Defending Pantami With a Presidential Cudgel

Brushing off sensitive public allegations against Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, President Muhammadu Buhari deepens distrust, widening significant ethno-religious fissures imperilling the state, writes Louis Achi

Two months after Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as the 15th President of Nigeria, on Friday, 29 May 2015, the 11th President of India (2002-2007), Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen (APJ) Abdul Kalam, died aged 83. Kalam was a top notch aero-space engineer, rocket scientist, Indian hero, author and exemplary statesman.
As a Muslim steeped in Hindu culture, he was to many an oddity – a scientist, who could recite classical Tamil poetry, who played the rudra-veena, a traditional South Indian instrument, and listened to Carnatic devotional music every day, but performed his namaz with no sense of incongruity.

In melding the Islam into which he was born with a strong sense of the traditions in which his civilisation was anchored, Abdul Kalam was a complete Indian, an embodiment of the eclecticism of India’s heritage of diversity. His popularity was undimmed by his relinquishment of office. In his life and his work, Kalam personified the best of what India can be.
Noted Saikat Chaudhuri, Wharton Adjunct Professor of Management and Executive Director of Wharton’s Management: “He was a true nationalist, upholding the utmost integrity. He pushed the country to reach new heights and to aspire to lead the way in its global rise, rather than aim to merely catch up with the developed nations.”

“Kalam raised aspirations by catalysing a demonstration effect. By showing that it was possible to think big and look far, he did what the best leaders always do: recalibrate what people think is possible,” gushed Manish Sabharwal, co-founder and chairman of TeamLease Services, India’s leading staffing company.

While in his single five-year tenure, Kalam pushed India with her diversity and over one billion folks to reach new heights and to aspire to lead the way in her global rise, the same can hardly be said for Buhari – leading his 200 million-plus citizens and now trundling into the home stretch of his second and last presidential tenure.
Successive controversy, enervating insurgency, bloody security nightmare, unforced serial errors and intractable governance snafus have become defining highlights of Buhari’s presidential trajectory. But at a fundamental level, it may be unfair to pillory the lanky General from Katsina, given the huge disparity in cognitive capacities and critical leadership endowments between the two.

The latest quirky controversy involves Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, a former Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), now Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. Pantami, an Islamic cleric, has been in the eye of the storm for over two weeks after videos resurfaced online showing he supported, over a decade ago, extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Hence, for once holding extremist ideology and expressing it openly; advocating the violent Jihadist narrative of al-Qaeda and the Taliban before he was appointed minister by the President, he is understandably under fire. These are weighty issues on account of which many Nigerians are canvassing his resignation or outright sack by the President.
The minister later admitted making the controversial statements but claimed immaturity and explained that his views on such groups have changed. He also said he was being targeted for attack by people uncomfortable with his policies as the communication minister.

On Thursday, the presidency weighed in, declaring support for the embattled communications minister. In his statement on Thursday, presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu said, the Buhari administration “stands behind Minister Pantami and all Nigerian citizens to ensure they receive fair treatment, fair prices, and fair protection in ICT services.” He also said the administration would commence an investigation into allegations that some businesses were behind the attacks on the minister.

Pantami’s Salafist ideology, the core of his extreme preaching back then – which he claims he has repented from – can hardly be swept under the carpet. Hear him: “Oh God, give victory to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda…This jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially, in Nigeria.” In another, he reportedly endorsed the killing of “unbelievers.”

According to Wikipedia, the minister, whom Buhari entrusts with the biometric data of Nigerians, trained under extremist Islamist scholars in Saudi Arabia, including Muhammad Ibn Uthaymin, whose extremist views include opposition to women driving in that country.

Traditionally, ministerial picks undergo two levels of screening before induction – first by the DSS and then the Senate. Could it have meant that both winnowing processes failed to detect fatal flaws in Pantami’s background? For the Ahmed Lawan-led Senate, this is unflattering. Worse, at press time, no corrective action is being contemplated from that chamber.

According to Ex DSS Director, Dennis Amachere, there is no information that escapes the DSS. “When I was working there, we keep a catalogue of anybody of interest that comes up to limelight in this country.
“During the vetting process, for anybody to be appointed a minister or commissioner or anything, your name is sent to the DSS for vetting. They check your background. We get a lot from open source intelligence and I can tell you that in Pantami’s case, we have it. But there is a political angle to it. When somebody is being appointed, if the security agencies see that there is something wrong with his name, they will send it to the appointing agency.
“The appointing agency will now decide amongst other variables either religious variable, federal character balancing variable, or political variable and say that, ‘Oh, yes, we know that this guy has this and that but let’s appoint him. So, the political decision is not taken by the SSS.” Perhaps not unexpectedly, the DSS has disowned its former Director’s position.

At the most sensitive, troubled and uncertain period in the nation’s history, deepening the existing distrust and widening the ethno-religious fault-lines are hardly the way to go. A Pantami sack would have sent an important symbolic message.
Predictably, Buhari failed the test.