Police confirm Senate forgery

 

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu

The Nigeria Police have concluded their probe into the forgery of the Senate Standing Order and given a copy of the report to President Muhammadu Buhari, SUNDAY PUNCH can authoritatively report.

The President received a copy of the report last week, a highly reliable source in the presidency told one of our correspondents on Saturday.

The Police report confirmed that the Standing Rules used to inaugurate the 8th Assembly were forged, our source said.

In the report, the Police recommended the prosecution of those found culpable of forging the orders, which had been used in the controversial election of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, and his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, on June 9, 2015.

The report was said to have indicted the management of the National Assembly, especially the Clerk, Salisu Maikasuwa and recommended the prosecution of the suspects.

Acting on a petition by Senator Sulaiman Hunkuyi (All Progressives Congress, Kaduna State), the Police had on July 6 quizzed Ekweremadu and Maikasuwa over an alleged forgery of the standing orders.

The petition alleged that some parts of the 2015 Senate Orders were different from the one ratified by the 6th Senate in 2010, which was used by the 7th Senate, as Standing Orders 2011.

The Police, on the strength of the petition, had subsequently quizzed the leadership of the 7th Senate, including former Senate President, Senator David Mark; his deputy (now Saraki’s deputy), Ike Ekweremadu; former Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba; and the former Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Clerk to the National Assembly, Maikasuwa, who is the custodian of the Senate Standing Order was also invited for questioning by the police.

According to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, handed over copy of the investigative report to Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja last Sunday.

The source said, “I can confirm to you that the President has a copy of the Police’s investigation report on the Senate forgery and I can also authoritatively tell you that the report confirmed that the Senate rules were forged. Notable among those recommended for prosecution in the National Assembly is the Clerk because he is the one that keeps the Standing Orders.”

When asked if the Directorate of Public Prosecution had received a copy of the Police report, the source said he couldn’t confirm that.

SUNDAY PUNCH’s study of the controversial 2015 Senate Standing Orders, Rule 3, as contained on page four of the document, which has to do with the election of presiding officers, had shown that it is different from the 2011 Senate Order.

Rules 3(e) (i) and (ii) have been included in the 2015 document to accommodate electronic voting and secret ballot, whereas secret ballot and ballot papers were not specifically mentioned in the 2011 Standing Orders.

The Senate Order 3 (e) (ii) of 2011 states, “Voting shall be conducted by the Clerks-at-the Table, using the Division List of the Senate with the Tellers in attendance. The Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the division to the Clerk of the National Assembly.

“(iii) The Clerk shall then declare the Senator-elect who has received the greater number of votes, elected as President of the Senate.”

The same section in the 2015 Senate Order however reads, “Voting by secret ballot which shall be conducted by the Clerk-at-Table using the list of the Senators-elect of the Senate, who shall each be given a ballot paper to cast his vote with the proposers and seconder as Teller. The Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the voting to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall then declare Senator-elect who has received the highest number of votes as Senate President-elect.”

Apart from the ‘alteration’ to the procedure for election, Order 95 of the 2011 rule on the chairmanship and membership of the committees is also different in the 2015 version.

In the 2011 document, provisions in Order 95 read, “The membership of all committees shall not be less than 11 and not more than 13 senators. (2) No senator shall serve in more than three committees (3) No committee chairman shall serve in more than one other committee.”

However, a new insertion in the amended version reads, “The appointment of Senators as Chairmen and members of committees shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the six geopolitical zones of the country and there shall be no predominance of senators from a few geo-political zones.”

In SUNDAY PUNCH’s exclusive report on the scandal, which was published on July 19, some senators who served in the 7th Senate had disowned the 2015 edition of the Senate Standing Orders (as amended).

Similarly, members of the current 8th Senate across parties had also denied being part of any amendment process.

The senators, who were from both the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, said they were not aware of any amendments to the 2011 Senate Standing Orders.

For instance, Senator Victor Lar (PDP, Plateau-South) had declared, “As of the time we left the (7th) Senate, there were no alterations (to the Senate Standing Orders).”

