Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,163,097 members, 7,852,721 topics. Date: Friday, 07 June 2024 at 02:39 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Why I Suspended Onnoghen As Chief Justice Of Nigeria – Buhari (518 Views)
Amaechi: 'I Am Not Aware That I Suspended Hadiza Bala Usman' / Stephen Oshawo: Why I Suspended Adams Oshiomhole / Walter Onnoghen Resigns As The Chief Justice Of Nigeria With Immediate Effect (2) (3) (4)
(1)
Why I Suspended Onnoghen As Chief Justice Of Nigeria – Buhari by AdexUpdates: 3:55am On Jan 26, 2019 |
President Muhammadu Buhari says he suspended Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria following an order from the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, asking him to wield the big stick. Naija News had reported earlier that the President suspended Onnoghen on Friday and immediately appointed Tanko Mohammed as the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria. Giving reasons for his decision in his speech which was obtained by Naija News, the President said the order demanded that the CJN be suspended depending on the determination of his ongoing trial at the tribunal. Below is the text of the address by President Buhari on the suspension of Justice Onnoghen as CJN and swearing-in of the acting chief justice. “Fellow Nigerians, a short while ago, I was served with an Order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal issued on Wednesday 23rd January 2019, directing the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honourable Justice Walter Nkanu Samuel Onnoghen from office pending final determination of the cases against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and several other fora relating to his alleged breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers. “The nation has been gripped by the tragic realities of no less a personality than the Chief Justice of Nigeria himself becoming the accused person in a corruption trial since.... Read more at: http://www.adexupdates.com.ng/2019/01/why-i-suspended-onnoghen-as-chief.html |
Re: Why I Suspended Onnoghen As Chief Justice Of Nigeria – Buhari by Nobody: 4:46am On Jan 26, 2019 |
It is one thing to talk against
corruption.It is another thing
altogether to be against
corruption. President Buhari
only talks against corruption.
His body language and
policy options show
conclusively that he is not
really against
corruption.Buhari’s anti-
corruption is merely a means
to an end
Muhammadu Buhari ran for
election as president of
Nigeria in 2003, 2007 and
2011. He failed woefully on
all three occasions. He
failed because he did not
have the attributes that
Nigerians wanted in a
president. Many, I including,
felt he was too sectional.
His stint as military head-
of-state between 1984 and
1985 was eloquent
testimony of this.
Among other misdeeds,
Buhari preferred a Fulani
from Niger to an Igbo from
Nigeria as secretary-general
of the Organisation of
African Unity (OAU). He
locked Vice President Alex
Ekwueme, an Igbo, in jail;
but only put President
Shehu Shagari, a Fulani,
under house arrest.
He told Lam Adesina of Oyo
State that the Fulani
herdsmen of the North are
his people, as opposed to
the Yoruba farmers of the
South. He proclaimed a
determination to install
sharia law all over the
federation.
As a result, in 2011, out of a
total of 30 million votes
cast, Buhari could only
muster 391,922 votes from
all the states of the entire
Southern Nigeria.
Anti-corruption Rhetoric
However, in 2015, Buhari
ran for president yet again,
and succeeded. He
succeeded for one singular
reason: He ran on an anti-
corruption platform. By
2015, Nigerians were fed up
with the rampant corruption
that took place under the
Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP). While then President
Goodluck Jonathan himself
was not believed to be
corrupt, the popular
perception was that he
tolerated corruption. Indeed,
it was believed that
corruption got to an
unacceptable level under his
stewardship.
Enter, therefore, an image-
laundered and refurbished
Muhammadu Buhari,
smelling of roses. Buhari
was presented to Nigerians
as our home-grown “Mr.
Integrity.” He mesmerised a
gullible electorate seeking a
corruption-free presidential
Messiah with a highfaluting
anti-corruption rhetoric: “We
cannot build an economy
where corruption is the
working capital.” “I will kill
corruption before it kills
Nigeria.”
As a result, many Nigerians
who had been implacably
opposed to him in his earlier
three election campaign
efforts, swung to his
support. These included
Nigeria’s Nobel laureate,
Wole Soyinka, who had
earlier warned that: “In
Buhari, we have been offered
no evidence of the sheerest
prospect of change.” It also
included men like Nasir El-
Rufai, who observed earlier
that Buhari remains
“perpetually unelectable” as
a result of his “insensitivity
to Nigeria’s diversity and his
parochial focus.” Even his
former political nemesis,
Olusegun Obasanjo, became
his supporter.
foraminifera
However, after nearly four
years in power, we now know
that President Buhari has no
real anti-corruption clothes.
It is one thing to talk
against corruption. It is
another thing altogether to
be against corruption.
President Buhari only talks
against corruption. His body
language and policy options
show conclusively that he is
not really against
corruption. Buhari’s anti-
corruption is merely a
means to an end. That end
is not to rid Nigeria of
corruption but to get into
power and stay in power.
