The subsidy probe shenanigan

By Paul Arhewe

L-R:  Farouk, Otedola

Barely two months after the chair-man of the Committee on Capital Markets, Herman Hembe and his members were floored by inappropriate dirty dealing, subsequently suspended and facing prosecution, another hot sleaze has sprouted in the House of Representatives. Its ripples are cascading like waves across the length and breadth of Nigeria. The full blown pay-$3m-and-get-re-prieve scandal that pitted the oil mogul, Femi Otedola against the chairman, House Ad Hoc Committee on oil subsidy payment, Farouk Lawan, is no doubt a precedent I would always want to recur. From the fallout, I know those who are in the habit of soliciting for bribes be-fore dispensing favours would now have cause to think twice. In another vein, could this be another flash in the pan, a decoy? Lawan, before this shameful revelation, was one of those few members of the National Assembly regarded as experienced, ‘honest’ and frank in his utterances and deeds. For this attribute, he is held in very high esteem. This current revelation has no doubt dampened my spirit, and I believe that of many Nigerians.

The Kano politician has not helped matters in his drive to redeem his name, by several of his double speaks.
To worsen his testimony, Hon Jagaba Adams Jagaba, the chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes denied receiving a report about the underhand deal from Lawan or took the marked dollar bills from him, as claimed by the latter.By the entire development, I am beginning to lose hope of our country capability to subdue this monster called corruption. One wonders how the Integrity Group, which has Lawan as chairman, would take this dent.
The hideous state corruption has advanced in Nigeria in contemporary times is no doubt frightening and dangerously metamorphosing into a cancer. The stench from this monstrous blight is fast becoming a permanent scar in the psyche of the nation.
How would one describe a scenario where corruption is obviously as ubiquitous as the air we breathe and has become a pop culture subscribed to by both the high and low members of the society? It has become a no-cure-ailment like cancer.
Painful also is the fact that those who are expected to lead Nigeria out of this quagmire are the same people busy inventing more sophisticated ways of nurturing corruption into the biggest business in the country.We are not comforted by the fact that it takes two to tango.
The anti-corruption law holds the giver as well as the receiver culpabale. However, the giver in this scenario may be relying on the protection of the covert arrangement he orchestrated under the ogle of the Secret Security Service (SSS).
However, I perceive the intention to tempt another person to commit crime should not be upheld as a gratifying or plausible action. If Lawan was the one who initiated and solicited for bribe in this opprobrious drama, then he should be allowed to face the music to the extent the law allows. If otherwise, he should be prepared to clear his name beyond doubts to save the reputation of his Integrity Group - if the situation is still emendable. And now the pertinent question.
Between the bribe taking brouhaha and the implementation of the Lawan Report, which now takes the back seat? Of course, the subsidy probe report is already drowned in the floodgate of anti-Lawan sentiments.
But can the nation afford to throw the baby with the bath-water? No, but first there should be a conciliation of records to capture all the partakers in the sharing of the subsidy booties. When this is done, the implementation of the report must be done expeditiously.
The point must be made that we as a people tend to forget where we are coming from when a diversionary flicker is cunningly used to hoodwink us. Our conning politicians and economic saboteurs have repeatedly employed this seemingly weakness in us to their advantage.
Lawan and those fingered in the scandal maybe guilty as charged, however, we must not fail to pursue to logical conclusion the bigger corruption of shared subsidy boo-ties that got us where we now are. It is laughable when the spokesman to President Goodluck Jonathan said his boss should not be involved in the current underhand deal. Methinks it is the business of the Presidency and the National Assembly to fight corruption.
All hands ought to be on deck to collectively discourage those who are really seeking ways of rubbishing the oil subsidy probe like what happened in the power probe exercise. Nigeria is bigger than any individual therefore, her economic and political health should be the concern of all. For this very reason, all economic saboteurs should be exposed and prosecuted, if the country must be rescued.