Also, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business in 7th Senate, Senator Ita Enang, stated that the Standing Orders that was used and closed within the 7th Senate was the Standing Orders that should have been used for the inauguration of the 8th Senate.

Enang, who was in the PDP when he was in the Senate but later defected to the APC, had stated, “I made proposal for amendments between 2011 and 2015, I laid the report on the floor, but we did not consider the report. We did not amend the Standing Orders.

“Before we left, I had approved the reprinting of the Standing Orders and the reprinting did not include inserting anything which was not in the old one. Reprinting is, simply reproduce what we have because there are no more copies.”

Some senior legal practitioners had told SUNDAY PUNCH that forging a document like the Standing Rule of the Senate was a felony, which, according to them, is a criminal offence against the state that attracts a penalty of three years jail term, a fine or both.

However, when contacted on Saturday, the Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, did not confirm if the President had received a copy of the report.

“The Police are still working on the report. Investigation is still going on,” he said.

Director (Information), Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr. Charles Nwodo, responding to an inquiry by one of our correspondents on Saturday night also said he was not aware of the if the DPP had received a copy of the report

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE ON ANSElM OJEZUA:

Edo State Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has condemned as a bad omen, recent vote of confidence purportedly passed on its State Chairman, Mr. Anselm Ojezua by his Edo Central Senatorial District.
Rising from emergency meeting in Benin City today, the Working Committee declared that to hail the leadership of Mr. Ojezua as exemplary for losing his unit, ward, Local Government Area and Senatorial District in the Presidential/National Assembly elections portends doom for the party for as long as he remains Chairman.
The Working Committee therefore urged Mr. Ojezua to resign his chairmanship forthwith having glorified himself in failure.
 They also called on the Senatorial Chairman, Chief Henry Okoror to tender unreserved public apology to the party for hosting and presiding over the meeting in which failure and betrayal were celebrated otherwise face sanctions.
It was the view of the Committee that the outcome of the meeting where the offensive vote of confidence was passed vindicated those who accused the APC leadership in that Senatorial District of selling out to their kinsmen, Chief Tony Anenih and Tom Ikimi both of PDP during the elections.
The Committee lamented that the only three seats APC lost to PDP in the State Assembly election were in the same senatorial District where it earlier lost all National Assembly seats to PDP. It therefore wondered why they embarked on the self-praising jamboree as if failure was what they set forth to achieve in the elections.
We rebuked Mr. Ojezua as a never-do-well, lazy, lousy, and shameless leader who gloats at his own failure.
The celebration of such woeful failure could only be as a result of monetary gains realized from the sell-out and as such, tantamount to jubilation over the successful betrayal of the party. APC therefore appealed to all those who worked hard to achieved the victory recorded in the Edo North and South Senatorial Districts not to be discouraged by the attitude of the traitors in the Central Senatorial District.
The Working Committee also challenged Mr. Ojezua to defend the allegation that he sold all APC poll agents identification tags for the Presidential/National Assembly elections to his masters in PDP, hence there was no tags for APC, a situation that weakened the party  representation at the polling boots.    
It also lamented how Mr. Ojezua misled the State Executive Committee to adopt Chief Tom Ikimi against Chief Oyegun ahead of the National Convention only to rush shamelessly to Chief Oyegun at the venue of the convention when Chief Ikimi was nowhere to be found without carrying along, those he had misled.
Comrade Godwin Erhahon
State Publicity Secretary

