Femi Otedola of Zenon Petroleum Limited was questioned by the police yesterday in Abuja for over an hour by a task force in the office of the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar. It is not immediately known what answers Chief Otedola had given the Police. From his previously granted interviews to selected newspapers, he had said earlier that Farouk Lawan solicited and pestered him for bribe. He also said, he acted with law enforcement agencies to have the bribery session recorded.
The revelation by Chief Otedola had thrown the nation into a state of despair as to the fate of the report released by House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on the Subsidy Regime. Farouk Lawan the chairman had denied the allegation of bribe at first but then repented and claimed he received the money to expose Chief Otedola whom he claimed offered him the money at his own will.
Chief Otedola is a close associate of the president and a prominent financier of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is unknown at this stage also if the police will charge Chief Otedola with bribery. As for his part, Hon. Lawan from all indications is yet to be given the same grill. The PDP hierarchy is unfavourable any attempt to embarrass the image or reputation of their financier.
Meanwhile the Action Congress of Nigeria through its national spokesman Alhaji Lai Mohammed has warned against scuttling of the report. The party cautioned that the allegation of bribery might be a subterfuge to stop the implementation of the report. Lai Mohammed likened the fate of the report to the House probe into the $16billion reportedly spent by the Obasanjo regime. "Instead of implementing the report, the man who presided over the probe was slammed with corruption charges. Till today, that report was never implemented and Nigeria remain in darkness."
The concern of the ACN is valid and the reminder quite similar indeed. There is a pattern emerging of letting the House of Representatives begin oversight function and upon conclusion of its work or release of report suffers an attack of corruption charge leading to a death of such reports. That pattern must not be allowed to continue. A little peep in the past and you will realise that reports in Nigeria are an endangered species. What is the fate of the Pius Okigbo report? What about the Oputa Panel report? What about the Power Sector Probe report? What is to be the fate of this subsidy scam report?
We cannot subvert the popular will all the time and expect that the unpopular will will enjoy a popular support continually. The insistence of the EFCC to drop the case in question is one that one has little to explain about. The EFCC claims it does not intend to duplicate the efforts of the police. The whole country however is tired of the pattern of investigations that yield nothing. How do we as people refuse to let the unpopular will override popular will in cases like these is growing concern among Nigerians. How do we ensure that reports that expose sleaze do not die soon after birth?
The ad hoc committee report cannot be weakened because its chairman's character was weakened. The committee had other members. Did they all take bribe? Was the KPMG forensic report also bribed? Eventually the police will come up with a report of its investigations. What will happen to that report? Perhaps the IG will get bribed by a member of the NLC during the investigation, perhaps one of the the task force members will decide to solicit bribe from Farouk Lawan to make a new home video that will not be sold anywhere near 51, Iweka Road Onitsha.
Perhaps the whole episode is a series of attempt to get Nigerians to believe there was hope of change when in fact there is evident impossibility by the ruling party who are obviously opposed to any positive restructuring. We urge the police to shun all manner of entanglement with the political class, find quickly the truth and expose it before the powers that be decide to play an arranged chess game with it.
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