Scandalous PTF
If President Buhari was truly
against corruption, he would
not have agreed to serve
under Sani Abacha, one of
the most corrupt heads-of-
state ever in the history of
Nigeria. In 1994, Abacha
appointed Buhari as
chairman of the Petroleum
Trust Fund (PTF). Between
1994 and 1999, the PTF had
a colossal budget of N181
billion. If President Buhari
was truly Mr. Integrity, it
would not have been
discovered that the PTF he
presided over was riddled
with corruption.
In 1999, President Obasanjo
set up an Interim
Management Committee
(IMC), headed by Haroun
Adamu, to investigate the
activities of the PTF. While
today, the Economic and
Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) is
haranguing Ayodele Fayose
over N6.9 billion, in 1999,
the Adamu Committee
discovered that a whopping
N25 billion disappeared
from PTF coffers under
Buhari’s stewardship.
Nigerians need to know that,
under Buhari, the PTF
specialised in buying expired
drugs. A team of
pharmacists commissioned
to verify the Drugs Revolving
Fund Programmes of the
PTF discovered the
prevalence of expired drugs
all over the country, worth
over N2.4 billion.
Ambulances that could have
been purchased for N3
million were inflated under
Buhari’s stewardship to N13
million, resulting in a loss of
N900 million.
How can Buhari be known as
Mr. Integrity and yet have
this kind of tack-record?The
Haroun Adamu Committee
insisted that Buhari himself
should be probed by the
government. However,
because of the unspoken
fraternity in Nigeria whereby
generals don’t probe each
other, Obasanjo declined the
recommendation to probe
Buhari.
The Adamu Committee
discovered that in the PTF
Assisted HIV/AIDS
programmes under Buhari’s
stewardship, there was an
excessive order of HIV/AIDS
kits, which resulted in most
of the kits expiring before
use, and gross inflation of
the purchase price. This
brought a loss of N579
million to the Fund. In the
health sector, frames that
could have been bought for
N80 and N880 were inflated
to N1,900, resulting in a
loss of N13 million.
The Adamu Committee
valued the PTF residential
estate under Buhari at N328
million. However, the
contract was inflated by
N374 million to N703
million. The finances of the
estate were so fishy that the
Obasanjo government
decided to confiscate the
entire project. The same
sharp practices were
discovered with regard to the
extension of the PTF
headquarters under Buhari’s
stewardship. The Committee
valued the construction cost
at N326 million, but this was
inflated by Buhari’s PTF to
N461 million, thereby
defrauding the fund of N135
million.
In the rural water supply
programme, the Committee
was able to recover an
estimated N1 billion paid
illegally by Buhari’s PTF to
contractors as a result of
overpricing. In the National
Health and Educational
Institutions Rehabilitation
programme, over N600
million was recovered from
contractors due to non-
performance and overpricing.
In the National Educational
Material Procurement
Programme, N900 million
was recovered.
The rural telecommunication
programme was also riddled
with fraud. Buhari’s PTF
paid N1.6 billion as
mobilisation for the
programme without any
contract being signed
whatsoever. In the
Administration Account,
N664 million was recovered.
In the Project Account, N2.4
billion in discrepancies was
recovered. In the Treasury
Account, N510 million was
recovered.
How can Buhari be known
as Mr. Integrity and yet have
this kind of tack-record? The
Haroun Adamu Committee
insisted that Buhari himself
should be probed by the
government. However,
because of the unspoken
fraternity in Nigeria whereby
generals don’t probe each
other, Obasanjo declined the
recommendation to probe
Buhari.
But earlier this year,
Obasanjo expressed his
regret at not probing Buhari,
given the damning report
about his stewardship at the
PTF. The truth of the matter
is that if Buhari was indeed
anti-corrupt, he would not
have presided over a
corruption-riddled PTF.
Group Captain Usman Jibrin,
a board member of the PTF,
resigned from the
organisation in protest over
the blatant irregularities in
Buhari’s appointment of the
Afri-Project Consortium
(APC) led by Salihijo Ahmad
as consultants for the
organisation. As a matter of
fact, a principal actor in PTF
consultancy scam committed
suicide immediately the
probe into the
organisation’s affairs was
instituted for fear of being
exposed.
Hypocritical Anti-corruption
If President Buhari were
against corruption, he would
not have been an advocate
and defender of the
criminally-corrupt. Nigerians
need no convincing that
former head-of-state, Sani
Abacha, was corrupt. After
his death, it was discovered
that he stashed huge chunks
of public funds running into
billions of dollars in
different countries in Europe.
Nevertheless, on the 10th
anniversary of his death,
Buhari told incredulous
Nigerians that Abacha never
stole. He maintained that all
the allegations of looting the
treasury leveled against him
were “baseless.” He said:
“ten years after Abacha,
those allegations remain
unproven because of lack of
facts.”
Buhari held this position in
spite of the millions of
dollars of Abacha’s loot
recovered from banks around
the world, and in spite of the
fact that the Abacha’s
family signed a formal
agreement to return over $1
billion of such monies to the
Nigerian government.
