Onnoghen: Presidency warns against blackmail, says Buhari has done nothing wrong

ABUJA-THE Presidency, Wednesday has warned some Nigerians against capitalizing on the delayed transmission of the name of Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen to the Senate to blackmail President Muhammadu Buhari. It also flayed what it called attachment of ethnic, religious and sectional meanings to the development, saying Buhari’s appointments so far have shown him as a detribalised president. Justice Onnoghen Reacting some concerns shown by most Nigerians, especially the Cross River State National Assembly Caucus over alleged delay by the president in sending the name of Onnoghen to the Senate for screening and subsequent confirmation as substantive CJN, Special Assistant to the President on prosecution, Chief Okoi Okono Obla, asked those having sleepless nights on the issue to be patient, saying “the system will take care of itself when the Acting CJN’s tenure expires.” Obla hinted that there was no section of the Nigerian Constitution that prevented the president from re-appointing Onnoghen on acting capacity, a development which alluded to fears being raised in some quarters that Onnoghen may not be confirmed as substantive CJN. Obla insisted that the president has not done anything wrong by his delayed action, saying the current situation was common in most states of the federation. “We have an acting CJN of Nigeria.Well, if his tenure ends, the system will take care of itself. I don’t think the president has done anything wrong. ” In Nigeria, in the judicial branch of government, we have seen this happened. In my own state, Cross River State, the Chief Judge who is the current one was appointed on acting capacity and when his tenure expired, he was again appointed on acting capacity. So, trying to blackmail the president over this is bad. “People are trying to read ethnic meanings, religious meanings and regional meanings to this because in Nigeria, everything is being looked at from the sectional perspective, I think they are not being fair to the president, “he said . Reacting to concerns raised by the Cross River State National Assembly Caucus over the development, Obla added:” For goodness sake, has the president not appointed people from that very state where the Acting CJN comes from? “Recently, the Auditor General of the Federation was appointed from that state based on merit, because he came first in the interview conducted and the president appointed him. The Chief of Naval Staff was the fifth in the Naval hierarchy but the president appointed him Chief of Naval Staff.So what are they saying? “So, the president would respect the law, would respect the Constitution as far as the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria is concerned. But people should stop reading unnecessary meanings, “he charged. Asked if the Acting CJN can still be appointed on acting status, Obla responded:” What I’m saying here is that the process will take care of itself. There wouldn’t be any vacuum, the process would take care of itself.” Responding to questions on alleged failure of the president to fix most sectors of the country, Chief Obla said:”Nobody who is objective, fair minded, and who has a grasp of the Nigerian situation would not expect the president to perform magic under two years because we are yet to make two years.” He spoke further: “The president is just about one year and seventeen months in office now. So, anybody who has a good grasp of the Nigerian situation-the economy and all the sectors of the Nigerian economy would not expect us to perform magic. ” The euphoria has not really died down, maybe the segment of the Nigerian populace that were stoutly against the president during the electioneering campaigns, maybe that euphoria has died down. “But the people, overwhelming majority of Nigerians who voted for him, because they believe that he was the last man standing, the last man standing meaning is that the president is a super-elite, he was governor of six states which is made up of the North East now. “He was a minister for petroleum, he was chairman of PTF, he was head of state. But this is a man, despite all that, he remains untainted by any scandal. “So, those of us who believe he was the last man standing, the only man who has the moral authority to rejuvenate the country, we still believe that the president will do well despite the tremendous challenges. “Let’s talk about security, we promised to tackle Boko Haram and to a large extent, we have done that. Before the president came into office, almost 85 percent of Borno State of Nigeria and part of Adamawa State were under the occupation of the terrorists, he has driven them out. ” We have even captured their stronghold. Corruption was a problem that dogged this country and we said that we were going to fight corruption. Look, I can assure that we have been able to reduce the corruption that was so pandemic, that was so endemic, that was becoming a threat to the Nigerian state by over 70 percent. ” Boko Haram is a manifestation of corruption, insecurity is a manifestation of corruption, the trouble of we have in the Niger Delta is also the manifestation of corruption and we have succeeded 70 percent in reducing the corruption to the extent that the monthly salary wage bill of the Federal Government bureaucracy used to be between N160 billion to N162 billion every month. “But we have reduced that to that about N120 billion because we discovered a lot of fake workers, almost 3000 fake workers were on the payroll. We were also able to reduce the pension bill too with about N20 billion, so we have also now fought corruption to a standstill. “We now have a lot of people, big men, super-elites who are standing trial, even judges who hitherto were considered secret cows. We have judges in court who are on trial now and we have recovered so much money. “The other day, the Minister of Information was talking that accounts of about $9 billion of people that are under investigation has been blocked and that we have also recovered some monies