Celebration of impunity

When it comes to taking the wrong turn in managing national sensitivities or promoting ethics in governance, the Muhammadu Buhari regime has never disappointed.

With a disposition steeped, as it were, in disdain for the rule of law and the mores guiding public administration, the Buhari presidency has ran its course with scant respect for the values of a democratic society.

Even on its way out of office, the Buhari government continues to hug acts that undermine the wholesome core values of public service, which values underpin governance in modern states.

Barely 40 days away from its exit, the government is still making appointments and approving project expenditures, things that should, ordinarily be deferred for the next government. It is not as if these eye-catching expenditures and appointments are informed by any urgent national need. From the N12 billion for 12 fire trucks for airports and the multibillion-naira scanners for railway stations, to the N24 billion approval for wi-fi, the air appears quite putrid. It is not difficult now to comprehend Hadiza Bala Usman, when she said in her recent book that she was not told that the promise of change made by her party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) when it was bidding for power, was just a soundbite.

Among the latest indecent acts of the Buhari government in its twilight is the permission granted to public servants to deploy public resources for partisan politics. Ethical societies and sensitive governments do not permit what the government is blatantly doing at the moment.

In the wake of the 2023 presidential election debacle and the contention that followed it, the ruling APC and the two leading opposition parties; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) took to the trenches. Understandably. While the two opposition parties allege outright brigandage by the ruling party in connivance with the election management body, the APC has fought back, doing whatever it can, to protect what it was accused of stealing.

For a while, it had seemed that the government would do the right thing and leave the parties to contend among themselves. It is true that the government is of the ruling party but there is a delicate line of distinction between a government and a party. Sensitive governments strive to observe this. The norm is that government functionaries, maintained by public fund, do not deploy public resources to further partisan political interest. Instances abound in civilized societies, where public servants, including prime ministers and presidential aides have been surcharged for wittingly or unwittingly spending public fund to further partisan political interest.

It had therefore, seemed gratifying, even if out of sorts, when, in the days after the 2023 election, prime members of the Buhari government did not dabble in the altercation between the APC and the leading opposition parties. But it was only a matter of time.

Sooner than later, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, threw himself into the ring. Trust him. Once Lai Mohammed got involved, things began to happen. Different versions of Peter Obi, the LP presidential candidate, emerged on the scene. A fake Obi, as claimed by British immigration officials, was already alive and inside Britain at the time the original arrived the same land. Curiously, the British seemed to have become suddenly too incompetent to track the fake, but they had no problem intercepting the original.  Obviously, the famed British intelligence apparatus that used to be globally admired while on Her Majesty’s service had left the scene alongside her said Majesty. The British never change.

Nothing said here implies, of course, that Lai Mohammed had anything to do with the reported creation of a fake Peter Obi on British soil. Not at all. Indeed, it is Nigerian Immigration that owes the country an explanation on how the fake Obi got his Nigerian passport. The point that is made here is that when Lai Mohammed gets involved in any matter bubbles tend to fly around. With him, the difference between fiction and fact almost always gets blurred. That is Lai’s special gift, a talent for successfully standing facts on their head.

The first major international outing of the information minister on the 2023 election issue was in Washington DC. In his usual candid nature, he was quoted as telling the world press at that meeting that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately switched off the gadget for transmitting the result of the presidential election on the election day, due to security reasons. Oh, well! Officials of the election management body and the APC must have flinched. The minister promptly blamed the media for misrepresenting him. How, he asked, could he have said such a thing?

Lai Mohammed has proceeded to other locations subsequently, leading the fight against the LP candidate, dwelling in some instances on trivia, including the effort to weave a controversy around a discredited tape of a purported telephone conversation between Obi and Bishop David Oyedepo. Such has been the recent engagement of Nigeria’s minister of information and culture.

Now what Lai Mohammed says is not the issue. What is at issue is his office and what he is doing with it. Lai Mohammed is Nigeria’s minister of information, maintained by public fund. The critical questions are: whose resources has the minister been spending on his expeditions to Washington DC and London, to make APC’s case against the LP presidential candidate? Are the resources expended on the trips Nigeria’s or APC’s? Is it legal and appropriate for a public servant to be deploying public resources to further partisan political interest? Does the government of Nigeria and, by extension, the Nigerian state, have a dispute with Peter Obi or Atiku Abubakar?

Were the Buhari government ethically-minded and alive to the norms in a modern state, Lai Mohammed could not have received approval to embark on foreign or even local promotional trips with public resources to undertake political party duties. It is wrong. It is immoral. It is unethical. It sets a very bad precedent. He may have been travelling with a team also, all underwritten by Nigerian taxpayers. That should not happen in an ethical society. APC is equipped to defend itself against other contending political parties. From all indications, the party and its relevant officials are already doing that. A minister of the federal republic has no business in the fray.

The danger in Lai Mohammed’s interloping involvement in the 2023 election wranglings became manifest recently when one of his tirades against the LP candidate was reported in the media as Federal Government taking on Peter Obi. That is incorrect. Federal Government of Nigeria is not in dispute with Peter Obi or Atiku Abubakar. APC is. So, who is this minister serving?

Of course, Lai Mohammed is not the only public servant in the Buhari government presently deploying public resources for partisan pursuit. Festus Keyamo, the junior minister at the Ministry of Labour has indeed been labouring for months as a campaign official of a candidate, while being paid and maintained by public fund. How does President Muhammadu Buhari live with these mountains of infraction under his watch? Why is his government so contemptuous of ethics in public service?  Is he really unmindful of his place in history?

What would it have taken to ask Keyamo or Lai Mohammed to step aside in the interest of public ethics, until their partisan political assignments are done. Why all this celebration of impunity? The damage that has been done in the last eight years, to the fabric of the Nigerian society and public service is enormous. Such a sad legacy.