Paradoxically, the same
president, who insisted
Abacha never stole, said this
to Nigerians through his
Twitter handle in 2016:
“Nigeria is awaiting receipt
from Swiss Govt. of $320
million, identified as illegally
taken from Nigeria under
Abacha.”
So did Abacha steal or not?
According to Mr. President,
Abacha never stole because
President Buhari was part
and parcel of the Abacha
administration. To admit
Abacha was corrupt is to
admit that the PTF he
presided over under Abacha
was also corrupt.
President Buhari cannot
campaign for re-election on
an anti-corruption platform
when, in the last four years,
he has condoned corruption
among his cohorts.
Corruption never disqualifies
anyone from prominence in
Buhari’s APC. Bisi Akande,
the first chairman of the All
Progressives Congress (APC)
, was jailed on corruption
charges.
We can see, therefore, that
President Buhari’s anti-
corruption fervour is merely
self-serving. He regards only
his political opponents as
having the copyright on
corruption. By this token,
every allegation of corruption
leveled against his friends
and financiers must be
“baseless.”
When Obasanjo supported
him, Obasanjo was not a
thief. Immediately Obasanjo
stopped supporting him,
Buhari alleged Obasanjo
mismanaged a $16 billion
power project as president.
As a result, in the last four
years, President Buhari has
prosecuted a war on
corruption essentially against
his political opponents.For
Buhari, all PDP members are
guilty of corruption until
proven innocent.
The president does not even
wait for the verdict of the
courts. The accused are tried
and convicted in the media
by the president and his
cohorts, as long as they do
not belong to the APC.
Corruption-ridden
Government
President Buhari cannot
campaign for re-election on
an anti-corruption platform
when, in the last four years,
he has condoned corruption
among his cohorts.
Corruption never disqualifies
anyone from prominence in
Buhari’s APC. Bisi Akande,
the first chairman of the All
Progressives Congress (APC)
, was jailed on corruption
charges. The APC minority
leader in the House of
Representatives, Femi
Gbajabiamila, was convicted
in the United States for
defrauding a client.
A judicial commission of
enquiry set up by the Rivers
State government maintained
that, under former Governor
Rotimi Amaechi, now
minister of transport, a
whopping N53 billion
disappeared from the Rivers
State Reserve Fund.
Babatunde Fashola, former
governor of Lagos and now
minister of works and
housing, was accused of
spending N78 million of
government money
upgrading his personal
website and of inflating the
cost of the Lekki-Ikoyi link-
bridge from N6 billion to
N25 billion. None of these
cases were taken up by the
EFCC.
A federal high court has
ordered that criminal
proceedings be instituted by
the EFCC against APC
chairman, Adams
Oshiomhole, for corrupt
enrichment as governor of
Edo. If the court had not
ordered this, it would clearly
not have been done by the
EFCC.
Abubakar Audu was under
prosecution by the EFCC for
misappropriating N11 billion
of state funds when he was
governor of Kogi State
between 1999 and 2003.
Nevertheless, he was
nominated as APC
governorship candidate for
Kogi in 2015.
In spite of the fact that the
EFCC had filed charges of
corruption against Timipre
Sylva for defrauding Bayelsa
State of N19 billion between
2009 and 2012; he
nevertheless became the
governorship candidate of
the APC for Bayelsa in 2016.
Under this anti-corruption
president, $43 million
discovered in an apartment
at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi,
Lagos has been buried.
Nothing more has been
heard about the award of $
25 billion worth of contracts
without due process by Dr.
Maikanti Baru, the group
managing direct of the
Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC), as
alleged by the minister of
state for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.
The president has kept mum
over the Department of State
Services (DSS)’s indictment
of the acting chairman of the
EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, and the
report of the investigative
panel on him set up by the
attorney general of the
federation (AGF).
Nothing more has been
heard from the probe panel
on the N500 million bribe
allegedly paid by MTN to
Abba Kyari, the chief of staff
to the president, designed to
influence the government to
discontinue its heavy stance
on the $5 billion fine
imposed on the company.
Then there was the
Abdulrashid Maina scandal,
whereby a man who turned
fugitive when alleged to have
misappropriated N2 billion
of the pension fund and was
on the EFCC wanted list,
found his way back into the
country and into the federal
civil service with promotion.
We are still waiting to be
told the owner of the Legico
Shopping Plaza in Lagos
where the EFCC claimed it
found N448 million in cash.
Under this administration,
the corruption scandals are
unrelenting. How can Buhari
expect Nigerians to believe
he is sincere in fighting
corruption under these
hypocritical circumstances?
https:// |
Re: Why I Suspended Onnoghen As Chief Justice Of Nigeria – Buhari by Mynd44: 6:45am On Jan 26, 2019 |
(1)
2019: Atiku Will Win Presidential Election, Buhari’s Integrity Fake – Obasanjo / MC Oluomo Finally Speak Out On How He Got Stabbed At APC Rally / Nnamdi Kanu Vs PDP: See The Easiest Way To Make Money in Nigeria Now
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 48 |