PTDF scandal and the rest of us

By Sina Oladeinde

MY views last week about governance in Oyo State drew the ire of certain people. Many of them called to haul abuses and other vitriolic reactions. Many said that the Akala group sponsored the article. Interestingly, also, some individuals, claiming to be members of the so-called Akala group called to launch their own verbal missiles and threats, saying that the article gave the embattled Governor Ladoja tips on how to foment trouble for Akala should he win the April governorship election.

There are many other people who read in-between the lines and were able to decode correctly where my interest(?) lied in the matter. But for the avoidance of doubt, I have nothing personal against Governor Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja. My anger is justifiably anchored on his inability to extricate Oyo State from the vicious grip of a political wheeler-dealer. His failure to heroically face the evil forces that are bent on destroying the state and its people by foisting a predictably ruinous regime, when he had the commanding state power to do so. My anger is that of a soldier who was taken to the battlefield and abandoned there by his commander. And not even the latest deft(?) move of the governor can change that feeling.

But that is not the issue at stake. One issue that has engaged the nation’s attention in the last few months is the PTDF scandal and the purported indictment of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. Consequently, the vice-president has been barred from contesting the April election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

My interest in the interesting drama is not so much about the indictment of the vice-president or the game of death that is being played by the gladiators: President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy. It has to do with the way truth and hard facts are being twisted by the very people in whom we have placed our trust. My interest is not about individuals. I am not bothered by the involvement of President Obasanjo and Vice-President Abubakar and whatever the two leaders stand for. I am concerned about the criminal rape of truth and justice and the manner corruption has been celebrated and politicized.

My interest was informed by the report submitted by the Usman Tsauri-led ad hoc committee that was empanelled to review the earlier report of the Senator Ndoma-Egba-led committee on the same PTDF scandal. The report of the Ndoma-Egba committee had caused uproar in the nation’s hallowed (a friend always calls it “hollow”) chamber. The report had polarized the Senate with members taking sides. It never mattered to them whether the hard evidence that supported the commission of crime by the principal officers were genuine or true, what the members bothered about were the interests of their masters, the president and his deputy.

Some senators, perhaps, felt that because Ndoma-Egba has ‘Egba’, the home of the president, attached to his name he had done the bidding of the president with the report that produced the eerie knell on the political career of the vice-president. The wild condemnation and support that greeted the Ndoma-Egba report led to the birth of the Tsauri committee.

Clearly, from the submission of that committee, it is obvious that members of the hallowed chamber have no regard for truth. They are ready to sacrifice even the sovereignty of the nation for their own selfish interests and those of their paymasters.

The facts that keep resurfacing in the PTDF scandal are that monumental frauds were carried out by individuals empowered to oversee the Fund. The facts offer a strong link between the vice-president and Otunba Oyewole Fasawe as the beneficiary of the frauds on the one hand. They (facts) also place on record the arbitrariness of the president to operate outside the confines of the PTDF enabling laws on the other hand. There is hard evidence of wrongdoing on the part of both the president and his deputy. It is the enormity of the offences of both public officials that is different.

But is Ndoma-Egba committee wrong by being lenient on the president, recommending him for just reprimand for acting beyond the bounds of the law, while condemning the vice-president to the guillotine for willfully supervising the commission of the fraud in the PTDF? And is the Tsauri committee right by reaching a conclusion that stood reason on its head? Why is it that loan facilities were always granted Otunba Fasawe the same day lodgment was made to the TIB by the PTDF? Could this be a mere coincidence that Otunba Fasawe was always the beneficiary of such loans immediately money was pinched from the PTDF coffers and not someone else? How did the senators consider the evidence from the United States linking congressman Jefferson to the entire shady deal?

Right from the beginning, the PTDF issue has been a messy pot, with everyone that comes near it getting his/her hands soiled. The scandal has exposed how deep the roots of corruption have penetrated the nation’s psyche. Even the common man whose wealth is being pillaged and wasted by the Presidency is blind to the tragedy of the entire scandal, especially as it relates to him. He has been drafted into the war of attrition as a foot soldier. He is now wielding weapon either in support of the president or his deputy. He is so much bamboozled that he has forgotten about his own pitiful existence which was caused by the ineptitude of the same people he is trying to waste his life for by fighting their battle.

We have heard the story before of how the vice-president used to sit between the laps of the president in those early days of their relationship. The vice-president was very powerful. The president made him so; the president used him conveniently to wage his (president’s) personal war. The vice-president, basking in the euphoria of a trusting boss, forged ahead, waging wars until the wedge of ambition drew them apart.

But all this should not be lumped with the PTDF scandal. The scandal is about corruption and executive illegality. It is not about Obasanjo and Atiku personalities. It is about Nigeria and its future or what eventually becomes of it. It is about ensuring that no future Nigerian leader will illegally apply public resources whether for good or for bad. It is about curbing and punishing corruption in high places. But the Tsauri report has clearly rubbished all these. It has endorsed illegality, corruption and wasteful application of public resources by officials of government. The report has clearly given vein to the widely held belief that corruption has become a way of life in Nigeria.

I only pity the Abacha family that has been made a scapegoat for nothing. Perhaps, one day the National Assembly would inaugurate a committee that would offer national apology to the family of Abacha and to Mr. Tafa Balogun for the ignominy they suffered. And my heart goes to Mallam Nuhu Ribadu too. Sorry, bros, you are in a wrong place fighting the right battle but at a wrong time. You should have come in the days of the Macaulays, Awolowos, Balewas and the Azikiwes. Those people would have appreciated you better.