Earlyface

Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s assertion that the Goodluck Jonathan government is indifferent to the fight against corruption is a serious indictment against the administration. Was he right or grandstanding?
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor & Dapo Akinrefon
Ever since he was elected    Speaker of the House of Representatives against the desire of the top hierarchy of his party, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal had almost regularly been a deviant from the culture and customs of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Though there were times when he flowed along like when he made his hardline supporters in the House to concede the leadership of the House to Mrs. Mulikat Adeola-Akande and the times he had to beat PDP House members to aadjust their positions on the budget of the Federal Government.
Suspicion on the political inclinations of the speaker have also been raised on account of his alleged familiarity with many leading lights in the opposition.
Penultimate week, that relationship was again made an issue when he was reported to have participated in a meeting of governors belonging to the All Progressive Congress, APC and recently defected governors of the PDP.
Speaker Tambuwal who has espoused the philosophy that all politics is essentially local was quick to puncture the fire of his traducers when he disclosed that his presence in that meeting was to pay courtesy to his own state governor, Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko.
However, last Monday every suspicion about Speaker Tambuwal being a compliant observer of the policies and actions of the PDP led executive was dashed when he made issues about the administration’s handling of corruption.
Tambuwal’s observations came against the widely accepted fact of corruption being the major obstacle to national development.
Speaker Tambuwal’s revealing comments about the administration were made at the 2013 International Anti-Corruption Day, organized by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in Abuja where the speaker was present as guest speaker.
Tambuwal, himself a former member of the body of benchers, also used the opportunity to carpet the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which he claimed had lost its efficiency in fighting graft.
However, the speaker’s angst was against the president and leader of his own party, President Goodluck Jonathan who, he said, has through his body movement shown that he would not fight graft.
Dr. Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Communications did not respond to the comment and as at press time he was yet to issue a response. Neither did Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, the political adviser to the president whose reaction was also sought on the comments by Tambuwal.
However, a number of prominent Nigerians reacted with mixed feelings to the comments by the speaker.
Among them were Chief Ebenezer Babatope who said the speaker was grandstanding, former governor of Kaduna State Alhaji Balarabe Musa, elder-statesman and Afenifere.
In his comment at the NBA outing, Speaker Tambuwal brought to light perceptions about the administration’s failures in fighting corruption saying:
“In some cases, you have the government setting up new committees to duplicate the job already done by the parliament. Take the bulletproof cars case: what we have is that the NSA, who should have not been bothered, is being given assignment to investigate what is obvious. What the President should have done was to explicitly direct the EFCC to probe the matter. With such directives coming from the president, I am sure we still have good people in EFCC who can do a good job.”
“By the action of setting up different committees for straightforward cases, the president’s body language doesn’t tend to support the fight against corruption,” he said.