Buhari suspends, investigates SGF, NIA boss

…As Fayose condemns suspension, probe

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By ‘Femi SHODUNKE

NIGERIA: APPARENTLY yielding to pressure, President Muhammadu Buhari has suspended the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), David Babachir Lawal and the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke.

The sack, however, has been criticised by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, who said that the President’s decision was an afterthought.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said in a press statement that Buhari had also ordered an investigation into the allegations of violations of law and due process made against Lawal in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).

“The President has also directed the suspension of the SGF from office pending the outcome of the investigations,” Adesina said, adding that Buhari had also ordered a full scale investigation into the discovery of large amounts of foreign and local currencies by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, over which the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has made a claim.

He said: “The investigation is also to enquire into the circumstances in which the NIA came into possession of the funds, how and by whose or which authority the funds were made available to the NIA, and to establish whether or not there has been a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of the funds.”

“The President has also directed the suspension of the Director General of the NIA, Ambassador Ayo Oke, pending the outcome of the investigation,” the Special Adviser explained, adding: “A three-man Committee comprising the Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and the National Security Adviser, headed by the Vice President, is to conduct both investigations.”

“The Committee is to submit its report to the President within 14 days,” Adesina further said.

He stressed: “The most senior Permanent Secretary in the SGF’s office, and the most senior officer in the NIA, are to act, respectively, during the period of investigation.”

But Fayose, in his reaction to the suspension said that the step was an “afterthought and a prelude to the official cover-up of the N13 billion cash found in a residential apartment in Lagos.”

He castigated Buhari for setting up the committee while neglecting the anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Department of State Services (DSS) to do the job.

Fayose said he was worried that the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government often pursue the opposition political members and judges under investigation with EFCC and DSS while it preferred to investigate its officials accused of corruption.

The Governor in a statement issued on Wednesday by his Special Assistant on Media and Public Communication, Mr. Lere Olayinka, queried: “Would the President have set up a probe panel if these scams were linked to anyone in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or those members of his party that are not in his good books?

“Most importantly, what business does Presidential Committee have with investigation of crime? Are they telling Nigerians that they have lost confidence in all the intelligence and investigative agencies of the government, including the EFCC and DSS?” Fayose further queried.

He added: “The Buhari-led Federal Government is operating like many governments within one government. There appears to be many Presidencies within the Presidency and this is the reason for the confusion everywhere.”

“Nigerians can no longer be deceived by a government that protects its own people whenever they are accused of corruption while setting the DSS and EFCC to invade houses of members of opposition parties, especially those perceived as having presidential ambition in 2019 in the night to arrest and detain them indefinitely even when corruption allegations against them have not been proved.”

“Did the President not write a letter dated January 17, 2017, to the Senate, exonerating the SGF? So what has changed in the case of the SGF? Was his announced suspension just for balancing?” Fayose further asked.

He also asked: “Why waiting for this messy OsborneGate to act on the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE) grass-cutting scam? Could it have been a case of one Presidency (Buhari) writing the Senate on January 17, 2017 to clear the SGF and another Presidency suspending him today?

“Whichever way one looks at it, it gives no other impression than that of confusion in the government.

“Is their presidential committee also going to tell Nigerians those who abandoned N49 million cash in an airport that has CCTV cameras? What the owner of the N448 million the EFCC said it found in a shop at LEGICO Shopping Plaza, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos?”

“In all these, what I see is a government trying frantically to cover-up corrupt acts of its functionaries but like I said before now, even though we know that the APC-led federal government has the capacity to sweep it under the carpet like many others before it, Nigerians will have it on record that they are being ruled by a government of the more you look, the less you see,” Fayose declared.

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