Dasukigate: Hope our congress is watching (2)

Truth be told, during election periods lots of money are shared out across the spectrum of society for mobilization of voters both at federal and state levels, and such largess are not shared by politicians alone but extended to every member of the strata of society including members of the civil society that can sway voters in favour of the party interested in winning. In light of this, without any iota of doubt, there is a Dasuki in every state where political party elections are conducted because there are always slush funds set aside to prosecute elections in every state of the federation, be it controlled by PDP, APC, or APGA. To prove my point, I could have suggested that EFCC probe security votes of governors if the Nigerian constitution had not granted protection to governors on how security votes are spent, and as such it is opaque.

The new twist to Dasukigate, in my view, is that the office of the NSA was used for such nefarious operation in Nigeria, especially at a time like this when funds allocated to that office were critically sensitive, since they were supposed to be used to kit our armed forces at a time they were fighting a fierce battle against the dreaded Boko Haram. Otherwise using the NSA’s office for clandestine activities even in advanced democracies such as the USA is not unprecedented as evidenced by the Iran-Contra arms deal involving the USA sale of arms to Iran (against US government ban) through the Israelis and the Contras in Nicaragua as third and fourth parties. That illegal action which contravened US laws helped to bring down President Jimmy Carter’s government as it failed in its attempt to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran and thus lost its reelection bid. It was also the impunity and abuse of office by high-ranking public officials such as the Dasukigate imbroglio that led to the Watergate scandal that prompted the political demise of President Richard Nixon who abused his power over state security agencies to spy into the affairs of a rival political party.

So, in effect, contrary actions like the so-called Dasukigate have repercussions, sometimes dire, anywhere in the world as was the case cited in the USA. The only difference between the two is that in the US case, after the events laws were passed and strictly followed through to ensure compliance by American congress. That’s part of the dynamism of the US Constitution which gets amended from time to time to address identified gaps. That has not been the case in Nigeria as it has taken NASS forever to review archaic laws in the 1999 Constitution as amended. Take the Petroleum Industry Bill, which has been bogged down in congress for nearly a decade. It is hoped that the ongoing constitution review would reverse the seeming lethargy in our congress.

Concerning Dasukigate, I’m taken aback by the naivety that the erstwhile traditional methods of getting government contractors to pay certain percentage of the contracts funds to a designated account belonging to the party was jettisoned by the last government, hence the resort to the use of arms budget.

Be that as it may, I want to align myself with human rights activist Femi Falana, who has cautioned security agencies to tread softly in carrying out their duties with respect to how they handle the arrest and continuous detention of Dasuki and Daniel Kanu, leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra. By the same token, I would like to draw attention to the admonition of Bishop David Bakare of North-West chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria, that at least 10 percent of the recovered defence funds should be committed to providing succour for the families of soldiers who died in the course of the war against terrorism.

My worry is that Dasukigate may end up being a circus of some sort that could diminish government and public officers if it is not handled with more tact by the intelligence community who must work harder to ensure that we recover substantial amount of money rather than the show being put up. Take the dreaded cyber crime group known as Anonymous which is now focusing its radar on Nigeria and reportedly threatening to use its extensive hacking prowess to break into sensitive Nigerian databases with a view to embarrassing government. Clearly, the declaration of a cyber war on Nigeria by Anonymous which it is attributing to “selfish politicians’ failure to address corruption, rising unemployment and problems with healthcare” is a direct fallout of the humongous amount of money bandied around in the cyber space as having been lost or stolen in Nigeria.

If at the end of it all a piece of legislation is not fashioned out to checkmate a reoccurrence of diversion of funds earmarked for certain projects by auditing MDGs at least twice a year, capping how much can be spent to prosecute a political campaign and monitoring same to ensure adherence, as well as introducing and implementing the Zero Based Budgeting that would ensure that allocated funds are properly applied before receiving a new tranche, then we would have only succeeded in attracting unwanted attention of vicious cyber hackers like Anonymous, thereby exposing our country to ridicule without any short- or long-term benefits. So I hope our congressmen and women are watching Dasukigate with keen interest and planning to do something critical to forestall future occurrence as opposed to the mere threat to impeach Mr President, which seems to be next episode of the opera of the absurd that Nigeria is fast degenerating into.

Magnus Onyibe