Tuesday,
August 14, 2018 o6.59AM / OpEd by Reuben Abati
(originally titled ‘Dauragate and the shame of a nation’)
The week that just passed will for long be
remembered as perhaps the most momentous week in the history of the Muhammadu
Buhari administration since 2015. Exactly a week ago, officers of the
Department of State Security Services (DSS), acting under the instructions of
their boss at the time, Lawal Daura, wearing hoods, stormed the premises of the
National Assembly in Abuja, Gestapo-style, occupied the place and resorted to
the harassment of National assembly workers, members of the Legislative
Assembly who had rushed to the place, and civil society groups that heard of
the assault and decided to witness the special drama that was unfolding.
A few days earlier, the Presidency had made a
special appeal to the National Assembly to cut short its vacation, and return
to consider some urgent national matters, including the approval of the
supplementary budget to accommodate expenditure for the 2019 elections by the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The leadership of the
National Assembly took a favourable view of this request and chose to meet last
Tuesday at 12 noon to take a decision accordingly. But that meeting never held.
Unknown to the Senators in particular, other people had other plans. By 6 am,
gun-wielding, mask-wearing DSS officials had taken over the National Assembly.
There have been many conspiracy theories, reports and conflicting accounts
about this incident. What is clear is that what we are left with, what we can
hang on to - are very embarrassing conclusions about the integrity of
public institutions, the state of our democracy, the quality of leadership and
the bad politics that stands in the way of everything else.
The assault on the National Assembly by the
Department of State Security has been rightly condemned by all and sundry.
It was indeed an assault on the sovereignty of the Nigerian people, to the
extent that the National Assembly is the work-place of the elected
representatives of the people of Nigeria. That also was a violation of the
principle of the separation of powers, and a coup attempt against the rule of
law. It was an illegal and unconstitutional act, and can be rightly labeled an
act of treasonable felony. The allegation by the now dismissed, and detained
former Director General of the State Security Services that he acted based on
an intelligence report that there was a plan by some people to smuggle
dangerous weapons and incriminating items into the National Assembly remains
unproven. If anything, his action has thoroughly embarrassed the Buhari
government. The biggest victim of that act of indiscretion is the President
himself. Dauragate is by far, one of the worst “own goals” by this
administration.
It is worse that the Presidency had to disown
Lawal Daura and sack him immediately. The Acting President, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo described the seizure of the National Assembly as “unlawful and
unauthorized.” The Acting President, being a student of history, must have
realized that each time the Executive arm of government takes on the
legislature in such a physically violent manner, it is the entire government
that is about to be violently destroyed. This was part of the problem in the
Western region in 1964/1965. Despite the attempt by the administration to
distance itself completely from Lawal Daura, however, so much damage has been
done already from which the government cannot extricate itself. Nigeria has
been put to shame.
The international community must be wondering
what kind of people are actually in charge in Nigeria. The relationship between
the legislature and the executive arms of government at the centre, not at any
time a good example, has been further damaged. The National Assembly, battling
with the politics of defection at the same time, is seriously overwhelmed by an
unmistakable crisis of confidence among its members. Nobody should be
surprised that the Senate has not yet made up its mind whether to reconvene or
not, since what is more important to some elements in Abuja is the plot to
impeach the Senate President, Bukola Saraki. The situation was bad, but
Dauragate made it worse. There is no doubt that the Buhari government has
unwittingly made itself lame-duck. Daura has further eroded the government’s
legitimacy.
What I find curious is the Presidency saying
that the former DG SSS’s action was “unauthorized.” Should an unlawful
and unprovoked attack on the National Assembly ever be authorized? No, I don’t
think so. Can or should the head of state security services, who is in addition
a member of the National Security Council, chaired by the President, and who is
duty bound to submit daily national security reports to some persons and share
information with same persons who are on the list of government personnel with
a “need-to-know” access to state secrets go on a frolic of his own, in a manner
that jeopardises state interest and embarrasses his principal? No, I don’t
think so. I also cannot imagine that Lawal Daura spent any part of his life as
a professional herdsman, where he possibly may have learnt such tactics as he
put on display recently. I have also not heard that he spent some time in
Nollywood either as an actor or producer, to learn the kind of histrionics that
he and his men staged at the National Assembly. There is definitely a lot more
to this matter that no one has told us.
State security is not something to be trifled
with because on it rests the stability of the state. “Intelligence” is also not
such a casual phrase as deployed by Nigeria’s security chiefs. It cannot become
a blanket excuse for misconduct. Michael Warner in an essay titled: “Wanted: A
definition of intelligence” (see Christopher Andrew, Richard J. Aldrich and
Wesley K. Wark (eds), Secret Intelligence: A Reader, London and NY: Routledge,
2009, 552 pp.) writes that “Intelligence involves information, yes, obviously
it is far more”. He adds: “It is what people do with data and information that
gives them the special quality that we casually call “intelligence”.
I interpret that by saying it is not the
information in itself that constitutes “intelligence” but how exactly the
information is used. On August 7, the Department of State Security Services and
Lawal Daura acted unintelligently. But I am tempted still to give Daura
the benefit of the doubt in one regard: could he possibly be a fall guy? Is it
possible every one was part of the plot all the way to London as part of
the get-rid-of-Saraki-by-all-means-plot, and when the shit hit the fan, Daura
had to be sacrificed? How the Daura case is handled going forward will either
prove or disprove this hypothesis. If he is suddenly rehabilitated or
nothing is done further about the incident, then of course we would know we
have been sold a dummy and we shall return here to point out their hypocrisy.
