An exemplary conduct is canvassed everywhere from leaders. It confers pride on his personality, parents and community of birth. He automatically becomes a beacon of light, mentor and role model to upcoming generation, as a good ambassador of his people. To act otherwise is to be scorned and ostracized or even avoided like a plaque.
A raging sordid drama has played out at the headquarters of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for a while. Acting on intelligence information, the EFCC is said to have nudged into a breathtaking corruption scandal in the agency under the former management led by Mr. Sani Sidi Mohammed.
Of course, until the Buhari Presidency, such tales are very familiar stuff in Nigeria. So, I never gave a thought to it. But the sounds of the alleged fraud in NEMA have kept resonating scandalously and disturbingly.
I understand the anti-graft agency is preying into the perpetration of a N2.5 billion fraud allegedly committed by Sani Sidi and six other directors, when the former served as the helmsman at the agency.
Like I said earlier, at first, I ignored its celebrative cacophonies, as just one of the weird politicking in our nation, often rooted in the peculiar politics of mudslinging and vendetta. But the steam has refused to evaporate and ceaselessly haunting.
I also heard of some unwise attempts by Sani Sidi and the indicted directors by the EFCC’s preliminary report to twist stifle the probe or divert attention from it. I feel this is not noble behavior because an accused person is presumed innocent, until pronounced guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.
From media reports, I sadly got to know the deployment of underground plots to distract and destabilize the current leadership of NEMA, led by Engr. Mustapha Maihaja from focus on his humanitarian national assignments’. A source from NEMA who confided in me, claimed Maihaja is hesitant to shield the alleged fraud to the anger of those likely to be nailed.
So, I became more disconcerted with the undercurrents indicating instigation of NEMA staff for industrial action, over flimsy and conflicting excuses. I cannot reconcile the demands of striking workers, who pledged unpaid overtime claims as one of the reasons for strike, but claims “redundancy,” at the same time.
The influenced and evidently partial intervention of the House of Representatives committee in efforts to blur the N2.5 billion probe are some of the unacceptable badges of the planned decapitation of the investigation. We should not operate in this manner.
Last night, the NEMA issue flashed in my mind again. I woke up this morning and stepped out of my balcony, on the second floor of a three-storey building in Kaduna North. It has been my ancestral abode, since childhood
I was enjoying the refreshing coolness of the early morning breeze, as I gazed at the aesthetic scenic view of Kaduna metropolis. Thoughts on the condition of victims of violence in IDPs camps invaded me. And once more, the problem in NEMA assailed my senses.
Back to my piles of old newspapers copies, I took another critical look at the NEMA alleged fraud reports again. I again, read the allegations leveled against Sidi Sani and cohorts in the thriving enterprise of corruption in our nation and got stunned beyond disbelief.
The weight of the allegations leveled on public servants alone baffled me. Normally, a person under the heat of a matter as grave as the allegations, against the indicted persons should have sleepless nights. They are mindless of the harm done to themselves, families and states, all brought into public excoriation by this singular, but multi-layered alleged acts of corruption.
I felt the first step by the indicted persons would have been to cooperate and assist the EFCC get over the probe to clear their names or show to Nigerians their innocence.
But I was alone with this thought and marooned in my lonely apartment. I asked myself rhetorically, why the indicted persons appear not just hesitant, but have apparently ensnared the probe with hiccups, designed to frustrate inquest into what actually transpired? This is very sad and unfortunate.
A peep into the allegation would instantly compel any sane mind, with a modicum of respect for his reputation to strive to clear his name. If I were to accept the revelations’ as projected in the media, it means the Sani Sidi and his comrades embezzled everything in sight, whilst he held sway as the Director-General of the agency.
I presumed Sani Sidi’s innocence and reasoned that a man under such potential national disgrace should be at the forefront of exculpating himself. But he has rather engineered his cohorts still in public service to embark on diversionary antics.
I won’t subscribe to the idea that Nigeria is a lawless nation. There are a dozen laws which regulate every aspect of our private and public lives. For EFCC to allege that under Sani Sidi and top directors, officers owned private companies to secure relief materials contracts for IDPs, in outright breach of code of conduct for public officers and the Procurement Act got me enraged.
But the worse part of the allegations were that the same indicted persons also scandalously created a number of fake companies; faked IDPs’ camps, fake weigh bills and feigned supply of relief materials to existing camps, at the expense of the actual victims of violence housed in IDP camps in the Northeast and elsewhere in Nigeria.
These are hapless Nigerians who deserve their lovingly care, compassion and sympathy. Everything about the transactions by the allegations were centered on fakeness. I was really incensed.
More of the allegations disclosed the award of frivolous contracts, while some of the companies engaged by NEMA under Sani Sidi also failed to remit accumulated taxes since 2014 to the Federal Inland Revenue Service(FIRS) amounting to several millions of naira.
I was so sad that with the allegation of diversion of foods and relief materials meant for IDPs in the North-East to the neighbouring countries of Chad and Niger Republics. Some directors operated multiple accounts, as many as about 20 in some instances, where fake contract sums were paid and cornered and lots more
I found these allegations extremely perplexing and covered my face in shame that Sani Sidi hails from the same state with me. And that the former DG-NEMA could in anyway be linked to such a heartless act of exploiting vulnerable victims of crises for personal enrichment shocked me endlessly.
If finally proven to be true, it implies, Sani Sidi was completely hardened and stripped himself of any humanity, signposted in the gory tales and pathetic conditions of the numerous victims of bomb blasts, flooding and other natural disasters in the country.
What is more painful is the chortle in public places in Kaduna over the revelations in NEMA. Many Kaduna indigenes rightly or wrongly believe Sani Sidi was indeed the sole owner or co-owner of the cash found in the house of Dr. Andrew Yakubu, NNPC former Managing Director and CEO.
Sani Sidi has embarrassed us enough. Let me put it across to him and his co-travellers that the time to play tricks is not now. He should be more interested in clearing his name than the resort to subterfuge over the probe. And it is not about his clinging unto the last straw of desperation by sowing the seed of discord at NEMA, in alliance with his cohorts and co-belligerents’, plotting to ensure the truth is veiled.
If he is not bothered, the people of Kaduna are troubled over the allegations, which have portrayed Kaduna as one Northern state peopled by corrupt public servants. I therefore, plead with the EFCC to hasten the arraignment and trial of Sani Sidi and coy in court. We cannot allow him to use our state to shame the nation.
Ikuku wrote this article from Kaduna.