President Buhari’s Great Diplomatic Feat For A Change

No doubt the four-day official visit of President Muhammadu Buhari came
 off so successfully on every count that the country, struggling to effect
 mitigation from the wreckage the immediate past government and indeed all
 other past governments made of it, stands to soon reap from that important
 visit. President Buhari’s visit not only resonated in its spectacular
 success but re-integrated the country to the comity of serious nations
 where it had been cast as a pitiable outlaw via the humiliating conducts
 of the immediate past government.
For the six years the outgone government was blubbering so miserably from
 one policy mistake to the other, the country was taken as an unserious
 joker in the comity of nations. From all practical indices the developed
 world saw the past government as a huge parody and spared nothing to pass
 that demeaning message. Nigerians were sorely embarrassed as a fidgety and
 dense government stumbled from one mediocre pit fall to the other and
 dragged the country down a disappointing maze. Nigerians watched in awe as
 the country became a regular butt of the ribaldry of the entire world who
 missed no opportunity to tell us in cryptic and unfamiliar non-diplomatic
 terms that we had a misfit as a government.
These were very huge liabilities that vitiated the capacity of Nigeria not
 only to fulfill its roles to her citizens but also to play a notable role
 even in the African continent. While these lasted, Nigeria’s image
 plummeted to such abysmally low level that negatively robbed off on its
 citizenry. Its capacity to carry out any meaningful activity in the
 international orbit waned so considerably such that nations ran from doing
 even perfunctory businesses with Nigeria on account of the low grade
 leadership that drove it.
These were the huge garbages President Buhari inherited as he zoomed into
 power on the wings of a fervent pan-national mandate in May. As President
 Obama welcomed President Buhari with that hilarious acclamation thus; ‘“
President Buhari came into office with reputation for integrity and a very
 clear agenda, that is, to make sure that he has been bringing safety,
 security and peace to his country”, it was obvious that the heads of
 Nigerians in every part of the globe swirled with pride and nostalgia for
 the good old days when the country was reckoned with in the comity of
 nations. It was certain that this rare testimonial had been given by the
 US of very few African leaders in world history and marks the
 re-admittance of Nigeria to the hallowed orbit of serious nations where it
 had been missing for a very long time.
For his visit, the American government rolled out the red carpet and
 spared nothing to underscore the importance of that visit. This was a rare
 privilege reserved for only few leaders in the conduct of American affairs
 and this was not lost on either the Americans or the Nigerians that
 watched with keen interest. The field was Buhari’s to prance and he did
 that so majestically, so magisterially, so professionally and so
 familiarly, with assured gait to the delight of Nigerians. For each
 session he undertook, he spoke with measures of traditional seriousness
 and deep introspection that assures. These have been critical nerves that
 had been lacking in the conduct of the country’s leadership for a very
 long time. As this show of respect lasted, the departed pride of Nigerians
 and their lost faith in officialdom returned and the promises of a newer,
 fresher and well-burnished relationship between Africa’s biggest nation
 and the world’s biggest economy and most powerful nation unfurled a
 specter of positive expectations for the citizens of a nation humbled by
 inept and ethically rusty governments. For Nigerians, the pointers of a
 more stable, more assured and more secured polity became reified as we
 eagerly followed every of his measured engagements.
President Buhari was to get fully engrossed in his very busy itinerary
 that included:  a breakfast meeting with the US Vice President Joe Biden,
 a US Government lunch on power to be hosted by the Secretary of State John
 Kerrry, a bilateral meeting with Deputy Secretary of State (Defence),
 Robert O. Work, a meeting with the United States Secretary of Commerce,
 Penny Pritzker, an audience with ECOWAS Ambassadors and a meeting on
 tackling corruption in Nigeria with the US Attorney General, Lorreta
 Lynch.
Also, President Buhari had a meeting with the Secretary of Treasury, Jack
 Lew, met with potential investors in Agriculture, a meeting with the
 Chamber of Commerce, an interactive dinner by the US Chamber of Commerce
 and the Corporate Council for Africa, a meeting with the President of the
 World Bank, as well as the representative of the Bill Gates Foundation. He
 also met with the Nigerian community in the United States.
 President Buhari was hosted by the US Department of State at a function to
 be attended by the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
 and the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. President Buhari even had the
 honor of receiving the  Class of 1980 of the prestigious US War College of
 which he was a participant.
 As his tour of duty came to an end, President Buhari played Nigeria back
 to the decent club of serious nations where it had long been rusticated.
 He secured so much political, military, economic and social mileage for a
 country that has long neighed for responsible government but got a horde
 of irresponsible and rouge leadership. These include; US commitment to
 assist the country recover stolen funds cruelly plundered by past
 government officials and key into Buhari’s pet anti-corruption fight,
 commitment to the Nigerian fight against insurgency, commitment to invest
 in agriculture, wider bilateral relationship and investment in industry,
 commerce and trade and fostering deeper diplomatic relationship between
 the two countries. The President got resounding approval for his work so
 far in arresting the drift of a nation and place it firmly on the paths of
 recovery. Indeed President Obama minced no words to state that President
 Buhari has greatly impressed with his performance so far in office and has
 a clear agenda for taking the country far from the very canvass where it
 was dumped by previous regimes.
There is little doubt that Nigeria and Nigerians will savour the fruits of
 this well delivered diplomatic feat as we warm up to the realities and
 promises of the Change we hungrily neighed for, worked fervently for and
 got as the locusts ravaged this country.
Peter Claver Oparah
 Ikeja, Lagos.

