That Magu/Ali/Senate showdown

So the row over the headship of our phantom anti-corruption crusade hits a brick wall twice at the sinnate. Yet it is a requirement for Naija’s march to progress. Unfortunately, the most corrupt people have immunity and decisive power. How would this work? Things are not helped by the intransigence of the government that believes that its anti-corruption war would fail unless some handpicked individual heads it. Even in an asylum of 180 million there should be enough candidates in their five seconds of lucidity to be appointed as leaders.

How we, as a people have been so emotionally traumatized into believing the lie that there are no good people among us to pull us out of our everlasting logjam except the same idiots who brought us here beats rational imagination. Stockholm Syndrome has led us into believing that we can’t find alternatives when we make electoral choices. Our ruiners take advantage of that when they make appointments but we are too jaundiced to see.

For instance, it is known that the military brought us to our knees but we would grovel to drag them from retirement and obscurity to represent or lead us. Governors that bankrupt their states somehow end up as senators! By recycling our enemies, we undervalue ourselves and mortally undermine the potentials of our youths. This preamble explains the nonsense going on between the executive and the legislative arms of governance over appointments and conduct of appointees. 

First, a legislature run by people whose only license to freedom is the immunity conferred by their office could never be expected to make laws that punish impunity. Just as an expended shell is useless in battle, a tested leader who hasn’t read or written a memoir nor engaged in any kind of venture has nothing new to offer. The political sagacity of the 80’s could not deliver the digital leadership skills needed to galvanise a nation in a mercurial age.

This explains why the ballyhoo over the appointment of Ibrahim Magu as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is shameful on both sides of the spectrum. It exposes the lie in the whole system – how we expect a legislature of accused peers to confirm the appointment of the man they believe is persecuting them beats rational imagination. Why an executive with control of the DSS has its appointee’s confirmation scuttled twice by its report is a sign of dissonance in governance. It is expected that the DSS would forward to government any reports it may have that could embarrass an appointee before that appointee is forwarded for confirmation. 

Most shameful is government believe that there would be no success in its anti-corruption war without Magu. Such arguments were advanced under Nuhu Ribadu. Ribadu left but EFCC remained. What is so special about Magu? It’s like he was born with an anti-corruption gene. If he was, we should clone him by granting others opportunity. As the late Chuba Okadigbo said of his successor – Magu is a mass of protoplasm! He might be dependable, but he is not indispensable.

Equally disgusting is the hot air over Hameed Ali. Famous for his rigidity and ability to run parallel establishments as Kaduna citizens know, nobody takes on Ali without a big fight. Customs officers have left their jobs of policing borders to playing police and thieves in the streets with smugglers and traders. But that is not enough, so they want to collect duties for goods that slipped through their dragnets into use in our cities. Under Ali, the Customs is making its own decree on registered cars for which it has no jurisdiction. If there is a lacuna in law on smuggled cars, the appropriate thing to do is amend an existing law or create an alternate one.

Let us thank our egotistic senators for finding their garment of altruism on this one. But no thanks. We all know that their ranks have more cars than their wives have purses and that their passion is collecting exotic rides. But who does not know that in a country headed by a general, a retired Colonel does not take orders from a group of bloody civilians. If common Road Safety could hold the nation to ransom with various anti-people and anti-free-movement policies, what stops the Customs who have been handling guns before road safety was formed?

So Ali was summoned to appear before the almighty Legislature – and in uniform. If I were Ali, I’d go in the uniform of the Legion or the Boy Scouts just to spite the hotheads. What has Ali’s wearing of uniform to do with his duty as Customs boss even as ludicrous as his appointment was? Where was the uniform-loving senate when an outsider was named as head of Customs? It is evidently an attempt to intimidate Ali and to make a mountain out of a molehill. These guys should remember what Fela said about the uniform:

Nothing special about uniform/Uniform na clothe, na tailor dey sew am. 

At this rate who knows, next time Sai Baba has to appear before these indolent brood of monumental waste of space and money, he would be compelled to appear in uniform.  After all, Buhari is addressed as President and Commander-in-chief?