Fouled whistles in town!

By Emmanuel Aziken

The face-off between the police and Senator Danjuma Goje, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation is another episode in the series of intriguing power games in high places that have enthralled Nigerians.

When the police operatives raided the Abuja home of the senator penultimate Thursday, they announced that they carted away several files and a cache of money estimated at N18 million.

The story became more interesting when Senator Goje revealed on the floor of the Senate last Wednesday that files dealing with the 2017 budget of the Federal Government were among those carted from his residence by the police.

Pronto the police went into reaction mode and on Thursday listed all that they took from Goje’s house. Among the files which they claimed to have taken was a file with the title “Executive Briefs on how to fight opposition in Gombe State—Strategies and Tactics.”

Whether the police truly found such an interesting file in Goje’s house may remain in the imagination of some.

The former governor’s capacities to engage the opposition are, however, not in any doubt. As governor, Senator Goje was lord over Gombe, and political opponents were held at bay.

The story is told of how in the heat of the Obasanjo – Atiku feud in 2007 that the Gombe State government pulled down the roof of the Presidential Lodge in Gombe upon news that Atiku was coming to the state to campaign.

Claims that the police raid interrupted the processing of the 2017 budget were echoed in the two chambers of the National Assembly where resolutions slamming the police for derailing the passage of the budget were adopted.

The action by the two chambers apparently discomfited the police which on Thursday quickly returned the money and the files it claimed to have taken from Goje. It was one incident of police returning ‘bail money.’

Yet, the police have not said that Goje committed a crime. The police raid on Goje apparently on the prompting of a whistle blower was only one case of a security agency acting against the interest of another arm of government on the prompt of perhaps wrong information.

The still unsettled issue of the raid by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on a safe house of the National Intelligence Agency, NIA during which it “recovered” N13 billion in foreign and local currencies has continued to puzzle many.

Why the EFCC took cameras along during the raid even after its officials were told that the house belonged to the NIA has also continued to puzzle. Another puzzle is why such a massive amount of money should be found in a local safe house of an intelligence service and not within its secured office in Abuja?

These are issues that should be uncovered by the three-man panel constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari on the issue.

The EFCC raid as it now appears was the result of a whistleblower who could only have come from a rival security service.  This reinforces claims of inter-agency rivalry within the security system of the government. Or as some have suggested, was the EFCC set up so as to embarrass its acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu?

The massive haul of cash has been referred to in some circles as a black budget of the agency; referring to covert funds earmarked to be used for clandestine operations that should not be traced. Despite claims that the funds were disclosed to the National Security Adviser, the worry for many is why was it not kept in its major safe house, at its Abuja headquarters?

Did the NIA in any way offend another security service that now decided to rubbish the agency by exposing the black budget?

If the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo Committee determines that the money was fund belonging to the NIA, then the logical step would be to uncover the whistle blower who blew a foul whistle that may have irreparably harmed the nation’s intelligence operations.

Whistle blowing took a funny turn last Thursday when Senator Thompson Sekibo practically blew a whistle on the floor of Senate last Thursday and followed up to say that the NIA cash belonged to the Rivers State government!

 

 

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