By Rotimi Fasan
IT’S been five months, May to October, since baton changed hands among elected Nigerian leaders; for one group of their ‘excellencies’ to vacate office for another. And that’s how long it’s taken the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to ‘perfect’ its case against some past governors suspected to have abused their positions while in office.

Five months might be long enough, some might even say, too long for the anti-graft agency to make its first move against these group of Nigerians long accused, rightly or not, of impoverishing the treasury of the states they governed, either through direct stealing and illegal award of contract, etc.

What many Nigerians would want to know, however, is if five years would be long enough to conclude the case. In other words, Nigerians would be eager to know if the EFCC believes it has a watertight case that would not get lost or be enmeshed in the wilderness of legal technicalities.

Which is another way of asking if the EFCC has any desire, beyond the attempt to be seen as doing something, to see to the successful completion of the cases it has started against ex-governors Gbenga Daniel, Alao Akala, Akwe Doma and Danjuma Goje all of the PDP? This spate of arrests was heralded many weeks ago with the siege against and eventual arrest of ex-speaker of the House of Reps, Dimeji Bankole.

The initial interest and fury generated by the trial of Bankole, which was seen as a witch-hunt by some, has since ebbed leaving one to wonder how far the entire trial would go. As things cooled a bit, it was the turn of opposition chieftain, Bola Tinubu, to be hauled before the courts, this time by the Code of Conduct agency for not declaring his possession of foreign accounts.

Like the Bankole case, the Tinubu matter is being viewed by opposition figures in the ACN as yet another attempt by the Jonathan administration to suppress opposition elements, this time in a rival party, and prepare the ground for PDP’s takeover of the South-West, the region it lost in the last elections.

Which means none of the cases so far initiated by the Jonathan administration against these past office holders has escaped the taint of being seen as motivated by one ulterior motive or another.

Even the present trial of ex-governors of the PDP is being seen as a way by the administration to ‘balance equation’, namely, not to appear to be targeting opposition figures while looking away from the PDP. But it does not look like there is any way out for Jonathan- head or tail, his anti-corruption fight appears a non-starter.

For already, counsel to Gbenga Daniel are accusing the EFCC of acting a script written to please a former president the former governor is believed to have been at logger heads with. It would be ignoring the elephant in the room for any Nigerian to pretend not to know the person being fingered here, for there is but one person that fits the description.

The name of this same politician-president featured directly or indirectly in both the Bankole and Tinubu cases. In fact, the arrest of four editors of The Nation last week is somehow linked to the same ex-president. The case against the ex-governors has been further sullied by claims by the judge handling the Alao-Akala bit of the cases, Justice Moshood Abass, that some persons are piling pressure on him to handle the case in a particular way.

Which brings me back to my earlier observation as to the preparedness of the EFCC to prosecute the cases with any seriousness. Nigerians will recall similar cases against ex-governors Orji Uzor Kalu and Joshua Dariye, among others.

The cases never came to any meaningful conclusion and today nobody seems to remember these men or their case with the EFCC which seems jammed into a legal cul-de-sac. Bankole has been ‘roughened up’ and allowed some breathing space; Tinubu has been docked and made to look vulnerable and not the grandmaster of South West politics.

What next after this?  What is the EFCC likely to make of its prosecution of Akala, Daniel and co? How much of the latest move reflects genuine attempt by Jonathan to fight corruption? Or is the President still tied to the apron string of others fighting their proxy wars through him? And proxy war or not, witch-hunt or not, is there any ground for the cases or not?

There appears to be that the EFCC chooses to be ‘selective’ about the manner it goes about the cases is a terrible blight and shame but it does not mean searchlight shouldn’t be beamed where it might be necessary to do just that. The onus is on Waziri and her staff to prove their case beyond any doubt.

And the contest might have started with the interpretation the accused persons gave the initial communication between them and the EFCC prior to their arrest.

While Chiefs Akala and Daniel had seen the initial summons as an ‘invitation’ and therefore viewed their visit and eventual transfer to the EFCC office in Abuja as, maybe, part of deliberation with the agency; the EFCC, through its spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, saw the matter differently, as a simple case of arrest.

And since no person could hold another against their will, except in a case of abduction, the EFCC explanation of things seems the more probable as, after honouring the ‘invitation’, the governors were promptly hauled on t
he next flight to Abuja.

Otherwise the EFCC should have a case of kidnapping on its hand right now. But rather than such a case,  counsels to the ex-governors ended up praying the courts to grant their clients bail on grounds of ill health and as a matter of justice.

Nigerians have different perspectives on the matter for both genuine and purely partisan reasons. Supporters and opponents of the governors have been putting their different spins on the cases, and while nobody can be sure how things might end eventually, one would want to hope that this is not another waste of tax payers’ money to create a semblance of movement where things have in fact come to a standstill.

Yet as matters stand between defence and prosecution, one could do worse than recall the words of Fela in his album, ‘Authority stealing’:

EFCC: You be thief

Defence: I no be thief

EFCC: You be rogue

Defence: I no be rogue

EFCC: You dey steal

Defence: I no dey steal

EFCC: You be robber

Defence: I no be robber

EFCC: You be armu robber

Defence: I no be armu robber

Argument, argument, argue….