Elumelu: Coming To Equity with Unclean Hands?

Written on 15-05-09

Just when you think you have exhausted topical national issues to write about, an Elumelu and company is docked in a Federal High Court at Abuja over allegations of corruption to a staggering tune of over Six Billion Naira. Then you realise you must stay awake one more night.

That name Elumelu rings an annoyingly loud bell among the gang of Legislators being prosecuted because not quite more than 6 months ago he sat at the head of a panel that investigated alleged corruption in the power sector from 1999 to 2007. His committee turned in a report with damming conclusions on abuse of due process, inflation of contract values and sundry irregularities in the award of contracts that are either abandoned at their infancy or are at elementary stages not commensurate with the huge mobilisation fees paid to the contractors.

If the 156 charges rolled out against Elumelu and his company by the EFCC have any speck of substance then it is amazing how a man like that had the effrontery to head a committee that went round the country, at the expense of the taxpayer, in a much publicised probe of power sector spending under former President Obasanjo.

Many a Nigerian placed his hopes for the much desired prosecution of the former leader in the outcome of the investigations of that committee because hitherto, the appropriate agencies that should try him have repeatedly told the nation that their hands were tied by the dearth of evidence against him. With the revelation recently by Obasanjo that he was not in government to provide infrastructure, we have by hindsight a prima facie case of embezzlement established against him because he by false pretence (mis)appropriated monies to the power and roads sector without any intention to execute any projects in these areas.

During that famous and overly dramatized tour, Elumelu suddenly became an instant national hero. His demeanour during the numerous press conferences he granted cut the picture of a patriotic activist on a revolutionary anticorruption crusade. I was particularly impressed by his zeal and supposed determination to unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of billions of Naira without corresponding improvement in power supply across the country. 

When his report finally got to the National Assembly, it was a big sigh of relief from many quarters that the matter had gone beyond a stage to be swept under the carpet. From the favourable remarks of Speaker Bankole, It seemed to be just a matter of time that nemesis would catch up with the agents of darkness that through greed and evil conspiracy have held this nation into perpetual darkness.

But this was not to be as it appeared these same forces devised strategies to kill that report and what a better way to achieve this than to rubbish the integrity of the authors of the report. This theory looks even more plausible in view of the fact that the National Assembly, apparently not satisfied with the contents of the report set up another review committee to examine the report. Is it not possible (curious) that this review committee could cash on this ‘good’ moment to strike? Now that Elumelu is arrested, won’t they have the bravado to release their own report that would concur with the astonishing claim by the house that only one recommendation of the Elumelu report among over eighty recommendations is acceptable?

Ordinarily such a report from the review committee should attract wide condemnations from critics of the National Assembly, who are seen to be always wont to protect their personal interests over and above that of the nation; but who would want to defend a report written by a supposed crook that is under prosecution? How is one sure that the report itself was not a fraud? Thus silence in the media would be apposite and expected.

The conduct of Elumelu and his friends in trade typifies the irony of leadership in our country where hypocrisy reigns supreme. Those in leadership tell us good things but do the opposite. That is how El-Rufai told us he was demolishing and revoking plots in the FCT to restore the master plan of the city, but was actually re-allocating same plots to himself, his friends and family members. It is hard not to believe that we are jinxed in the nation. Just when we think we have found a messiah, the mess of him comes out to rubbish all he has done.

I have not heard from Elumelu and co but I can conveniently predict that whenever they open up, the conventional alibi of ‘an-enemy- has- done- this’ will come handy. They will tell us their travails are the handwork of detractors and political enemies. Some will tell us it is targeted at their ambitions in the 2011 elections. But Nigerians are not finding these excuses plausible any longer. We have heard this same line from Kalu, Ibori, Turaki, Grange, Iyabo Obassanjo-Bello, Fani-kayode, Bode George, Borishade, Aduku, Nyame, Dariye, Sam Edem and a host of others standing trial but this has not been enough to convince the courts to set them free. Our ears have grown dreary from this hackneyed propaganda.

Therefore, as their trial opens, Elumelu and co. must concentrate on the 156 charges preferred against them with the view to vacating each one of them instead of resorting to the outdated blame game. If the EFCC fails to convict them, then we shall know that they have been conscripted in the plot to discredit the power probe report and thereby create an exit for the indicted but powerful politicians.

On the other hand even a conviction of Elumelu would not erase the glaring fact that billions of Naira went into the drains. It will only confirm that he and his co-travellers are part of the clogs we have in the wheel of the power sector for which they attempted to blame others while hiding skeletons in their own cupboards; a clear case of coming to equity with unclean hands. Yes even if Elumelu and company are guilty of the offence they are charged, that would not exonerate the indicted persons in the Power probe. It would only mean that Elumelu is on the same boat with them. It’s like a thief exposing another thief. Both must be punished.

Robot  # 1 | 19.05.2009 15:13

Even if Elumelu and company are guilty of the offence they are charged, that would not exonerate the indicted persons in the Power probe. It would only mean that Elumelu is on the same boat with them. It’s like a thief exposing another thief. Both must be punished....Read the full article.

emenanjo  # 2 | 20.05.2009 06:23

I like the concluding part and paragraph of this piece! The political economy of Nigeria is just riddled with sharpening contradictions. As an advocate of revolution, I like what is happening and unfolding before our eyes. Our Neo-colonial capitalism and the corruption inherent in it will destroy the ruling class. Let them continue with the competitive looting, with each trying to out loot the other, until they dig their own grave yard.