Former Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has said the reluctance of President Muhammadu Buhari to order the probe of Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt General Tukur Buratai, will make people doubt his sincerity and the political will to fight corruption.
Balarabe’s view on the arms probe report came on a day the Federal Government dismissed reports that the report of the Presidential Committee on the Audit of Defence Equipment Procurement in the Armed Forces (2007-2015) was doctored for whatever reason.
Speaking to Saturday Telegraph yesterday, the leader of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) said he first thought that the allegation against Buratai was a mere rumour when he heard it, until he discovered that there are several questions which either the COAS or the government ought to answer. According to him, the President does not seem to be doing anything in order to ask the relevant agencies to investigate how Buratai acquired the said properties in Dubai from his savings.
Musa further said that although the Army has cleared Buratai, the onus is on the President to order the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to investigate the matter thoroughly. ‘’The president should come out clean and explain. He is the Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces.
“I don’t expect him to know details about everyone that he has appointed. But after this allegation has been made, he should have asked EFCC to investigate the matter,’’ he said. The former governor also said the allegations against Lt General AbdulRahaman Dambazzau are not yet concrete, adding that if there is more credible evidence against the Minister of Interior, ‘’he too should be probed like former service chiefs.” However, Yusuf Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), expressed divergent views on the issue.
He said if the government wants to probe everybody and everything in Nigeria it should start from the independent era. “I don’t know about anybody trying to shield anyone; I think all these are based on speculations and I can only align myself with facts as a lawyer. If the government has facts or anybody who can come up with such against anyone, then such a person could be probed,” Ali argued.
Another senior lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), appears to have toed the same line of thinking when he told Saturday Telegraph that he works only with evidence as a lawyer. “Well, I work with evidence and no one has come up with one against these people you just mentioned.
If anybody has evidence against anyone, he or she should come up with such. “You people have the right to Freedom of Information Act (FIO). Journalists should also try to use the FIO instead of joining others to peddle rumours.
“There should be concrete evidence before anybody can be probed. A lawyer went to CCB and it was cleared that the man declared some assets in his wife’s name. “But, if anybody has contrary evidence, he should retrieve it and pass it on to the authorities who are responsible for probes,” Falana submitted.For the executive director, Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), Ibuchukwu Ezike, he said: “We never believed in these kinds of probes in the first instance.
“Government should not be behaving as if we are in a military era but should realise that we are now in a democracy. “What is happening now is taking us back to the military era which is not good for the country. But, if there is evidence to probe anybody who has contributed in making the country what it is today, why not?” Ezike went further to state that no one ought to be exempted from probe provided the evidence is not based on rumour or mere speculation.
“I believe the authorities must have secretly investigated those mentioned in the list to be probed. It is not and should not be a witch-hunt but based on concert proof. “Those that put the country in this sorry state, if there is evidence to probe them, why not. But these probes should also follow due process of the law. Nobody is above the law or be made a scapegoat,” he cautioned.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday, said what had been released so far was the report of the audit covering the period 2011 to 2015, adding that the committee would commence the audit of procurement from 2007 to 2010 as soon as the necessary documents are available.
He said: “When the documents regarding procurement from 2007 to 2010 are available and scrutinised, the committee will then issue its report on that. The audit is being done on phases, and the report that was released on Thursday is the third of such.”
