31st July, 2015
Eromosele Ebhomele
The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL, a Lagos-based rights organisation, has slammed Mrs. Toyin Saraki, the wife of Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki, for allowing a huge crowd to accompany her to the headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, some days ago.
Mrs. Saraki is being investigated for alleged alleged money laundering which reports claimed, occurred while she was the First Lady of Kwara State.
She was recently grilled for six hours by the EFCC, but she visited the office of the anti-graft agency with an entourage that included some senators, a situation many Nigerians have also condemned.
In a statement Friday, CACOL described the visit by Toyin Saraki with her entourage to the EFCC as a national embarrassment.
“Well-meaning Nigerians were taken aback as they watched on their television sets the large entourage of Mrs. Toyin Saraki, wife of the Senate President, which comprised mainly of the nation’s ‘honourable’ lawmakers from both the higher and lower chambers.
“These national lawmakers and supposed representatives of the Nigerian people, reportedly accompanied Mrs. Saraki, who had been invited by the anti-corruption agency to come and answer to an allegation of corrupt practice, in a show of solidarity with the accused.
“The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL is particularly disturbed and miffed at what it terms not only a show of shame and gross irresponsibility, but a clear anti-thesis of what their primary constitutional duty is.
“One cannot but wonder how far President Buhari would be able to go in his avowed war against corruption in this country, if the very law-makers who are expected to give him the needed support through the provision of enabling legal frame-work with which to successfully prosecute the war, are openly, though tacitly, fraternising with corruption by turning themselves into bodyguards of a suspected corruption criminal,” CACOL said in the statement signed by Mrs. Temitope Macjob, its acting Media Officer.
The rights organisation said from reports, twenty-five legislators abandoned their statutory duties to follow Mrs. Saraki to the office of the EFCC and most of them waited for the over six hours that the exercise lasted.
“They are doing the jobs Nigerians didn’t elect them to do.
“Although they have the right to presume that she is not guilty until convicted, but do not have the right to portray her innocent of the allegations made against her, even before being interrogated.
“The lawmakers’ conduct presupposed that they are determined to intimidate the EFCC in its task of tackling corruption. It’s sad that they chose to abandon their statutory role of lawmaking while playing the meddlesome interloper, thereby diminishing the exalted chambers they represent,” the statement said adding that the incident is reminiscent of the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo days, when Bode George, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was being accompanied by “shameless praise-singers who had to roll out drums, clad in ‘Aso Ebi’ and danced in and around the court premises in solidarity with the accused each time he appeared in court to answer to corruption charges.
“CACOL observes that this singular act by these legislators, is a clear indication that certain members of this very important arm of government, if not called to order, are out to make the job of eradicating corruption or at least, stemming it to the barest minimum, by Buhari’s administration, more complex and difficult than ever envisaged.
“The Coalition of anti-corruption organisations therefore calls on Nigerians to get ready and be set to confront anybody, group or institution, that is out to frustrate President Buhari’s efforts at wrestling to submission this gargantuan, seemingly untamable monster, called corruption and save Nigeria from its destructive tendencies.
“We should share President Buhari’s assertion that ‘if we fail to kill corruption, corruption will kill us’. It must be seen as a collective responsibility; Buhari can’t do it alone.
“We are asking Nigerians not to spare corrupt characters, whoever they may be, but adopt CACOL’s slogan to name, nail, shame and shun corrupt leaders, anywhere, everywhere.”