Foreign diplomats fear anti-corruption war has been compromised
Commissioned report wants SGF, Chief of Staff out too
There
were indications weekend that President Muhammadu Buhari is under
pressure from the foreign community to sack his Aviation minister and
former Rivers state governor, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi following his
indictment for corruption by the Justice George Omeregi-led Rivers State
Judicial Commission of Inquiry, set up to investigate the sale of state
assets and the consequent Whitepaper issued by the state government.
On
a related note, the federal administration was said to be uncomfortable
with unpleasant reports about the disposition of the current Secretary
to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Lawal Babachir and the
President’s Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abba Kyari. The President is
reportedly disposed to easing them out of office.
The president
is said to be under intense pressure to drop allegedly corrupt
appointees from his cabinet to successfully prosecute his
administration’s anti-graft war.
A Western diplomat who confided
in Nigerian Pilot disclosed that “there is now increased and general
erosion of confidence in the president’s ability to prosecute his
administration’s anti-graft war. He added that, “about five senior
diplomats have had reason to pass similar observations to the presidency
after the Rivers state government Whitepaper that indicted your
minister of Aviation, Amaechi over alleged corruption during his years
as governor.”
“If I can recall very vividly, they told the
president that until people like Amaechi in his government are excused
from government to defend the telling allegations against him, the
corruption fight will not be taken seriously,” he further said.
The
declaration by the diplomats he said was buoyed by a letter written by
Governor Nyesom Wike to foreign missions and Embassies detailing
findings and related documentary evidences including the government
Whitepaper of the Justice George Omeregi commission probe report on the
state’s finances during the Amaechi years as governor.
Rivers
state’s Commissioner of Housing, Emma Okah, who spoke on behalf of the
State Government, who spoke to journalists in Port Harcourt last year on
the foregoing report had disclosed that the state’s Attorney-General
had been mandated to start all legal processes against Amaechi; a former
military administrator of Rivers State, Brigadier Anthony Ukpo (Rtd)
and some other former political office holders to refund over N97
billion allegedly misappropriated in the sale of the state’s valued
assets.
SGF, Chief of Staff
According to investigations by
Nigerian Pilot, alleged indictment by some foreign consultants
contracted by Buhari to assess his administration six months after
assuming office.
“The president being a leader desirous of
returning Nigeria to the path of sanity and prosperity contracted the
consultants recommended by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. But the
president gave them his own terms of reference which were not envisaged
by his earlier understanding with Obasanjo,” said one foreign diplomat
who was privy to the matter.
He said that the report concluded
that the Buhari administration was better off when the President was
working with permanent secretaries adding that he should have retained
some of the “good and patriotic hands among them” instead of the almost
clean sweep that sent all of them away leaving a wide vacuum in positive
governance. “They were effective either because they understood the
workings of government very well given their experiences or they dreaded
any tendency to act outside the directives of President Buhari,” he
added.
The source continued: “the president contracted a firm
from the U.S. to assess the performance of his government and officials.
The result is far from complimentary in respect to some officials,
number one of which is the SGF, Engr. Lawal.
“The SGF’s
supervisory role over the MDAs was also brought to question in the
report; but it is surprising that the president has allowed him to stay
this long after that report. I am aware too that somebody is being
considered for that position,” the source confided.
One of the
instances mentioned in the consultant’s report is the sacking of heads
of MDAs recently whereby other political appointees in such MDAs were
left out of the action.
Said the source, “some departments and
agencies’ staffers have expressed the worry that executive directors
were left in office while chief executives of some agencies have been
sacked by the present regime.
“The aggrieved staff argued that
executive directors ought to have gone with the chief executives since
they are all political appointees, stressing that the executive
directors could not be excused from any impropriety that may have
happened in such departments and agencies.
“The affected staff
appealed to the president to as a matter of urgency sack the executive
directors and probe their time in office.”
He said the case of the
Chief of Staff is not different as his effectiveness as the bridge
between the president and his aides alongside other federal, states and
foreign governments’ officials has long been in doubt. Put together, the
source alleged that the ineffectiveness of the duo has contributed
largely to the steep nose-dive of government in the past months.
The two presidency officials were appointed last October by Buhari.
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