SATURDAY POLSCOPE
with Eddy Odivwri; eddy.odivwri@thisdaylive.com 08053069356
For those who are keen on watching free shows, I am certain the plots and intrigues dominating the drama in the Nigerian Senate are quite entertaining. Yet, the members of the Senate are not comedians, but legislators; the109 persons elected by the rest of us to make laws for our benefit and good governance. But to a large extent, we have got anything but good laws for the good governance of the Nigerian state. On the contrary, we have been served tragicomic scenes, typified with foibles and hubris of stage clowns.
Last Wednesday, the Senate resolved to suspend, for six months, its former senate leader, Senator Ali Ndume. His offence is that he “brought the Nigeria Senate to disrepute”. And I ask: how? Ndume had moved a motion last week calling for a probe of a news story published by Sahara Reporters to the effect that the senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki had indeed bought an armoured Range Rover SUV which was impounded by the men of the Nigerian Customs over fake documentation and inappropriate duty payment, and that was why the Senate was harsh and hard with the DG of Customs, Col Hameed Ali (retd) over the failure to wear his uniform as well as the new policy on duty payment on old vehicles. But even when the Customs suspended the new policy, Ali did not receive respite from the senators, until some “busy-body lawyer” took the uniform-wearing controversy to court.
Same day and on the same motion, Ndume had also drawn the attention of the Senate to another publication by the same Sahara Reporters claiming that Senator Dino Melaye did not graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as he had claimed. Ndume had emphasised, while moving the motion, that it was necessary to clear the image of the Senate of any scam or scandal
Swiftly, the Senate referred the two matters to the Ethics and Privileges committee.
And in a speed unusual with the Senate, the committee met, invited the accused persons, relevant witnesses and returned a verdict that Saraki was not directly involved in the importation of the said armoured SUV Range Rover, just as it confirmed from the Vice Chancellor of ABU that Senator Dino Melaye indeed graduated with third class in Geography from ABU as Jonah Daniel Melaye in Year 2000.
The latter in celebration of the acquittal had worn outlandishly, an academic gown to the floor of the Senate, in a typical Melayinic manner.
Smarting from the twin acquittals, the Ethics and privileges committee went beyond its brief of ascertaining the veracity of the claims in the allegation, by recommending that Senator Ndume be suspended for one legislative year. It had to take the pleading of some senators to reduce the punishment to six months.
So what is the offence of Ndume? Was it true or not that Sahara Reporters published the stories Ndume referred to? Since when did it become an offence to either react to newspaper publications or draw attention to news publications? Is it not ironical that on the same day that Ndume was suspended for raising the issue of what was published in the SR, that Senator Ibn N’allah, also drew the Senate’s attention to a newspaper publication where Professor Itse Sagay was said to have described the senators in uncomplimentary language? And the senators got very angry, resolving to invite Sagay to the Senate chamber to identify the senators he thinks have questionable character… So assuming Sagay denies that he did not say so, is the Senate going to pounce on Ibn Na’allah for drawing its attention to the publication?
What is the difference between what Ndume did and what Na’Allah did?
For crying out loud, Ndume was not the one who made the allegations against Saraki and Melaye. He merely drew the attention of the Senate to the publication with the intention of clearing the image of the Senate, just as Na’Allah wants the image of the Senate cleared from the smear tag of Sagay.
I thought if the Senate is to be angry, it will be with the publisher of Sahara Reporters, not Ndume, who was merely reacting to what was published.
Indeed, did the probe not clear the image of the Senate? Was that not the expressed intent of Ndume? Until the probe, didn’t many people believe that Saraki was merely using the institution of the Senate to fight a personal battle with the CG of Customs? Or did the scandal over certificate forgery by Melaye not assume several twists while the allegation lasted, until the VC from ABU cleared the air?
I thought Ndume, rather than be vilified, should be commended for goading the Senate to clear the air over the issues, once and for all.
Not many people are however surprised that Ndume fell under the hammer of the Senate. It was indeed a night of long knives. The voice vote supporting the suspension of Ndume for six months betrayed the deep conspiracy behind the anti-Ndume plot.
With over 15 senators including Saraki and even his wife, Toyin, under probe by the EFCC, nobody expected Magu and his allies to be treated with priestly kindness. And for aligning with Magu, Ndume inadvertently isolated himself for the dagger.
Ndume, it appeared, had been on collision course with the leadership of the Senate ever since he claimed that the initial rejection of Mr Ibrahim Magu as the EFCC chair did not mean that Magu will not be confirmed as the EFCC Chair. For that utterance, considered antithetical to the position of the entire Senate, Ndume was promptly removed as the Senate’s majority leader. Ever since then, both the Senate leadership and Ndume have been watching each other’s back.
