NIGERIANS are never shy to interrogate their leaders. Query their policies. Pry into their history. Place them on the scale of integrity and draw divergent conclusions. With President Muhammadu Buhari, however, there is one settled opinion. Most, if not all, agree that the man from Daura, in Katsina State is not corrupt. Almost all believe he is incorruptible and incapable of shielding corruption in any form, no matter the personage involved. And this is why his letter read in the Senate on Monday, January 23, carried acoustics of caution and concern, if not consent.

The object of the President’s letter is the indictment of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Engineer Babachir David Lawal by the report of the Senator Shehu Sani led Ad-Hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East. The report had accused the SGF of breaching the Public Procurement Act and the Federal Government Financial Rules and Regulations on the award of contracts and consequently called for his resignation and prosecution.

In an instant reaction to the Senate’s call, the President instructed a panel led by the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, to thoroughly investigate his SGF. The outcome of this investigation was the terse and unambiguous letter read on the floor of the Senate by the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki. In it, President Buhari told the senate that the Senate Ad Hoc Committee did not observe the cardinal principle of fair hearing and thus may have violated section 36(1) of the 1999 constitution, stressing further that the report violates “all principles of law as enunciated in our legal system as well as the rules of the National Assembly Committees on handling of public petitions”. For this acute deficiency, President Buhari says he is unable “to approve the recommendation to remove and prosecute Babachir….” Buhari also noted that the report calling for the SGF’s resignation was signed by only three out of nine members of the Committee. This for the President, effectively makes the content of the paper a minority report which cannot be given effect to.

No question, Buhari’s decision not to remove the man he simply calls ‘Babachir’ is not cheery news for the Senate or few elements within the Senate. Since the President is clearly not a man to caress or condone corruption in any form, his letter spurred a momentary silence that depicted faces on a journey of rare introspection; with their conscience as their closest companion.

But Shehu Sani, the Senator representing Kaduna Central and the spear-head of the hands that authored the caustic report would breach this silence. Raising a Point of Order, he told the Senate that his committee invited the SGF in writing and the letter was received by the Permanent Secretary in the SGF’s office while also claiming that seven members of his Ad Hoc Committee, rather than three as stated by Buhari, signed the Committee’s report.

Known for his commitment to the cause of ordinary people and those whom the vicissitudes of life have rendered destitute, Sani it was, who a few weeks ago  presented the Ad Hoc Committee’s report with his signature passion and characteristic elocution. His report indicted Babachir for alleged gross misconduct, abuse of procurement processes in the handling of contracts awarded by the Presidential Initiative for the North East, PINE. Rholavision Engineering Limited, a company founded by the SGF, the report alleged, was awarded a contract. Sani’s Ad Hoc Committee report then added the killer punch in its suitcase of findings – Bbachir, it said, remained a director in Rholavision, long after taking up appointment as SGF and resigned only in September 2016. The SGF also remains the sole signatory to the bank accounts of the firm, it further alleged.

The Shehu Sani-led Committee report in its face value and delivered so flawlessly was enough to stir the soul of the Senate. And so emotions sizzled. Voices jangled. And soon calls for the resignation and prosecution of the SGF echoed. The voice votes that followed was only a mere ritual. The men in the red chambers pronto, called on the President to sack and prosecute Lawal. But some who know the law and its dynamics advised caution.

Naturally, within minutes, the news spread with added colourations and spices, some outrightly ridiculous. The SGF, they now say, had awarded his company a contract to cut ordinary grasses at IDPs’ camps for the staggering sum of N220 million. Some rumours claimed that over 10 contracts were awarded to his companies with full payments made even though they had not done the contracts. It was easy to understand the fury directed to Babachir Lawal at this point.

But a sincere, dispassionate and pungent question that must be asked here is whether Lawal and Rholavision were given fair hearing on a matter so weighty. Yes, the Committee claimed to have invited the SGF, but is that really enough? Because it is common place for the Nigerian Senate, over minor issues, to invite a government official more than four times, then follow with a threat to issue a bench warrant or directing the Inspector-General to arrest such a person and even threaten court action. While this should not be the norm, it is crucial to ask whether there was a serious effort to invite the SGF. This does not seem to be the case. For in his reaction, Lawal saw the stinging calls of the Senate as a ‘pull-him-down’ syndrome. In his words “… It is very instructive that when the Committee was sitting, no effort was ever made to invite me to come and make a submission”.

Worse still Rholavision Engineering Limited, in a press release, debunked the report of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee with what many now see as iron-cast, irrefutable evidences. First, on the allegation that the SGF did not resign from Rholavision until September 2016, it showed incontrovertible documentary evidence that Lawal indeed resigned in August 2015 with a letter of instruction on his personal letter-headed paper to a firm of solicitors dated August 28, 2015.

