The Farouk Lawan we know

[MrVan]

By Felix Bassey

The alleged 620,000 dollars bribery involving the former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Subsidy,Honorable Lawan Farouk,and the chairman of Zenon Oil,Mr Femi Otedola,has,of late,dominated national discourse.

The passion the alleged bribery has generated among Nigerians is understandable given that the public officials in the country are looked as with suspicion and often seen as corrupt. No matter how corrupt a system may be, however, there must be an exception. In the particular instance of the 620,000 dollars bribe, the story is that the House of Representatives raised the Farouk committee to look into the pre-January subsidy regime of the Federal Government in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

The probe is a direct fallout of the hike in the price of petrol following government's bid to completely remove subsidy on the product and the protests it generated. There had been allegations of sharp practices in the disbursement of the subsidy to the petrol importers that shot up the cost of government was paying to cushion the importation of the product to unimaginable levels. So the mandate of the House panel,led by Farouk,was to dig into the rot and unearth what was amiss.

The committee actually dug into the rot and found the scenario stinking. For instance,one payment running into hundreds of millions of naira was said to have been made almost 30 times within 24 hours. Many importers who did not import petrol were alleged to have benefited from the subsidy regime. The whole place was riddled with corruption.

And the beneficiaries were powerful people in the country. Now it is not yet clear who between Farouk and Otedola approached the other in the 620,000 dollars alleged bribe saga. What we have been told, however,is that the former panel chairman along with the secretary, Mr Emenelo, collected the money to remove the name of Otedola's Zenon Oil from the list of indicted firms in the final report of the committee. The indictment of Zenon is alleged to have been established in that it was a beneficiary of the subsidy regime but was not importing petrol.

The firm's beat is importation of diesel which has, for sometime, been removed from the subsidy list. Zenon is alleged to have collected foreign exchange at the concessionary rate from Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. Farouk says he collected the money from Otedola to reinforce the alarm he earlier raised that some powerful forces were trying to influence the outcome of the probe,and that he planned to turn the money over to the House. Arising from this is a theory that there is a conspiracy to kill the House report on fuel subsidy probe which has now been sent to President Goodluck Jonathan to act upon.

Mr Farouk Lawan The strategy is to target the arrow head of the committee,Farouk,cast aspersion on his integrity,and thus made nonsense of the outcome of the inquiry. Some of the strong recommendations of the House Committee in the report  include: the termination of the services of two top accounting firms involved in the subsidy regime, as well as their blacklisting from being engaged by government agencies;investigation by the House Committee on petroleum resources(downstream) into the operations of the Petroleum Fund Management Board in order to ascertain the management of the bridging funds under the subsidy regime;investigation and prosecution by the anti-corruption agencies of those in the Federal Ministry of Finance,Office of the Director General, Budget, and the Office of the Account General of the Federation involved in the extra-budgetary expenditure under the Petroleum Support Fund Scheme(2009-2011);and critical examination and review of the policy guiding payment for the importation of petroleum products to avoid the current fraudulent system that allows importers to bring in products from offshore Lome or Cotonou to qualify for foreign exchange payments by the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Finance.

The report also listed 71 oil marketers that should be disqualified from collecting subsidy payments worth N230billion. And to get the forces more desperate to rubbish the messenger and thus kill the message is an indication that government was disposed to acting on the committee report.

The Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters,Senator Joy Emordi,said her principal would not spare anybody indicted in the fuel subsidy investigation. According to her,Jonathan has vowed that anybody found culpable in the large scale theft of the fuel subsidy would be dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land. Viewed critically, the circumstance of the 620,000 dollars alleged bribe appears to be a backlash from the forces operating in the downstream sector of the oil industry to stall the harsh recommendations of the House Committee. Unfortunately, Farouk is caught in the web. Perhaps, he should not have taken the alleged bribe money which, according to him, he wanted to tender to his colleagues as evidence that he was indeed under pressure by the forces opposed to reforms in the oil subsidy regime.

The last certainly has not been heard on this saga especially when one considers what Farouk said in the House last Thursday that he would be vindicated by the time the whole saga is concluded. We ought to wait for the findings of the Ethics Committee set up by the House to probe the alleged bribe. After all, until this case, the lawmaker had been above board, promoting, through his actions in the House, transparency in governance. Recall his various battles in the House to entrench integrity in the system.

This is a Farouk that has availed Nigerians of his legislative experience,having been in the House since 1999.  He has unblamished records of about 13 years.  As a matter of fact, he is still the best to have come out of Kano State. Having said that, the House committee  report,irrespective of the outcome of the on-going bribery saga, should not be thrown into the trash  bin, which is ultimate aim the forces behind the saga.

Many other reports of this nature have come and gone, with their recommendations stalled because the forces benefiting from what was investigated did not want them implemented.  One can only pray that this does not go the way of the other reports.

The SSS and the police are also said to be investigating the bribery saga.  The onus lies on the SSS DG, Ita Ekpenyong, and the IGP, Muhammed Abubakar, to investigate all the issues in the saga and come out with unbiased findings.

Vanguard Nigeria

[MrVan]

[Justin Nnamdi]

Farouk is just a cheap liar that has no remorse over his crime!!he should implicate his Fellows or go down

[Justin Nnamdi]