TOBI AWORINDE examines the frosty
relationship that is brewing between President Muhammadu Buhari and his
predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan over Buhari’s insistence
on the probe of the ex-President’s government
BARELY 100 days after President
Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, some ministers under the previous
administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, last Sunday, declared
war against the incumbent over a perceived lack of “due respect.”
The ministers, who were said to be
acting at the behest of Jonathan, accused Buhari and members of the
ruling All Progressives Congress of condemning, ridiculing and
undermining the achievements of the ex-President. According to them, the
vilification amounted to rubbishing the integrity of the individual
members of the past administration.
Jonathan’s
ministers, in a statement by a former Minister of National Planning,
Dr. Abubakar Suleiman, said the efforts of the Buhari government was to
portray all members of the previous administration “as corrupt and
irresponsible, in an orchestrated and vicious trial by the media,” which
they said had created “a lynch mentality that discredits our honest
contributions to the growth and development of our beloved nation.”
In addition to citing a list of
accomplishments by the previous administration, the ministers explained
that they had been silent on the accusations of the current government
in the hope that “the euphoria that inspired the various attacks on the
past administration would wear off and that reason would prevail.”
The statement added, “We are constrained
to speak up in defence of the legacy of the Jonathan administration,
and shall do so again, for as long as those who are determined to
rubbish that legacy are unrelenting in their usual deployment of
blackmail, persecution and similar tactics.”
But the Presidency, in its reaction on the same day, described Buhari’s war against corruption as non-negotiable.
The Senior Special Assistant to the
President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, asked Jonathan’s
ministers, who he described as ‘members of the country’s latest trade
union formation, the Association of Ex-Jonathan Ministers’, to do a bit
of self-reflection on the sort of government they handed over to Buhari
on May 29. He said such self-reflection would make the former ministers
decide for themselves if it would have been right for any incoming
government to ignore the issue of the ‘brazen theft’ of public assets,
which he said appeared to be the first of its kind in the country.
In a telephone interview with SUNDAY PUNCH,
Dr. Idowu Johnson of the Department of Political Science, University of
Ibadan, described the counterattack by Jonathan’s men as a futile
attempt to prevent punitive action against them by the Buhari
administration. According to the political scientist, Jonathan’s
government was in power for about six years, which led to the
destruction of the educational, financial and petroleum institutions to
the extent that the government could no longer pay salaries.
“Now, they are saying the new government
has nothing to do. In the past administration, they were trying to
cover their atrocities so that it would look as if they had something to
offer us. Unfortunately, it has been revealed that they could not even
produce the goods that the people needed. They simply want to distract
the present government so that Nigerians would view them as if they have
something to offer.”
Jonathan had first foreshadowed his
travails on May 10, during a farewell service at the Cathedral Church of
the Advent, Abuja, when he warned that the incoming government of the
then President-elect Buhari would persecute him and his ministers, as
well as other aides who served under him.
The former President said, “If you take
certain decisions, it might be good for the generality of the people,
but it might affect people differently. So, for ministers and aides, who
served with me, I sympathise with them, they will be persecuted. And
they must be ready for that persecution.”
Again on May 27, during the valedictory
session of the outgoing Federal Executive Council at the Presidential
Villa, Abuja, Jonathan said all those advising Buhari to probe his
administration must also advise him to extend the probe beyond his
regime in order for it not to be seen as a witch-hunt, adding that the
probe should also cover the way oil wells and fields were allocated in
the past.
On June 22, barely three weeks after his
swearing-in, Buhari told journalists in the Villa that he had inherited
a country with a virtually empty treasury and that his administration
was weighed down by debts running into millions of dollars, though he
did not state how much the debt amounted to.
But Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party
asked Buhari to live up to his electoral promises and stop offering
excuses. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a
statement on June 23, said his party noted with dismay Buhari’s
statement that Nigerians should not expect much from his first 100 days
in office on claims that he met “a virtually empty treasury and huge
debts.”