and as I’m talking to you now, we are still recovering because of the new policy of five percent for anybody who brings information. ” People come here everyday, lawyers with information telling us of secret accounts containing huge sums of money belonging to the federal government which the federal government does not know. Because of the introduction of TSA, people cannot access those accounts, because of BVN, people cannot access those accounts. ” So, people are now coming with information on how we can now recover monies contained in those accounts. So, I can say that we have done very well despite the challenges. “When we came into office, the price of crude oil dropped drastically from $150 to almost $30 per barrel and then we had serious challenges in the Niger Delta which affected production which used to be about 2.5 million barrels per day to about 1.5 billion a day. “And Nigerians depended solely on petroleum, we are not doing anything, we are not exporting anything, we are just importing and our foreign reserves were drastically affected. Despite all the challenges, the president has done well. So, those who do not have faith in his government are those who never have faith in him.” Obla defended Buhari’s action in rejecting the Senate recommendation that the Secretary to Government of the Federation, David Babachir Lawal be sacked and prosecuted over alleged award of contract in the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs’ camps in the North East to a company he had link to, saying the Red Chamber besides the fact that it did not give the nation’s scribe the opportunity to defend himself during investigation, was not a law court or anti-graft agency. To this end, he advised the legislature to forward the allegation to the country’s anti-corruption agencies for necessary action rather than assuming their responsibilities. Hear him:”Well, first and foremost, the Senate is not a court of law. The Senate is not police, the Senate is not EFCC, the Senate is not ICPC. The Senate, under Section 88 of the Constitution can carry out what we call oversight functions. And in the course of its oversight functions, the Senate do investigate the executive branch of government or the department of the executive branch of government in order to expose corruption, inefficiency and so on and so forth. “The report that was issued by the Senate was an interim report saying that the president should sack the Secretary to Government of the Federation. It’s an interim report. And the president’s letter to the Senate was that look, your report was an interim report, I thought that you were going to give me a full report, your work is inconclusive but from what I have seen, the man was not given a fair hearing. “Despite that we are still investigating this man, if you read the letter very well, he said ‘look, this man is still under investigation but meanwhile, I will not sack him from work because I have seen that he was not given a fair hearing.’ That does not mean that the president has absolved the Secretary to Government of whatever is being alleged against him.” Asked if Buhari was not supposed to forward the Senate recommendation to the anti-graft agencies for action, he said: “Was he not supposed to have sent this report and recommendation of the Senate to the anti-graft agencies to act appropriately? ” No, if the man says ‘look, I have not been given a fair hearing’, what stops the Senate from giving him a fair hearing. The Senate can still constitute another committee and invite this man to appear an confront him with whatever evidence they have against him. But the man said ‘you didn’t give me a hearing.’ “Alternatively, nothing stops the Senate from sending the report to the EFCC or the ICPC in addition to what the president is doing. Remember that the president asked the Attorney-General to investigate and we have not been told that the Attorney General has submitted the report to the president. “So,while we wait for that, we shouldn’t jump the gun. The people are trying to railroad the president to begin to sack people. We have to give fair hearing to anybody who is accused of corruption. ” Corruption is a very grave offence. If somebody is sacked because of a mere allegation of corruption that has not been properly investigated, and the person has not been given a fair hearing, you would end up to stigmatise that person, you would end up to damage the person’s reputation and character. ” I think we should be patient and see where this thing would end but I can assure you that there’s no secret cow in this government as far as this government is concerned. “And this government has demonstrated so many times to show that there’s no secret cow. Anybody who has soiled his hands will definitely be punished but we should be patient with the process.” He also spoke on why members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were the worst hit in the ongoing anti-corruption war. “I don’t believe that the anti-graft war is targeted at the opposition , those who are saying that are trying to becloud the issue, they are trying to distract the government, they are trying to discredit the government. “Naturally, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was in government for good 16 years and you know that the federal government’s bureaucracy is large. All the important organs of government – Customs, NNPC, NIMASA, Central Bank, everything was under the control of PDP. “So naturally, you expect that people who were politically exposed, who had access to the resources of government would be the PDP people. The All Progressives Congress, APC, was founded on the 31st of July, 2013.For goodness sake, how would you expect the federal government to start pursuing the APC people? But on the other hand, we have seen the APC people under trial-and-error Senate President for goodness sake, has not left APC. “And there are a lot of governors and former governors in APC who are also facing trial. So I do not believe that this fight is lopsided, except you give me facts to convince me that it’s lopsided.”