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The decision by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to refer the controversy around a certain agency called Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is understandable. He simply does not want to call a spade by its proper name.
The ploy speaks clearly about the president’s disposition to the matter. The president knows, as most of us do, that the principal characters so far identified in the brewing scandal are guilty as charged. You do not need the power of discernment to know that they have all sinned and should therefore come short of the protection of Mr President. But the president, regardless of the obvious truth that he is aware of, wants to protect his lackeys. He does not want to spill the bean at this point in his imperiled presidency.
The issue at stake is, in every material particular, a scandal. The president must be embarrassed by the fact that some of the people he appointed into his administration created a government agency in his name and went ahead as well to appoint a chief executive for it on his behalf. That is daring. That is audacious on the part of the erring aides of the president. The violation was total. Having created the agency, they ensured that it took off in earnest with the full appurtenances of offices and personnel. The Director General of the agency who goes by the name, Adeniyi Adeyemi, has since acclimatized. He has become part of the underhand dealings that characterize public office in Nigeria. In fact, he is not new to wheeling and dealing. It takes a rugged wheeler dealer to undertake the kind of venture that is now tearing the presidency apart. As a prominent member of the entrenched interests around the presidency, Adeyemi knows a lot. He probably knew that the bubble was going to burst at some point. So, he prepared for the worst. It is therefore little wonder that it is easy for him to unleash a welter of evidences against those who claim that they knew nothing about the existence of the agency. From Adeyemi’s story, the offices of the Chief of Staff to the President and Secretary to the Government of the Federation are heavily involved. Even though there are feeble rebuttals coming largely from the president’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, it is evident that this Adeyemi could not have operated without the full knowledge of the two aforementioned offices.
Even the National Assembly which exercises oversight functions over government departments and agencies cannot be excused from this scandal. Can the legislature approve a budget for an agency it does not know? That cannot be the case. What about the multiple bank accounts that the agency operated? Who authorized the opening of such accounts? Were the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance ignorant of this? What about the Budget Office? How could money have been appropriated for an agency it does not know? The office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice also has questions to answer. Was there no law governing the creation and operations of the agency? If there was none, was the office of the Attorney General supposed to overlook that? Government is a system with multiple branches many of which are interrelated. It is strange that while PFIPC operated, none of the many branches of government could smell a rat. But it looks like what we have on our hands is a case of “if gold rusts what will iron do?” In other words, if the offices that relate directly with the president did not complain about PFIPC, what will peripheral government departments do?
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I believe that the facts before the president on this matter are huge. They are enough for him to take action. But he does not want to. By referring the matter to ICPC and mandating it to complete the assignment within 30 days is a gimmick. It is a diversionary tactic. The president wants to delay action on the matter so that the tension it generated initially will die down. He is not interested in any form of swiftness . What this suggests is that he is not sufficiently scandalized by the incident. Under normal circumstances, the president should be outraged. He should be stupefied by it all. By he is not. That is why he is papering over the issue.
Whatever we may say about the president on this issue, the brewing scandal speaks volumes about who we are as a people. In proper climes, the PFIPC scandal is serious enough to make a government to resign. The matter is indefensible. There is no excuse from anywhere that can justify the existence of what is now being referred to as a fictitious agency. It is the duty of the citizenry to stay in the matter and ensure that they get to the root of it all. The people have the responsibility to keep government on its toes so that appropriate action can be taken on the matter. But that is not being done. Rather, those involved are making light of the issue by labeling the agency fictitious. What really makes it fictitious? An agency that was known to everybody that matters in the system cannot be fictitious.
I suspect strongly that the president’s cold-footedness over the PFIPC scandal has a lot to do with the coming elections. The matter is a Pandora’s box. Its content is stuffed with ugly tales. The details of the failed deal, if thrown open to the public, can be serious enough to bring down a government. President Tinubu cannot afford to confront this oddity in this election year. It will deal a devastating blow to his presidency especially in the light of the fact that key elements in his re-election bid are involved. That is why he has chosen the path of delay. He has employed that strategy, knowing full well that Nigerians do not stay with any subject matter. By the time the ICPC submits its report, Nigerians would have migrated to other issues. There certainly will be more urgent issues that will overshadow PFIPC. And, little or no attention will be paid to the report whenever it is released. Even though the watchful public understands what the issues are, we cannot be too sure of how the ICPC will approach the matter. Will it be thorough? Is it permitted to be thorough? Will it be factual or will it present Nigerians with a make-belief? These are some of the issues around the decision by the president to set up an investigation panel. The action is simply diversionary. It is intended to hoodwink.
But the president’s strategy, whatever it is worth, is already working for him. Everybody that is supposed to take interest in the matter has gone to sleep. When the scandal erupted, the Senate pretended as if it was interested in the matter. But the pretentious anger dissipated into thin air when the president brought in the ICPC. That became a convenient excuse for the upper legislative chamber to withdraw whatever interest it was showing in the matter.
The same thing is true of the generality of Nigerians . They swiftly abandoned all inquiries and queries on the issue the moment the president involved the ICPC. The president cleverly shut everyone up. And now, the matter has died a natural death. Its reincarnation will be a caricature of its original self. But who really cares? I do not know any. Nigerians have moved on.