How Tinubu lured five govs out of PDP — Tony Momoh

By Bashir Adefaka
Former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh in this interview speaks among others on the import of President Mohammadu Buhari’s visit to the United States of America and the deals high-wire politicking that landed the All Progressives Congress at the presidency.


What do you think  Nigeria stands to gain from President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to the United States of America?
Nigeria is looking up to the world in securing and stabilising the country through development.  That is one of the things  President Buhari’s visit will achieve for Nigeria.  Being in the US with President Barack Obama,  Nigerians have been able to discover that Buhari  is not stubborn and rigid but  simply a man with disciplined mind and a high sense of putting things in proper shape.
With that visit, America will assist Nigeria.  Americans knew about the  thefts  that we are talking about.  They knew about them before now but they were unwilling to relate to Nigeria because, apparently they knew more than us.  They knew about the indiscipline and corruption in the land but, Buhari is ready to fight corruption because he never indulged in corrupt practices.
Corrupt practices
So, the visit to the US has provided diverse opportunities for Nigeria to achieve stability and development.
Are you in support of plans to probe  ex-ministers over alleged oil theft?
President Buhari is not going to investigate and is not going to set up any commission of enquiry.   He will allow the security agencies to  do their work and they are already doing that.  Is it not because the security agencies are doing their work that  these revelations about oil theft and missing funds are becoming known?  The security agencies should be allowed to do their work.  Nigerians should be ready for the cleansing job that is going to take place.
But in doing what you regard as cleansing, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and Jonathan’s people are seeing it as witch-hunting.  What about that?
Are you saying that what these people are alleged  to have done that they did not do them?  If the rules are there and then Buhari says, ‘follow the rules,’ is that witch-hunting?
Many have been complaining that the Buhari administration is slow. When you hear complaints like that, how do you feel?
People  cannot say that the government is slow or not working because, even without the ministers, the permanent secretaries have shown that the civil servants are the major officers concerned with the business of government. They have really been performing since Buhari became President.
President Buhari is a man that I have been with since 2003.  I was the head of his campaign organisation in 2003, 2007 and chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) where he contested again for presidency in 2011.  I know him so well that he is never a push over.  He does his own things at his own pace.  So, he doesn’t bother about  detractors.
Smooth performance
Don’t forget that Nigerians will not ask those detractors who are complaining about not appointing ministers.    Buhari  needs to carefully prepare the ground for smooth performance. Nigerians should be patient.  They will be proud that Buhari is their President.
He came in 1984 and this is 2015.  He needs to understudy things properly.   He is trying to secure the ground and then fight the enemy of good governance which is corruption.  It is only then that  he can appoint ministers.
How confident are you that Buhari will  fight corruption, insecurity and still  have his feet on the ground to handle other functions of government?
I have confidence in  Buhari and I believe strongly that he has all it takes to achieve all those things that you have listed.  He  is the only elected President of Nigeria that started by wanting to become President.
In 1960, Sir Tafawa Balewa was made Prime Minister.  His  ambition was  to become a broadcaster.  In 1979, Alhaji Shehu Shagari became President.  He had wanted to be a senator.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was made President in 1999.  He was in prison and his thought was to be free and not to die in prison.