Metuh added that the President’s
comments could be an admission of “his poor knowledge of national and
international economics affairs,” and that it proved the present
administration was not really equipped to face the challenges of
governance.
Similarly, Buhari, on July 8, while
receiving members of a pressure group, Bring Back Our Girls, described
Jonathan’s government as incompetent for its slow response to reports of
the kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Chibok, Borno
State, last year.
Again on July 23, during an interactive
session with Nigerians in the Diaspora at the Nigerian Embassy in
Washington DC, as part of a four-day official visit to the United
States, Buhari said he had started receiving some documents, which
showed that some unnamed former ministers and top government officials
were thieves.
The President, while disclosing that the
documents at his disposal indicted the officials of oil theft and other
acts of “massive fraud,” vowed that the ex-ministers would be
prosecuted based on the findings, while the proceeds of their fraud
would be repatriated to government coffers from their multiple foreign
accounts, which he alleged were opened for the purpose of laundering
money.
The following day, the PDP reacted by asking Buhari to also probe past administrations preceding the Jonathan administration.
The Ondo State chapter of the party, in a
statement by its Director of Publicity, Mr. Ayo Fadaka, alleged that
Buhari was selective in his plans to recover looted funds and prosecute
corrupt public officials and warned the President to desist from an
alleged witch-hunt of PDP members.
In the same vein, Shehu, on August 16,
confirmed to journalists that plans had been concluded to recover all
government property, including vehicles, buildings and generator sets,
which were still in possession of government officials that served under
Jonathan.
Buhari was said to be irked by the
development and therefore set up a committee made up of civil servants
and security agencies to identify and recover the unreturned public
assets from the former political appointees.
The identities of the said former government officials were however not disclosed.
But Head of the Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Prof. Solomon Akinboye, told SUNDAY PUNCH that it would be wrong for Buhari to probe Jonathan’s government without transparency.
According to the political scientist,
everything must be done openly, saying there should be no witch-hunt by
the government. He believed that if anyone was found guilty or
otherwise, the process and outcome should be made public.
“For instance, they have accused the
former Finance Minister and the lady said she has her facts. If she has
her facts and she is exonerated, then fine. Jonathan has done his bit
and left. The man on board should be allowed to do his bit.
“If Jonathan’s men have done something
wrong, they have to pay for it. Let’s wait for the investigations. For
example, (Sambo) Dasuki is under investigation. Let’s see the result of
the investigation. Nobody will accuse someone of something they have not
done. Even if one is accused and the charge is investigated, if he is
found not guilty, the person is a free man,” Akinboye said.
But Johnson argued that Jonathan was
trying to prove to the current government that his ministers were on
their own. According to him, the ex-President wants his men to take the
fall by making them account for their ministries independently.
“The most important thing (to Jonathan)
is that they can see that he is disappointed in the people he appointed.
He doesn’t want to share in the blame,” the political scientist added.
Speaking with SUNDAY PUNCH, the
Executive Director of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo
Adeniran, likened the complaints by Jonathan’s ministers to a drowning
person reaching for any available straw. According to the activist, the
act is all in a bid to intimidate the government to soft-pedal their
punitive actions.
Adeniran added, “There are occasions
when this kind of attack is used to intimidate, as a form of defence.
But it is for the government to resist such attempts at intimidation by
these people. They also know that they have a lot of skeletons in their
cupboard and they don’t want anyone to go near that cupboard.
“Jonathan was the chief accounting
officer of that administration and he knew that every crime his
ministers committed during his tenure would implicate him. That might be
the reason why he thinks that he should use the ministers to intimidate
the government out of probing the culprits in the previous
administration.
The Buhari-Jonathan camps’ face-off
might not have collided but the stage appears to be set for such
confrontation, especially on the unfolding probe of the immediate past
administration. While allegations have been bandied about, especially in
the media, the tension may be doused until the principal actors are
called upon to account for their deeds or misdeeds in days to come.
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