ISSUES IN THE NEMA SCANDAL
President Buhari cannot afford to be silent on the mismanagement of NEMA fund
Despite the subtle attempts to politicise it, the multi-billion naira scandal involving the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will not go away. The allegations border on the embezzlement of N33 billion emergency intervention funds meant for the North-east. In their resolution, the House of Representatives not only indicted the Director- General of the agency, Mr Mustapha Maihaja, it went further to demand his dismissal and prosecution along with other top government officials. The House in the same report also found Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo liable for approving N5.8 billion earmarked for emergency intervention and food security in the North-east in 2017 without following due process.
With damning details, the House report stated that the authorisation granted for the withdrawal of the money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account was “highly flawed” and constituted serious infractions on Section 80(2) of the Constitution and Section (2) of the Procurement Act, as well as provisions of the Appropriation Act. The lawmakers were also miffed that taxes and interest accruable to the government were not deducted or remitted to the Federal Inland Revenues Service (FIRS) and no meeting was held by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to approve the contracts.
While both the vice-president and director-general of NEMA have rejected the report of the House, we do not believe that the cynical manner in which the issue is being treated by the federal government will help its cause. What is more disturbing is that the allegations bear uncanny similarities to the N1.3 billion grass cutting contract allegedly awarded in 2017 under the Presidential Initiative for North East (PINE) which led to the dismissal of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mr Babachir Lawal. Despite the damning report on his alleged role in the management of finances for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno State, Lawal is now a very visible face in the campaign for the re-election of President Buhari.
The theatre of this scandal (the North-east) makes it very important for the Buhari administration to take the allegations serious enough to want to get to the root of it. In recent times, Nigeria has come under embarrassing international attention on account of the threat of starvation in the IDP camps in the area. It is bad enough that so much national and international relief resources have been committed or pledged in aid of our fellow citizens affected by the Boko Haram crisis. So far, reports of rampant abuse of these resources have largely gone unattended to, even when the president himself recently called for an investigation.
Meanwhile, it would seem that many officials in an administration that supposedly came in to fight corruption have difficulty determining the boundary between right and wrong. And more unfortunate still is that President Buhari seems either not interested or incapable of restoring integrity to his government. From contract scams to the ‘Dollargate’ in Kano, the joke in Abuja is that the broom, symbol of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was designed to sweep corruption under the carpet, especially for friends of the Buhari administration. Indeed, 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 it remains a big shame for an administration that was brought to power on the pretext of coming to fight corruption, President Buhari cannot be silent on the House report of the mismanagement of NEMA fund. Anyone engaged in the criminal diversion of the funds earmarked to ameliorate the dehumanising conditions of people in distress has committed a crime against humanity and should face the full wrath of the law.