In 2007, Yar’ Adua was made President by those who chose him.   He had wanted to finish his eight-year term as governor of Katsina State and thereafter return peacefully to his job as lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was very comfortable with his job as governor of Bayelsa State.  But he was brought to Abuja first as Vice President and later as President.  None of them ever thought of being President.
But when you talk of somebody who started out by really wanting to be President, it is President  Buhari.  Some people had put a book together and the book was titled, “Project Nigeria.”  In the  book, they had spelt out how they wanted to rebuild and develop Nigeria.  They gave it to Buhari to look at and when he looked at it, he made some jottings out of the book and then made up his mind about it. It was put together by a group of Northerners, who are very  intelligent.
Meanwhile, President Buhari had always said that he was feeling sad seeing little children selling pure water and running around in the streets at a time they should be in school.
Interest in politics
All these put together motivated him into developing interest in politics.  He had the vision  to change the existing lifestyle of Nigerians  particularly the little children. And because he is the only one who is in politics to become President, he contested 2003, he didn’t make it.  He contested 2007 and in 2011 when he couldn’t make it, he said, “ Nigerians have opportunity for their lives to be made better but they lost it.”  And he was about quitting but I said to him, “don’t stop. You will wait for your time and the time will come.”
On Tinubu
That is why we can never underrate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the success that we achieved in the 2015 election that produced this government.  Tinubu is an excellent crowd mobilizer, very highly proactive and exceptionally digital politician.  He was the one who knew how he wooed the five governors of the New PDP  and brought them into the APC.   You cannot underrate Tinubu’s contribution to the success of the emergence of this government.
I only pity the PDP who are thinking that the so called crisis in the National Assembly is to their favour.  There is no problem with what  happened in the Senate and House of Representatives because we cannot say because Saraki emerged as Senate President that he is PDP or that because Dogara emerged as Speaker of the House he is a PDP person.
On Ekweremadu
The  House voted in  Ekweremadu as  Deputy Senate President.  We thank God that David Mark did not emerge the Senate President because they would have said that it is constitutional.
We should give kudos to Tinubu because of his role in the influence that brought the PDP governors into  APC.  He wooed Saraki and Atiku and he knew how he went into the PDP and played all those games. I would tell you that two politicians that should be respected most in Nigeria today are Tinubu and Bisi Akande.
But I will also blame Tinubu for the crisis because having brought Saraki, Atiku and the five governors, you should know that it is not proper to think that Saraki, Dogara, Atiku, Kwankwaso will ever still be thinking of being PDP in APC.  No.  None of them is PDP any longer and they will ever remain APC.  So, they should be so treated. What we owe Nigerians is delivery on our change mandate.
Change mandate
APC was just lucky to be the vehicle used to drive the change because, even without the APC, the Nigerian people would still have overrun the system and achieve the change by themselves.  I congratulate the APC for being  lucky to be the vehicle for driving the change.  It is sad that the debt Jonathan plunged us into as a nation will take a  long period to repay.
On planned probe of Jonathan’s government
If anybody had done anything bad in the past, it is the business of the security agencies to investigate.  President Buhari won’t be the one to do that.  He believes that the security agencies should know what to do to anybody, who has committed a crime, be it financial or whatever.
So, the security agencies should not wait until the President tells them to go after such a person because Buhari will not ask any security agent to do so.  He believes that the constitution has stated  clearly the roles of security agencies.  If they now see an offender, who committed a crime and fail to handle such a person according to the law, then the law enforcement agents should be blamed.

