[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hree months after it charged Senate President Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, and two others with forging the Senate Standing Rules, the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and minister of justice has declared the investigation into the alleged offence inconclusive, THISDAY has learnt.
In June, when the case was first filed in court and before the arraignment of Saraki and other co-accused persons, the FG deposed to an affidavit, which was attached to the case file at the time, attesting that investigations into the matter had been concluded.
However, three days to the adjourned date on the matter, THISDAY gathered from highly reliable sources and sighted various documents from both the office of the AGF and that of the Inspector General of Police (IG) that the prosecution was making frantic efforts to reopen what it termed “inconclusive investigations”. – ThisDay
My take on this is that this is pretty straightforward so I won’t mince words…
1) Someone from the Ministry of Justice clearly committed perjury in deposing that investigations had been concluded when it hadn’t. That person MUST be prosecuted.
2) This latest twist clearly buttresses the view of those who saw Saraki’s trial(s) as a witch-hunt and political persecution for going against his party’s wishes in becoming Senate President.
3) Senator Ekweremadu’s petition to the international community which was scorned by some now seems to be right on point. A reading of that petition will show how accurate his grouses were.
4) Flowing from (2) and (3) above, the whole agenda of this govt’s anti-corruption war is seriously questioned. No-one would be blamed for saying that the govt is simply playing games with the minds of Nigerians as regards this anti-corruption noise.
5) The fact that this news is coming at a time the Senate President echoed the govt’s unpopular stance on sale of national assets raises the issue of whether some under-the-table backdoor compromises had been reached.
6) With another apparently unrelated crisis brewing in the APC between the godfather Tinubu and the party Chairman Oyegun, it seems Saraki’s support will be sorely needed to put the Jagaban in his place hence this attempt to kill the forgery trial. This further puts the sincerity of the whole anti-corruption war in question.
7) This whole farce brings into relief the much talked about penchant for prosecuting authorities in Nigeria to charge suspects to court without concluding investigations. This is a nasty abuse of court processes and if the propaganda antecedents of this administration is anything to go by, it now seems as if the purpose of these anti-corruption trials is mere media show.
8) To dispel the notion in (6) above, this govt must endeavour to be more diligent in prosecuting Dasuki, Dokpesi, Metuh and others named in the arms scandal. Anything less than this will totally destroy one of the only two credits this administration has gained in 16 months (the other being crushing Boko Haram)
9) Avid watchers of Nigeria’s politics especially in the last 6-7 years will be quick to warn this administration that it is going down the same route travelled by the govt it replaced. By covering up the corruption within its ranks and playing politics with anti-corruption efforts, it is treading a path of infamy which counted against the last administration.
To be forewarned is to be fore-armed.
Ikechukwu Obi is a marketing executive who lives and works in Abuja. He is a blogger and a husband. Connect with him on Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