But should Daura be guilty as alleged, then we
would certainly be dealing with a major crisis at the heart of government.
First, the abuse of strategic public institutions which seems to be a growing
norm. Second, the personalization of state institutions; third – the danger
that the politicization of strategic institutions poses to the entire polity,
and fourth, how easily the government can be hijacked by power mongers. I
make this point with an intention to link it to the statement made by Senate
President Bukola Saraki to the effect that there is
“a-government-within-the-government”.
Saraki is simply saying that President Muhammadu
Buhari is not in charge of his own government, that some other people are in
charge, and they are so powerful that they give orders to the Director-General
of the State Security Services to act in defiance or without the knowledge of
the President. Daura has had a long career in the security services. It
cannot be assumed that he does not understand protocols and procedures.
But the tragedy we face is that those who are supposed to work professionally
to protect the state often abandon procedures and protocols and become
politicians or agents of those who run “government-within-government” and hence
threaten the integrity of the same state they are supposed to protect and
defend. This is the short and long of it.
Dauragate should serve as an entry point
therefore, into a full audit of the activities of our various law enforcement
agencies, not just the Department of State Security Services, but also the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the police, the Independent
Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Immigration and Customs. Daura’s acting
successor, Matthew Seiyefa, has already alluded to the rot in the SSS when he
practically threw his former boss, Lawal Daura under the bus. He did when he
publicly admitted that there are too many cases of illegal detentions and human
rights abuses involving the SSS and his first task would be to address these
cases and ensure that the SSS under his watch respects the rule of law and the
right of all Nigerians to dignity and fundamental rights. Given his previous
and present position, we believe Seiyefa knows what he is talking about. He
should be encouraged to do as he has promised. Femi Falana, SAN has
already provided him with a list of persons in SSS detention who should be set
free, including Colonel Sambo Dasuki, El Zakzaky and his wife. To that list
should be added James Abiri and all victims of political persecution. Seiyefa
needs not wait a day longer, and he must resist the temptation to tell us what
we want to hear in order to gain some legitimacy.
But the full audit that I call for is not
something to be handled by either the police or the EFCC. The EFCC is obviously
claiming a moral victory over Lawal or so it seems. But the EFCC has its own
issues. For example, shutting down the accounts of Benue and Akwa Ibom states
was a coup against autonomous components of the country, clearly in violation
of Section 14 of the Nigerian Constitution. Why the coincidence that this
happened shortly after APC members in Benue state defected to the Peoples
Democratic Party? This in itself calls for an investigation. The Acting
President must not cherry-pick. The higher loyalty must be to God, conscience,
and the people because those in charge today will, tomorrow, also become
yesterday’s men, and what they sow today is what they will reap tomorrow, most
certainly.
The audit cannot also be assigned to the
Inspector-General of Police who obviously has been gloating over Daura’s fate,
and has been acting in a holier-than-thou manner. As they say on the streets,
Ibrahim Idris should go and sit down! He lacks both the moral and technical
integrity to sit in judgement over Daura. There is nothing that Daura has done
that he himself is not guilty of. In the course of work, he has also in various
ways, undermined the integrity of the National Assembly and at the state level,
he should answer these questions: what role did his men play in the Ekiti
election? And were his men not reported to have provided protection for the
eight members of the Benue State House of Assembly who just recently wanted to
impeach the Governor, Samuel Ortom, illegally? He says the Police have
investigated and interrogated Lawal Daura and he has submitted an Interim
Report to the Acting President, Professor Osinbajo. I find his interim report
inadequate and shoddy.
I am embarrassed that Professor Osinbajo
actually accepted the Report and intends to pay attention to it. He should have
“transmissioned” it back immediately to the “olodo rapata” that wrote
it, and ask that all the grammatical errors in it be corrected and a clean copy
be “transmissioned” back to him. The office of the Inspector-General of Police
is a very important office. And yet a report comes from that office,
signed and circulated in the public domain and it contains such grammatical
monsters as “weep up sentiment”; “did conspired”, “on a claimed of”,
“used…conspired, “hoods and marks”; took strategic location of”; experts or
specialist.” I am shocked that the Inspector-General of Police appended his
signature to this document… but come to think of it, I worry too much, the man
himself probably doesn’t know better. They don’t speak English in this government.
They just play with power, guns and bullets.
I insist that Dauragate is not so much about the
man and his foibles, rather it is a metaphor for something far deeper which
must be isolated, contained, cauterized and disallowed from cancer-like mestasization
- in order to save Nigeria. The gangrene eating at the heart of everything, and
the thing that hangs around the neck of this government are so easily
decipherable, no one will need the services of a marabout to know what to do.
It is up to President Buhari to identify those
who have constituted themselves into a “government within (his) government”
making him look weak and distracted, acting in defiance of or without regard
for his authority; I mean all those formal and informal power brokers who seem
to be busy making enemies for him and ridiculing him in the eyes of the world.
These are persons Nigerians will forget as soon as they are out of power and
relevance. But they will remember Muhammadu Buhari and the mandate they gave
him in 2015 - and what he did with it. I urge President Buhari to
cut short his trip to London and come back home to put an end to this
disturbing drift. This is not the right time to remain on vacation.
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