SENATOR MISAU AND THE CORRUPTION WAR

It is in public interest to probe the allegations against the IGP

The Police authorities, last Thursday, explained the circumstances that led to the release of two operational vehicles to the office of Mrs. Aisha Buhari in her capacity as wife of the President. But as in previous statements on this vexatious controversy that has refused to go away, the police neither addressed other weighty allegations made by Senator Isa Misau nor provided convincing clarifications to the two issues.

To the extent that we are a society ruled by law or not by perceptions, assumptions and silly superstitions, there should be a proper inquiry to the allegations that are consistently being made by Senator Misau who incidentally is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Has the presidency subjected the allegations to any investigations before the Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, jumped in with his curious case against Senator Misau? Has the Senate invited the accounts, audit and personnel departments of police to testify? Has the IGP been made to answer any internal inquiry on these allegations?

We ask the foregoing questions because most of the accusations have to do with either documented transactions or large objects that are hard to hide and names are being mentioned. Besides, Senator Misau has provided a lot of clues on how this investigation should proceed so that it can zero in on facts, rather than impressions. And, as we stated recently, the senator should be made to face the full wrath of the law if it turns out that he cannot substantiate his allegations. But the federal government cannot continue to use subterfuge to deny him the opportunity to hold the IGP to account on issues that border on public trust.

While Mrs. Buhari has distanced her person from the donated vehicles, the police have confirmed giving them to her police aides for their official use. Incidentally, Senator Misau never claimed the vehicles were for the person of Mrs. Buhari aside stating that he actually got the information from the claims filed by the IGP himself in court. The public should therefore not be confused into the red herring of dragging Mrs. Buhari’s name into a matter that clearly has nothing to do with her person.

While we do not take side on this, we are deeply concerned that this administration has further muddied and muddled the nation’s moral and ethical quagmire. It would seem that many of its operatives have difficulty determining the boundary between right and wrong. And more unfortunate still is that President Muhammadu Buhari seems either uninterested or incapable of restoring integrity to his government. What is, for instance, the difference between the blatant abuse of due process being witnessed in the oil and gas sector today and what obtained in the past, especially under the last administration whose officials are being held to account?

From the almost abandoned corruption case involving the now sacked Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Babachir Lawal to the latest infamy of reinstatement and promotion of a dismissed civil servant, Abdulrasheed Maina, aside other cases, the joke in Abuja is that the broom, symbol of the ruling All Progresives Congress (APC), was designed to sweep corruption under the carpet, especially for friends of the Buhari administration.

Indeed, from contract scams to abuse of judicial privileges, there is hardly any difference between President Goodluck Jonathan’s weakness in dealing with some corrupt elements in his government and President Buhari’s total inertia in similar circumstances. While that remains a big shame for an administration that was brought to power on the pretext of coming to fight corruption, President Buhari has a responsibility to probe the allegations being made by Senator Misau against IGP Idris. It is in the public interest to do so.