How God, US made me — Buhari

By Garba Shehu
Shortly after the August 1983 military coup that brought a 40-year-old Muhammadu Buhari to power, he received a phone call from a top personnel in the United States Army.  General Smith was the Commandant of the U.S. War College from which General Buhari graduated in 1980. The school’s 1979 set had graduated its first Nigerian, General Wushishi, who was the Chief of Defence in the just ousted Shehu   government.
Obama and Buhari
Obama and Buhari
“Please, be kind to him,” General Smith said over the phone. The essence of the phone call was not just to congratulate Nigeria’s new Head of State, but to ensure that the first Nigerian to graduate from the U.S. War College would not suffer any indignity under the government of the second Nigerian to graduate from the same school.
Former classmates
On Wednesday, July 22, members of the U.S. War College Class of 1980 gathered at the Blair House in Washington, DC, to welcome the man they had selected as their football team referee 36 years ago. “Being referee all those years ago taught me to be fair and just,” President Buhari said during the meeting.
Among the former classmates gathered were Lt. General Granrud (Commander of the U.S. forces   in Japan Rtd), Brigadier General Jack Pellica, General Ronald Griffith (Former Vice Chairman of the U.S. army central command ), Colonel Lany Gordon and Colonel Paul Summerville. General Smith has since passed on, as have all the directing staff and a larger percentage of the old students from the set. “This just shows that all of us are on the queue,” President Buhari said, “waiting for our turn.”
The Nigerian Commander-in-Chief said he hoped that the U.S. would continue its tradition of training Nigerians in the war college. At the time he attended the school, he was the only African in his class. The only other foreigners were from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, France and Japan. The Japanese student went on to become the head of his country’s army.
President Buhari then went on to update his classmates on his life since he last saw them: his different appointments, his accomplishments and his family.  “I have just received my 13th grandchild,” he said.
He added that the wife they knew him with at the time had since died, and that he had also lost a son and a daughter from his new wife.  “Of all my eight children,” he said, “only one is a boy.” Some of his former classmates were curious to know if President Buhari would place his only son, Yusuf, in the army.
“I stopped him from joining the army,” President Buhari replied.
He explained that the military he joined was very different from what it is today, adding that he was the second Nigerian to be sent to the U.S. War College—based on his records alone, without connections. “Things took a wrong turn in Nigeria,” he said. “Your records no longer mattered.”
Some of the former classmates present at the meeting stated that at the time they met President Buhari back in 1980, they knew little about Nigeria or Africa. They credited the Nigerian leader with giving them their initial enlightenment about the continent. Others recalled how he always overworked himself.
However, President Buhari described   his war college experience as being responsible for his subsequent life of hard work, endurance and perseverance. “I contested for president three times and failed,” he said. “Then I did it the fourth time and won.” A roar of laughter followed the president’s apt illustration.
He then rendered his narrative of the collapse of the Soviet Union, breaking into 18 republics and how that influenced his decision to join politics.
“The collapse of the Soviet empire in 1980 without a single shot being fired convinced that the multi-party democratic system was the best for all countries.”
President Buhari then expressed appreciation to President Barack Obama and to the U.S. for the role the country played in Nigeria’s successful elections, recalling Secretary of State, John Kerry’s visit to him and to former president Goodluck Jonathan, as well as to Attahiru Jega, the electoral commissioner at the time.
Electoral commissioner
“Kerry read the riot act to all of us,” he said, “saying that the conduct of the election must be free, fair and in line with the Constitution.”  He added that, without US intervention, the electoral malpractices of the past   twelve years would likely have happened again. “God made me but America made me,” he said.
The Class of 1980 gave President Buhari the full assurances of their support, stating that they were willing to use their experience to assist him in any way they can, particularly with tackling terrorism in northeast Nigeria. They promised to put together and forward to him a compendium of their thoughts on the security situation in Nigeria.
In September, President Buhari will be meeting once again with his former classmates, at another event scheduled to take place at the United Nations.
Garba is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity.

We’ll arrest, prosecute some former ministers for oil theft — Buhari

 

         