The company also attached as an annexure to its press release an acknowledged letter of the bank instructing it to replace Engineer Babachir David Lawal with Barrister Hamidu David Lawal as signatory to the company’s accounts.

Contrary to the Committee’s claim, the company’s bank statement shows that Babachir ceased operating the company’s account even before he resigned. From which bank and how did the Committee then obtain a different statement of account?

Importantly, Rholavision and some independent Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs, and media houses also established beyond doubt that Rholavision was not even the company given the much talked about N220 million naira so-called ‘grass-cutting contract’ even though the Senate Committee created the impression that the company founded by the SGF executed the contract. In any case, the sad impression created by the Shehu Committee that the contract was for the clearing of invasive grass in the IDP Camp was crassly misleading. The contract awarded to Josmon Technologies Limited, was for the clearing of invasive grass along River Kamadugu and the channeling of the river for irrigation to enable fishermen in the communities on its banks to resume their fishing activities and to prevent flooding in the communities during rainy season.

Indeed, Rholavision was only given a Consultancy Services contract worth about 7 Million Naira by PINE, not 220 Million Naira as erroneously claimed by the Committee. And, Rholavision duly executed its 7 Million Naira consultancy contract. This was duly certified and paid for in two installments. The false claim by the Committee tells of obvious mischief unbefitting the Senate as an institution.

It is important to note that Rholavision, was co-opted into the project as consultants because of their experience in the North East, having been engaged in the clearing of thypa-grass from the Hadejia/Jamaara River Basin in 2013 – a contract they executed for the Africa Development Bank, (ADB).

If the Senate had therefore exercised a little patience, if not restraint, to ensure that the SGF and Rholavision appeared before it, this present storm it created from allegations that carry a manifest tinge of credibility questions would have been resolved amicably. This seeming intemperate approach to a critical Public question is what Rholavision queried. As they put it, “it is also very instructive that in spite of the very weighty and potentially damaging allegations being peddled about and against us, the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East did not bother to invite us to the Public Hearing to put our own case across despite the fact that our Head Office is opposite that of the Committee chairman, Shehu Sani”.

Now the media is on a binge orchestrated by vested interests opposed to the SGF, feasting on the Senate Ad Hoc Committee report and garnishing it with more tales, outright lies and calculated misinformation. Some publications have claimed without verifiable evidence that Josmon Technologies is a front for Rholavision Engineering. Others allege without verifiable evidence that Josman paid over 195 million naira as kickback to the SGF and Rholavision. But even this calls for some simple reasoning. For indeed, if the said contract worth was about 272 million naira or 220 million naira as variously reported and this contract has been fully executed and so certified, one cannot but wonder how much was then expended on execution if kickback alone extracted 195 million naira from the contractors. Still, in spite of these confounding allegations, the Committee did not insist that Lawal should appear before it or even invite the company they linked to him. This simply means that the committee released their report in a very troubling haste, without the extreme sense of purpose, maturity and a deep sense of little details required for a national assignment as theirs. This explains why dispassionate observers are now asking whether the Shehu Sani led Ad Hoc Committee sincerely wanted to confront Babachir David Lawal, the SGF with facts that could be a back-breaking moral burden for him or they indeed set out on a pull-him-down syndrome through a quasi hypothesis that betrays a conspiracy of biased minds. No question they may not have set out with biased minds. But their report left a lot of loopholes. It even gives the impression that the Committee was afraid of hearing Babachir’s side and if so, then the Committee lost the very soul of an impartial ‘judge’ or ‘court’.

As an aside, it sounds preposterous that the Senate, made up of very senior citizens, professionals and distinguished leaders, even thinks that it has the power to deny Mr. President the prerogative to continue to work with an SGF of his choosing – one who has no criminal charges against him in any court. Under our Constitution, the SGF is not one of those positions that are subject to Senate statutory confirmation. At best, the SGF is an aide of the President. The Senate, with the greatest respect, cannot compel the President to hire or fire persons over whom it (senate) has no statutory confirmatory powers. Appointment to the office of the SGF is clearly not subject to the confirmatory powers of the senate. The senate should therefore deeply appreciate Mr. President’s response on the matter as a mark of great regard to it as a major institution of State. One is inclined to interpret Buhari’s mature response to the Senate as simply confirmatory of his good democratic credentials, not that he is under a constitutional obligation to dignify a senate resolution lacking binding legal effect under our constitution.

Perhaps the haze that beclouds this report and the critical issue of fair hearing easily explain why President Buhari could not heed the Senate call. Because even history may hold a mirror for him to agonizingly see what may be a glaring miscarriage of Justice if he sacks his SGF on misty findings.

Dr. Scot Owegbe  a public affairs analyst, wrote from Aladja, Delta State