Farouk Lawan Subsidy Report: Dead On Arrival
Finally, Representative Farouk Lawan made public the much awaited report on the management of oil subsidy in Nigeria. As was expected the report fell short of expectations in that the major actors, who ripped off the country via phony deals, which cost the nation over N1 trillion, were merely mentioned in passing and no concrete punitive measure was prescribed against them by the committee.
Well, this is the tragedy that has often befallen Nigeria in matters of this nature. It is not the first and it is not likely going to be the last, as long as the major culprits and those who examined the subsidy accounts belong to the same Peoples Democratic Party, the ruling empire in Nigeria, which controls everyone and everything except the air we breathe.
And, who says God does not love Nigeria more than any other country in the world, by making air readily available to both the mandarin and the very poor: believe me, if air was to be left at the behest of the PDP-controlled Nigerian government, they would have priced it, like all other essentials of life, out of the reach of the common Nigerian.
That would have been very fatal for the administration though, because most Nigerians except those in the party, who have acquired illicit wealth and stashed abroad in the past 13 years, would have died before now. With that its satanic quest to rule Nigeria for as long as Christ tarries, would have been put asunder.
But we must commend Lawan for even being able to ward off undue pressure mounted on him and his members to present the worthless report, which by all intent and purpose, has died on arrival. Like a stillbirth, it will have no effect whatsoever in the administration of subsidy in Nigeria.
In fact, it is to be expected that with the release of the report on subsidy, more doors might have been opened for the looting of oil resources in Nigeria.
The reason for that pessimism is not far-fetched: it will neither be taken seriously by the Jonathan administration nor will it ever be implemented because of the personalities listed as culprits in the report.
For instance, how can President Goodluck Jonathan wield the big stick against the petroleum minister, a fellow Ijaw woman and a trusted ally, whom he personally nominated to the strategic post despite stiff opposition from those who knew that the woman does not have the capacity to run a sensitive oil industry?
Why does Lawan think that this government can take his report seriously when the people he has ‘indicted’ are among those who ‘toiled’ day and night to bring this administration to life?
It was wrong for him to conceive the idea that the President could do anything against Ahmadu Ali, former national chairman of the PDP, who I suspect, was specifically appointed as chairman of PPPRA by the forces that control our destiny for reasons that were everything but altruistic.
Those who made him head of the strategic board, knew very well that apart from being a doctor and retired soldier, Ali, had nothing to offer the country via the post.
That is why it has taken a committee to establish that the man did more harm to the industry than add value to the country.
As far as those who sent him there were concerned, “Ali-must-go” ‘discharged’ the assignment given him by his godfathers in the Villa and the party ‘satisfactorily’.
Come to think of it, the panel also blamed a former accountant general of the federation for paying a scandalous sum of N127.8 billion within a day to 128 non-existent companies.
The report noted, “The particular Accountant General that served during the period 2009 was found to have made payments of equal installments of N999 million for the record of 128 times within 24 hours totaling N127.872 billion.
What is new? Someone in the office of the Head of Service of the Federation had kept N2 billion of pension funds in her home and heaven did not fall.
In all only five persons pocketed over N151 billion of pensioners’ funds and the government has only belatedly suspended them from service after series of criticisms from the public.
Where were the heads of service who supervised these officers when the huge chunk of money was siphoned? Has any of them been subpoenaed to account for their actions while in office? That is why the looting of the nation will continue unabated.
If Nigeria were to be a country that is run by laws and where public functionaries had conscience, the minister of petroleum resources who superintend over the corrupt-ridden entities in the oil industry, and claimed not to know how many litres of fuel is being imported daily, should have been sacked long ago and sent back to Shell to continue with her work as an architect rather than embarrass us as a country.
In the wake of this report, which does not have any force of law, she should have honourably resigned her appointment given the number of officials under her being indicted by the committee for sheer sleaze and incompetence .
What has come out from the committee is an indication that with this type of minister and her leadership style, the nation oil industry is doomed and our fate handed over to criminals.
She is not alone. Almost all the oil companies indicted by Lawan have resorted to either outright blackmail or media propaganda to pooh-pooh the committee and its report, claiming not to have committed any wrong.
A governor of one of the northern states who has been accused of paying out over 127 billion overnight, has already cried out that he did no wrong.
Many other indicted companies and individuals have served notice of legal challenge all in a bid to vilify Lawan and his men for being courageous enough to bring out the report in the first place.
But it would be too foolish to expect any good thing to come out of this report for obvious reasons. A few weeks ago, Ahmed Gulak, Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Political Matter, said openly that all resolutions and motions from the National Assembly are not binding on the Executive.
Gulak, a lawyer, said the president was at liberty to pick and choose any resolution that is acceptable to him for implementation. I am certain that this one by Lawan, which indicts virtually all the president’s men, will never be acceptable to Mr. President and none of its recommendations will see the light of the day as far as this administration is concerned.
The only hope for this report may lie in the resolution of the NASS to compel the president to respect its decision or get fired.
Zakari Mohammed, the spokesman for the House of Representatives warned the other day that the lawmakers were not in the mood to tolerate any further violation of its resolutions by the executive.
Their resolutions were jettisoned with impunity by the President in January when they ordered him to revert the pump price of petrol from N141 to N65.
He shunned them when they also asked him to discard the Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE, Mrs. Bola Onagoruwa, for dolling out our core assets at a pittance, and nothing happened.
Given the government’s penchant for defending its chosen men and women despite the gravity of their offence coupled with the lawmakers’ lack of independence and tilt towards party and ethnic interest, the report may not even scale through the plenary.
But no matter what becomes of it, Farouk Lawan and his colleagues have written their names in the history book of Nigeria, having withstood the pressure from a wicked system to furnish the nation with the names of individuals and groups, which do not like this country.
Whether Jonathan accepts to implement the report now or not, the certainty lies in the hope that sooner or later, the indicted persons and companies will account for their deeds. That is the only assurance.
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