In the light of the foregoing, I believe it amounts to abuse of word and power to accuse Ndume of bringing the Nigerian Senate to disrepute. He was not the one who alleged. He merely made reference to a published allegation. Those who speciously argue that Ndume should have confirmed the veracity of the allegation before raising it on the floor of the Senate, miss the point. I ask them: Did Ibn Na’ Allah confirm from Prof Sagay whether he indeed said what was published before raising the issue on the floor of the Senate? If Na’allah was not vilified, why is Ndume facing suspension? Didn’t the two of them make reference to news publications? Or is it because Saraki and Melaye are involved in the reference made by Ndume?
Surely, the Senator Samuel Anyanwu-led Ethics and Privileges committee put the Senate on a needless overdrive in meting out a disproportionate punishment on Ndume just to please the sacred princes of the Senate: Saraki and Melaye. In conspiring to descend on Ndume, the senators have betrayed the fact that they hardly have a mind of their own.
Several court rulings have however indicated that the Senate lacks the power to suspend any member from the chambers. Ndume has the liberty to seek such judicial redress.
Pray, did this same Melaye not bring the National Assembly to a more profound disrepute when on June 22, 2010, he and others engaged in a shameful brawl on the floor of the House of Representatives, wherein his clothes were torn to shreds?
This is the same Senate that has failed to pass the national budget presented to them since December 14 last year. This is April. The rains are here already. Construction works will now be impossible.
This is the same Senate that has been dithering over the all-important Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) for over eight years.
Having watched the hilarious scenes of Magu and the “terrorised” senators; anti-uniform Col Hammed Ali (retd) and the Senate; Senator Ndume vs the Senate leadership, the Nigerian audience sitting pretty cool in the amphitheatre is itching for the starring of the next set of characters in this endless drama of legislative circus.
FGPL: Has PENCOM not Worsened the Woes of Pensioners?
For those who had chosen First Guaranty Pensions Ltd (FGPL) as their Pension Funds Administrator (PFA), they must be wondering what cruel fate has befallen them in the last six years, almost. That was when the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) took over the running of the FGPL for some alleged infractions.
During the period (since August 12, 2011 till date) neither the shareholders of the company nor the pensioners who chose the company as their pension fund administrator have held any meeting to determine the fortunes or otherwise of their pension. It is not certain how many such pensioners had died waiting to receive their pensions from FGPL, no thanks to the takeover of the company by its regulator, PENCOM.
It is probably right to suspect that there is more to the seizure of the company by PENCOM given the illegal determination to either subvert the wish and operations of the FGPL Board or in disregarding the many court orders that have been delivered in favour of the owners of the company. It is even more curious that the PENCOM leadership under Mrs Chinelu Anohu-Amazu, as the Director General has exerted more energy in wracking down the original owners of the company, using the coercive institutions of the Nigerian Police and even the EFCC, than in ensuring that whatever problems detected, warranting the take-over of the company are redressed and solved.
That probably explains why almost six years after, neither an AGM nor EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) has been held to determine the fate of the shareholders of the company. That way too, the pensioners have been languishing in abandonment. What is more, the failure to hold an AGM or EGM means that the company has not been paying tax to the government. Sources close to the company say it is already having a tax liability of over N1.3 billion. Surely, the takeover by PENCOM has neither benefitted the pensioners, nor even the government.
But more importantly, the takeover of the company by PENCOM may have been an overreach by the regulator. Section 82 of the Pension Reform Act of 2014 had provided that “ if for any reason, Pencom, in the annual report conduct its report or examination of a PFA or a Pension Fund Custodian, PenCom would then have to submit that report to the board of the PFA or the board of the PFC. The board of the PFC will now, upon receipt of that report call an extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders of the company to consider the report. The decision of the board of the shareholders is now communicated to PENCOM”. But the Anohu-Amazu –led PenCom did not follow this process. Rather, she peremptorily ordered the Board members to resign, thus usurping the function of the company’s shareholders. And she then sent in staff of PenCom to take over the running of the company whose market frontiers have shrunk considerably in the last six years.
It is to be understood that it is for the breaching of the takeover process that the courts severally, delivered judgments in favour of FGPL, which sadly, have been disregarded by PenCom, thus betraying the suspicion that there is a personal grudge fight between the PenCom DG and the owners of FGBL, using unfairly, a state apparatus to prosecute a personal disagreement.
In fact, so peeved was Justice Okorowo on July 18, 2012 that he reprimanded PenCom for disobeying his order. He said, “On 11th August, 2011, the court made an interim order which is in issue. The Court order was served on the first respondent (PenCom) on 12th August 2011. Despite the knowledge of the Order of the Court and the service of the processes of the order of this court, the first respondent went ahead to deal with the subject matter of the case, interfering with the power of this court, to decide the issues in the action.”
All things considered, PenCom ought to be more bothered about the plight of the pensioners who had chosen FGPL as their PFAs, given their raison d’etre, in such a way that their intervention in the running of the company is seen as redeeming instead of what it presently seems: pensioners as victims of a proxy war.