The news from Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announcing the arrest of Nigeria’s Accountant General of Federation, Ahmed Idris, over an alleged N80,000,000,000 (N80 billion) fraud established a new low for President Buhari’s campaign against corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who is arguably the most popular and most accepted Nigerian President ever since the inception of democracy in 1999 rose to power after several failed attempts with one of his mission being to eradicate corruption in the system.
However, several indications among appointees of the President, including the most recent revelation, have suggested that the fight against corruption at the center of the Federal administration is either crippled or dead in its totality.
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One of the preceding incidents that got the President’s appointees under the radar of Nigerians and observers was their mannerism of purchasing and abandoning the expensive forms of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The APC had set a sum of N100,000,000 (N100m) as fee to be paid by persons interested in becoming president, N50m for Governorship aspirants, N20m for Senatorial aspirants and N10m for House of Representatives aspirants.
Many Nigerians criticized the APC’s bogus fees but were shocked after the ruling party made over 27 sales, making over N2.7bn from presidential forms alone, with members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) contributing a large percentage of the revenue.
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Ministers including the Dr. Chris Ngige in charge of Labour and Employment, Timipre Sylva in charge of Petroleum Resources, Rotimi Amaechi in charge of Transportation, Godswill Akpabio in charge of Niger Delta, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba in charge of Education, all expressed interest in becoming president and acquired the APC’s N100m form.
Other members of the cabinet including Abubakar Malami in charge of Justice, Uche Ogah in charge of Mines and Steel, Ogbonnaya Onu in charge of Science and Technology, Pauline Tallen in charge of Women Affairs, Sunday Dare in charge of Sport, Tayo Alasoadura in charge of Niger Delta, also expressed interests in several other positions and bought the pricey form.
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Several other appointees, most popularly the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele also expressed interest in becoming president and have purchased the N100m form.
Surprisingly, after a direct order by the President asking all the appointees to resign from their appointments and focus on their ambitions, many of them chose to abandon the huge money paid to the APC and instead, remain Ministers or members of the Executive.
The Governor of Central Bank is the most popular among the appointees finding it difficult to resign from his position. Despite outcry from Nigerians that the key holder of the country’s treasury cannot be partisan, the CBN Governor is convinced that no law asked him to resign and he will remain in his position no matter his political interest.
He approached an Abuja High Court asking the court to restrain INEC and CBN from preventing him from running for president.
Many other Ministers, the first being Chris Ngige announced his withdrawal from the presidential race because he does not wish to resign despite paying N100m to the party. Ministers Abubakar Malami, Pauline Tallen, Timipre Sylva and several others followed suit by abandoning their huge “investment” in APC.
There withdrawal shocked Nigerians who thought they would not be comfortable wasting a huge sum of N100m. A lot of reactions sparked on social media with many observers arriving at a conclusion that the N100m fee requested by the ruling APC was only a “chicken change” for members of President Buhari’s cabinet.
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Another angle to argument observed that Buhari’s alleged open hand policies will open a lot of doors for the appointees to recoup the lost money and in fact, rake in profits before the end of his tenure in 2023.
With the arrest of the Accountant General by the EFCC, over a fraud allegations of N80bn, Nigerians wondered the volume of money going the wrong way under the administration of President Buhari who enjoys the tag of having a “sacred innocence” as incorruptible.
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