasping for breath. For them, the investigation is a fraud that must be halted.
Has Saraki shot himself in the foot again? Some say he is a man in love with shortcuts; one who detests procedural course , one who has little regard for due process. Saraki’s passion for the back door to achieve selfish results, they contend, is legendary, as he has amply demonstrated the trait a number of times without qualms.
When he became the Kwara State governor in 2003, one of his first actions which, ruffled feathers, was the transfer of the state’s account in the defunct Trade Bank, the state-owned bank, to the defunct Societie Generale Bank, where he was executive director before he became governor. The account was returned after a lot of dust was raised against the mindless shortcut.
Again, he had recently planned what amounted to a civilian version of a coup against his party – All Progressives Congress (APC) – to emerge Senate President. The party had zoned the position to the North East, casting its overwhelming lot for Senator Ahmed Lawan.
However, on the day the 8th National Assembly was to be inaugurated, while 51 APC senators, almost half of the 109-member Red Chamber, were waiting to meet President Muhammadu Buhari at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, elections were hastily conducted in which Saraki and Senator Ike Ekweremadu emerged as President and Deputy Senate President respectively. The dust raised by that brazen defiance is still simmering.
Now, seeing Saraki as the guiding hand behind Dr. George Uboh’s petition against the EFCC boss, observers believe that the Senate’s probe of the EFCC is Senate President’s show, which has further brought to fore his loathing for order. Others insist there is no way Saraki and his loyalists in the Senate can come clean that the investigation was not arranged to fight the EFCC boss for daring to call to question Saraki’s wife over alleged financial impropriety.
Although Saraki’s loyalists have dismissed the invitation and investigation of Toyin Saraki as politically motivated, those who disagree with the imputation of political motive into the probe are asking why the EFCC investigation is coming at a time the wife of the Senate President is undergoing interrogation before the anti-graft commission.
Mrs Saraki was grilled for hours in July 28, 2015 by the EFCC alongside the daughter of former President Umaru Yar’Adua and wife of former Kebbi State Governor, Saidu Dakingari, Zainab Dakingari. She (Saraki’s wife) was invited for questioning for alleged money laundering, what a source described as alleged “questionable inflow of funds into companies where she has interest.”
Not a few are also wondering why George Uboh’s petition was not presented to the Senate in plenary if there was no hidden agenda. They ask why the petition was forwarded to the Ethics committee directly, an infraction of the Senate’s standing rules.
More curious is the fact that Senator Peter Nwaobosi (Delta North), who received the petition, is an ally of former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori, a bosom friend of Saraki. Dino Melaye, a member of the Ethics Committee, and Nwaobosi were among the senators who accompanied Saraki’s wife to the EFCC when she was invited for questioning.
In a sense, observers see the whole thing as Saraki and Ibori fighting EFCC. Nwaobosi, a commissioner under Ibori, is fighting his master’s battle against EFCC. It would be recalled that Ibori waged a vicious war against EFCC’s former chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, before the former’s extradition to UK where he was jailed for money laundering.
Not willing to be used to fight a personal battle, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the Senate rejected the probe by the senate committee. The PDP senators expressed their position in a statement signed by the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio; his deputy, Emmanuel Bwacha; Minority Whip, Senator Philip Aduda and his deputy, Senator Biodun Olujimi.
The PDP caucus stated in the statement: “It has come to the notice of the PDP leadership in the Senate that the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions would begin a public hearing on Wednesday, 26th of August, 2015 and the committee has invited the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to appear before it.
“The PDP leadership in the Senate is not against any committee of the Senate performing its oversight duties and or functions but we feel that this is not the appropriate time to embark on the most important assignment, particularly since the same action was mooted and had failed at previous plenary session.
“We therefore urge the committee to suspend its public hearing on this particular matter until further notice. The PDP Senate leadership reassures the Nigerian public of its support for the war against corruption by the Federal Government of Nigeria but hastens to add that such fight against corruption should be total and not selective.
“Nigerians need peace at this period of economic challenges precipitated by the falling of oil prices and actions that will overheat the polity and generate unnecessary friction between the executive and the legislature should be avoided.”
The Senate Unity Forum, a group of APC senators who detailed the violation of the Senate rules in the investigation, in its own case, did not hesitate to dismiss the Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition Committee’s investigation of the EFCC chairman as illegal.
The Forum has taken time out to educate those who are wont to rush into nailing the EFCC boss that in standard parliamentary practice, a petition is routed through either a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
“Upon receipt of such petition,” the Forum said, “the representative will inform the presiding officer of the chamber and, thereafter, present the petition in plenary. Upon presentation in plenary, the presiding officer will invite the Senator/House of Representatives member to lay the petition, which automatically becomes a public document.
“Thereafter, the presiding officer will refer the petition to the appropriate committee for consideration, after which it would be returned to the Senate in plenary. In this regard, nothing of the sort happened.
“The Senate proceeded on recess on August 13 and it is not on record that the petition of Mr. George Uboh, accusing Lamorde of diverting over N1 trillion recovered from some corrupt Nigerians, including former governor of Bayelsa State, DSP Alamieyesigha, and the former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, was presented to Senate in Plenary.”
The Forum, therefore, declared its support for the position earlier adopted by some senators that the Lamorde probe should be halted because it did not follow due parliamentary process.
It added: “For the avoidance of doubt, Rule 41(1-3) of the Senate Standing Orders specifically spelt out how petitions are handled in the parliament.
“Rule 41(1-3) states: (1) A petition must only be presented to the Senate by a Senator, who shall affix his name at the beginning thereof.
“(2) A senator presenting a petition shall confine himself to a brief statement of the parties from whom it came, the number of signatures attached to it and material allegations contained in it and to reading the prayers of such petitions.
“(3) All petitions shall be ordered, without question being put, to lie upon the table. Such petition shall be referred to the Public Petitions Committee.
“It is after these steps have been taken that the presiding officer would refer the petition to the aforementioned committee.
“It should be noted that in this case, none of these laid-down procedures were followed before the ‘Senate Unity Forum’ read in the newspapers that the Senator Samuel Anywanu-led Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions Committee would on Wednesday, August 26, commence the probe of EFCC chairman
“We stand against this probe. It is illegal and unconstitutional because it did not follow our rules.”
Four members of the Senate Unity Forum endorsed the statement, including Senators Ahmed Lawan, George Akume, Barnabas Gemade and Abu Ibrahim.
Senate Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume, a core Saraki loyalist, has also joined the fray. Ndume admitted “a procedural error” in the probe, aligning with the position of the PDP Senate caucus which distanced its members from the investigation.
The EFCC, on its part, says it has no confidence in the probe of the Senate Committee. The commission stated that the committee lacked objectivity and that it was not likely to get a fair hearing, especially after a delegation it sent to observe the proceedings was walked out by the members of the committee on the pretext that the commission had earlier written that it would not be present at the hearing.
Although the Senate and its handlers are busy burning all available cables, the probe of the EFCC under questionable circumstances speaks volume about what Nigerians are to expect from the 8th Senate.
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