In raising this point of observation, there are one or more questions that need to be answered. We may also need to do some kind of calculations to enable for reasonable conclusion to be drawn without any bias, for the objective minds.
First of all, what period of time does the current corrupt charges against Senator Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal cover? What did the then General and now, President Muhammadu Buhari say about the period from where his war against corruption would commence if he won the Presidential election?
Let’s attempt answers:
In clear term, Saraki was governor of Kwara state between May 29, 2003 and May 29, 2011, four clear years before Buhari formally assumed the position as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Code of Conduct Bureau’s 13-count-charge of corruption and false declaration of assets covered only that period (2003 – 2011).
Part of the charges in the charge sheet, number ABT/01/15, dated September 11, 2015, and filed before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, included offences ranging from anticipatory declaration of assets to making false declaration of assets in forms he filed before the Code of Conduct Bureau while he was governor of Kwara state (up to 2011, over four years ago).
According to the charges, the Senate President is also accused of failing to declare some assets he acquired while in office as governor, also within the same period. He is also accused of allegedly acquiring assets beyond his legitimate earnings and operating foreign accounts while being a public officer – governor and senator.
The offences, the charge said, violated sections of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended. He is also said to have breached Section 2 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and punishable under paragraph 9 of the said Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.
What was the position of Buhari and All Progressives Congress (APC) before the election?
On March 12 this year, shortly before the election, Buhari said in Kaduna that he would not probe leaders who had been overseeing Nigeria’s affairs from 1999 till date.
Buhari who took his campaign to Kaduna, for the zonal rally held at the International Trade Fair said in Hausa language: “On the issue of past corrupt leaders facing trials in various courts across the country, I would allow the courts to decide on those cases, but whoever that is indicted of corruption between 1999 to the time of searing-in, would be pardoned. I am going to draw a line. Anybody who involved himself in corruption after I assume office, will face the music.”
Also the All Progressives Congress (APC), through its National chairman, Chief John Oyegun said that Buhari will not immediately launch into probes of past leaders, politicians and officials who have stolen from the country when elected president, insofar as they repent.
Oyegun, who spoke in Benin said that Buhari will concentrate primarily on solving Nigeria’s many problems left behind by past leaders, adding: “his message will be clear: whatever you did before that was detrimental to the people of this country, please stop it, change has come.”
Oyegun stressed that while Buhari would be willing to give officials who stole in the past a chance to mend their ways, he will come down hard on those bent on continuing with corruption.
Now the question: is it true that the Code of Conduct Bureau carried out verification of the assets and ascertained the claims made by Saraki when he was governor? Why should the Bureau wait till 12 years later to be pointing out an alleged inconsistencies in a document submitted to it in 2003?
Is it true that Saraki submitted asset declaration form to the Bureau in 2007, 2011 and 2015?
If Buhari and APC promised, before elections that a line would be drawn between the past and the future in the battle against corruption, why would the agency of the government now look backward to corruption allegedly committed before May 29, 2015?
Where was Code of Conduct Bureau between 2003 and 2011 when the then Governor Saraki was said to have made false declaration of his assets? Why would the Bureau not take him to task in all that period?
Why did the Bureau never write to Dr. Saraki to complain of any inconsistency in his asset declaration forms in all these years?
Even more appropriately, why did Bureau not frame the same charges against him all through the period he was campaigning in his Kwara constituency for the senate between 2014 and 2015, even up to the time he won the senate seat?
Why now that he is the Senate President? [myad]