President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday that his government was examining pieces of evidences that would lead to the arrest and prosecution of some former ministers and other government officials for stealing Nigeria’s crude oil.
Mr. Buhari said this at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington while answering questions at a session with Nigerians in the Diaspora. He said it will take at least 18 months to revive the economy.
He lamented that some of the affected officials were involved in illegal sale and diversion of crude oil monies belonging to the Federal Government to multiple private accounts abroad.
“We are now looking for evidences of shipping some of our crude, their destinations and where and which accounts they were paid and in which country.
“When we get as much as we can get as soon as possible, we will approach those countries to freeze those accounts and go to court, prosecute those people and let the accounts be taken to Nigeria.
“The amount of money is mind-burgling but we have started getting documents.
“We have started getting documents where some of the senior people in government, former ministers, some of them had as much as five accounts and were moving about one million barrels per day on their own.
“We have started getting those documents. Whichever documents we are able to get and subsequently trace the sale of the crude or transfer of money from Ministries, Departments, Central Bank.
“We will ask for the cooperation of those countries to return those monies to federation accounts and we will use those documents to arrest those people and prosecute them. This, I promise Nigerians.”
The President frowned at the way and manner the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was mismanaged, saying his administration would check the excesses of the corporation.
He said his administration was carefully studying the issue of oil subsidy.
Mr. Buhari said he would not be a party to taking decisions that would further impoverish Nigerians in the name of removing oil subsidy.
“When people ask you to remove subsidy ask them to define it. Who is subsidizing who? Let me make it clear. The people are gleefully saying ‘remove subsidy’.”
“They want petrol to cost N500 per litre. If you are working and subsidy is removed, you can’t control transport, you can’t control market women, the cost of food, the cost of transport.
“If you are earning N20,000 per day and you are living in Lagos or Ibadan, the cost of transport to work and back, the cost of food. You cannot control the market women they have to pay what transporters charge them.
“If there is need for removing subsidy, I will study it. With my experience, I will see what I can do. But I’m thinking more than half the population of Nigeria virtually cannot afford to live.
“Where will they get the money to go work? How can they feed their families? How can they pay rent?
“If Nigeria were not an oil producing country – all well and good. Our refineries are not working. We have a lot of work to do.”
On the appointment of ministers, Mr. Buhari dismissed those accusing his administration of being too slow in taking crucial decisions relating to governance and appointment of political office holders.
He cited the immediate past PDP government, which he said spent more than two months to settle down during its 16-year rule.
“In some quarters they are now calling me `Baba Go Slow’. I’m going to go slow and steady.’’
Mr. Buhari also pledged to study the Diaspora Bill with a view to signing it into law as requested by the Nigerians in the Diaspora.
He advised Nigerians living abroad and searching for government jobs back home to suspend their ambition as the nation’s economy is in a bad shape as it would take his administration at least 18 months or more to resuscitate it.
The president, however, promised that some of the job seekers would be engaged by the Nigerian Government as consultants to enable them contribute their quota to the nation’s development.
All those who spoke at the interactive session expressed their readiness to assist the APC-led administration of Buhari to achieve its campaign promises for the benefit of Nigerians.
They also called on Mr. Buhari to sign into law the Diaspora Bill.

PremiumTimes

Onaiyekan to Buhari: Tread softly on corruption probe

 

 By: Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

 

The Catholic Arch-Bishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, on Tuesday night advised President Muhammadu Buhari to go slowly on his anti-corruption drive so that his actions are not seen as “persecution.”
He gave the advise during an evening dinner organized for Catholics in Politics at the Church of the Assumption, Asokoro, Abuja.
Pointing out that fighting corruption goes beyond making “few arrests here and there” he urged President Buhari to carry out his anti-corruption fight in a way that will not be seen as selective.
He also said that fight against corruption can only succeed where there is transparency, just and honesty.
He said: “This challenge obviously lies squarely on those who now have the power to rule our nation. I want to beg them, and I am glad the Chairman of the ruling party is here, to resist the temptation to rub in the plaques of defeat on the losers and try to avoid policies of persecution, some even talk of execution of losers.”
“We have to tackle dishonesty and I believe we need to retrieve stolen goods, especially those that are just piling up other peoples money. While we do that, it is my strong feeling that we should try to avoid as much as possible humiliating or disgracing people who may indeed have tried their best to serve the nation.
“How to do this and keep these two elements together requires a lot of sagacity and clear mindedness. But we should pray for our leaders to be granted the grace.
“We must be clear minded on this matter and not allow ourselves to be naïve thinking that it is just enough to make few arrests here and there and the matter is settled. Let us pray that God will guide our nation.”
On insecurity, he said that Nigeria needs to go beyond arms and ammunitions in order to reconcile minds and hearts for genuine peace.
The time, he said, has come for all to link hands and seriously tackle the problems facing the country.