Malabu: When policy took precedence over law by Nasiru Suwaid

If I boldly say that the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999
as amended is a lie unto itself, I will
not be found out as taking a walk far
from the truth, especially when taken
from the premises of the assertion
made in the preamble of the
supreme legal document, where it
started with the attribution: “we the
people”, which to all intents and
purpose is simply not true; because
the Nigerian people as a collective,
have never ratified nor even
validated it as a codified instrument
of law, through the process of a
universally accepted referendum.
But my beep with what could be
righteously tagged as our ground
norm, is on the issue of its
authorship and the writer’s credit or
rather the lack of it on the document,
because it is a basically accepted
reality and universally authenticated
fact, that every written word, be it in
a book, a flyer or even anonymous
quotes, somehow usually gets
attributed to a source. Thus, if that is
the case, could the legal draftsmen,
who have drafted the Nigerian
constitution not be due for such a
recognition, not merely in
acknowledging their personality, but
rather in respecting the import of
what they had wished to convey in
the written legal stipulations.
For, if Nigeria’s institutions of state
and branches of government, had
strictly adhered to the intents and
intendment of the written laws, the
current challenges of governance
which are afflicting the nation, would
have been easily tackled. A simple
but critical example is the issue
pertaining to the functions of a
legislator, who is apart from being
imbued with the powers to pass legal
enactments, is also saddled with the
responsibility of oversight powers,
against the executive branch of
government, which could be in form
of budget approvals, confirmation of
appointments and unveiling of
investigative committees; who are
always mandated to explore murky
matters of state, where and how a
public servant might have committed
the wrongful act of breach of trust,
through knowingly acting with
personal interest on strictly official
matters.
Unfortunately and it seems these
expectations on the legislature are
not highly and truly being
appreciated by the current
membership of the National
Assembly, if the atrocious rate of
failure of their oversight functions is
taken into consideration, because by
the last count, none of the
empanelled investigative committees
of the House of Representatives and
the Senate, have yielded positive
returns, in terms of checking the
strayed excesses of an appointed or
elected executive, rather and sadly,
the platforms of the committees
sittings, have only been avenues for
grandstandings and showmanship,
while the purpose of the unveiled
sittings became of minor significance.
One of such committee, who had
recently taken national limelight, but
is threatening to go the way of other
past committees, is the Leo Ogor’s
legislative investigation panel, which
is investigating the Malabu Oil
Prospecting License Scam (OPL 245)
and the illegal transfer of 155 billion
naira as settlement for the sold oil
block. While what brought the matter
to the realm of the public square is
the unlawful act of the Nigerian
government, allegedly acting through
the instrumentality of its key officials
of the Attorney General of the
Federation and the Minister of State
for Finance, to facilitate an illegal
transfer funds akin to money
laundering. However, the leadership
of the committee only expressed
interest in investigating a mere
breach of the federal government’s
indigenous ownership policy, which is
about maintaining majority local
shareholding (60%) in the sold oil
prospecting license.
A fact that is not legally tenable,
where issues of personal ethics like
patriotism is discountenanced,
because it is within the limited
knowledge of even a layman in Law
of Contract, that commercial terms of
agreements between two parties is
apart from the fact of its execution
causing a general harm to humanity,
giving it effect is not subject to
ratification, approval or interloping by
a third party, in fact, the trial court
entertaining the matter, had earlier
passed a judgment to that effect,
which in this instant case is the
relevance of 60% indigenous
ownership to the execution proper
commercial agreement.Indeed, if really and actually the
committee is interested in
performing its constitutional
oversight functions, of unraveling a
seeming illegality and thereby
celebrating powers of their offices, it
is incumbent upon them to truly
investigate a probable crime, when a
public officer allegedly acted for
pecuniary personal gain, by making
transfers to an individual of
questionable personality, an ex-
convict more so for the offence of
forgery, now accused of money
laundering, surely a similar class of
crimes that easily bring the Nigerian
state into disrepute, as a corruption
hub of West Africa, if not the whole
world.
In fact, seemingly, the formulators of
the Nigerian constitution had such
scenario in mind, when they put the
oversight functions into the supreme
law, knowing the effects and impacts
of personal temptation, tied to the
plum nature of a public officer, who
despite the assumption of official
oaths taken, could easily get
distracted and sidetracked into
criminality, when a holder of public
trust decides to award an operating
license to himself. Upon such a
situation, a diligent legislative house
having a speaker (Aminu Waziri
Tambuwal), as a certified legal
draftsman, must know that the
oversight functions of a committee
are not mere grandstands,
maintained at an exorbitant cost to
the public, but a platform and an
avenue for unraveling the not so
clear and indeed murky matters of
state, pending which any decision
otherwise and the harsh verdict of
history beckons.

#CONSENSUS 2015