Stones In a Glasshouse

Madam erred by making a no-case submission. At best, she would have entered a plea bargain arrangement, which, in this land, is a euphemism for the normal “you wash my back, I wash your own” and all concerned would have gone away unscratched.

True, she might have been a bit careless. She just bent down a little and the “Ogas” kept watching. As they were watching they soon forgot that others behind them were also having fun, watching them and behold, they forgot that it takes a thief to catch a thief.

Over the years, Ms. Arunma Oteh, Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), had built a solid foundation around her life. With a First Class degree in Computer Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, further fortified with a solid MBA from Harvard; and a distinguished career as Vice-President of the African Development Bank, she couldn’t stand seeing her reputation go down the toilet in a single flush. After all, how many of the legislators have such tall credentials?

Even where that was not the reason for her invitation to the House, she was accused of dipping her hand into the public till to pay her hotel bill of some N30 million, which was incurred over an eight-month period. Prosecution also led evidence to the absurd charge that there was a particular meal for which she spent N85,000.

On the surface, it looks expensive but there are some bottles of wine that cost over N100,000 these days. Presidents, Governors, Legislators - all drink them. At a sitting, by the pool side, it is not unusual for one person to kill two bottles.

On her part, Oteh accused Hon Herman Hembe, Chairman, House Committee on Equity Market of demanding N44 million from her and it was because she failed to pay the bribe money that she was being antagonized. Out of this sum, N39 million was supposedly meant to cover some public hearing on aspects of the capital market.

Here, the House Committee was traveling on a familiar terrain – soliciting money from agencies over which a committee exercises oversight responsibilities could have been a normal practice in the National Assembly since 1999. As it were, stealing has always been allowed but don’t get caught.

Huge budgetary provisions are made for the oversight functions but Committees must still arm-twist the agencies and obtain double ration from them. The agencies easily capitulate because the linen that is about to be washed in public is blood-stained.

Remember those early retreats for which legislators were paid millions of Naira before departing Abuja but meanwhile, the cost of the retreats and other slush charges had been bankrolled by the host governors.
It is like living in a glasshouse and throwing stones.

The same House that was accusing Oteh of extravagance has just raised its quarterly allowance from N15 million to N27 million per member, which translates to N9 million per month in just allowances that we were told were intended to insulate members from inducement by the agencies. The Babas, Senators have since arrived at the exalted height of N42 million per member per quarter in allowances.

The more people get, the more they want to get. Our legislators will never miss an opportunity to extort money from the agencies. In the midst of all these, Hembe still collected ludicrous sums from SEC for a trip to the Dominican Republic for a Conference, which he never attended.

Shamelessly, though, Hembe admitted making the journey half way – up to Texas, USA, from where, he claimed he returned after he got a phone call from a top officer of SEC, informing him that the Conference was already winding up. After coming to equity in unclean hands who, then, should be supervising whom?

Some have suggested that since the issues here are very weighty, the EFCC should be called in to do a thorough job. Are we talking of the foreign EFCC or the Nigerian one? Is this not the same EFCC that the boss, Ibrahim Lamorde cried out recently that some of the staffers are corrupt to the high heavens?

Oteh is not yet discharged. Neither does she face the prospect of any acquittal. All we have attempted to do is to show that this country is still far in the woods as one bad news succeeds another in never-ending circus of corruption. Evil men are clearly having the upper hand. With us, it is still rumble in the jungle.

In the more civilized climes, the laws are such that you can only take from the public purse, that which belongs to you. If you stretch your hand beyond what belongs to you, you go to jail. But here, legislators decide what they carry away. I do not even know what I would have done if I were put in a pool of unregulated money, to swim in and take as much as I want.

From the little that we know, in this land of unequal opportunities where the majority live below the breadline, the President’s lunch gulps over N1 billion every year; his foreign travels gulp another N10 billion in spite of all the executive jets in his fleet; legislators haul all sorts of bogus allowances; the Central Bank can print as much bank notes as it wants – carry some, dash some away to “talakawas” back home – to the extent that the CBN Governor now claims, with impunity, that the CBN budgets are not subject to view and review of the National Assembly and no one is talking. Everyone lives in his own republic within the Republic of Nigeria, so called!