Last week in Abuja, former sports minister Ismaila Sambawa visited the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) trying to resolve problems relating to his frozen assets.
For two years, the Yar’Adua administration had leaned on the EFCC to place a lien on his assets for alleged breach of contract with the Liberian government.
Mr. Sambawa, who refused to respond to text and phone calls at the weekend, and who is today one of the arrowheads of the Jonathan for 2011 Campaign, is facing a major moral challenge from political actors who accuse him of receiving N6 billion to facilitate a favourable outcome in the just concluded congress of governors of northern states.
In its Saturday 24 July edition, the Abuja-based Peoples Daily claimed that as soon as Mr. Sambawa, got hold of the money, he made a brisk stop at the EFCC, where he dumped N1 billion to facilitate the soft landing of his case with the anti-graft commission.
Femi Babafemi, EFCC spokesman, denied this story saying “I am not aware of anything like that.”
“I am aware that there was a request from the Liberian embassy in Nigeria of a building contract between the two parties and the EFCC should intervene,” Mr. Babafemi said. He added that the matter has now been resolved.
The Sambawa saga has, however, offered fodder to critics of Mr. Jonathan who question his commitment to the fight against corruption now that he seems set to run for the presidential office come 2011.
At the demise of his boss, Umaru Yar’Adua, who passed on 5 May, Mr. Jonathan assumed office with the promise to conduct a clean election, fix the power logjam in the country, fight corruption, and give traction to the Niger Delta question. This was all before various groups urged him on to contest in 2011.
Today, Mr. Jonathan, maintaining a scripted silence on his political ambition, appears to be tinkering with his priorities, raking in a balanced measure of knocks and cheers from the constituency that helped him assume and stabilize in power.
Asked to assess the president’s commitment to curbing corruption in the country, Abdurahman Ahmad, the president of the Movement Against Corruption (MAC), shrugged off saying “I don’t know will be my honest assessment”.
Mr. Ahmad, who is also the spiritual leader of Ansaruldeen Society of Nigeria, the largest Islamic organisation in the South West of the country, also said, “I have not seen any difference between what we have been dealing with; I have not seen any shift. We have heard that before- declaration of war against corruption but all that is mere rhetoric.”
Jubrin Ibrahim, the Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and a political scientist, also felt the president “hasn’t shown enough vigour and determination in the anti-corruption drive.”
Now all seem set for Mr. Jonathan’s presidential race. With a windy assurance from his South-South kinsmen, who are backing him to run, and a wobbly, tongue in cheek, support from some northern governors, the man who reluctantly assumed presidential office on 6 May is at the epicentre of our nation’s most defining historical point.
A nation in a flux
Mr. Jonathan’s dilemma regarding the single most dramatic cog in the wheel of the nation’s progress-corruption-gives a lot of concern, prompting the feeling that he is already making compromises as political IOUs to negotiate support.
However for Chido Onumah, the Executive director of the advocacy group, Make Your Votes Count campaigning for a clean and fair election, Mr. Jonathan would have scored bigger and higher if he would simply be an unbiased spectator in the poll by not running for the Election.
Yet Mr. Jonathan will be offering Nigerians a choice of youth next year. On the starting block with him will be Donald Duke, former governor of Cross River State who is contesting as the flag bearer of the Labour Party; Pat Utomi, a public affairs analyst and senior faculty of the Lagos Business School, who has not revealed his party platform; Nuhu Ribadu, former anti-corruption czar and member of the economic management team of the Obasanjo administration. Others are Nasir El-Rufai, former minister of the federal capital territory in the administration of Mr. Obasanjo; and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the managing director of World Bank, who was minister of finance, and later Foreign Affairs, in the Obasanjo administration.
The old order
Pitched against these young aspirants are a cohort of old generation players prominent among whom are Former military head of state, Muhammed Buhari, a stern disciplinarian and morally upright leader; and Ibrahim Babangida, another former military president, seeking to join the race 17 years after he aborted the democratic election of June 12, 1993, and was forced to surrender power to an ineffective interim government.
Last on the old deck is Atiku Abubakar, former vice president in the administration of President Obasanjo.
In the shadows of what seems the twilight of the older generation, is emerging a new political class whose ideologies are a breakaway from the older order. Prominent among these aspirants who have shown potential are the former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, who during his tenure as governor, strived to build a boisterous tourism industry.
Mr. Duke transformed the Ogudu Cattle Ranch from fading and forgotten corner to a tourist destination of international repute. He also came up with the Tinapa Business Resort aimed also at energizing the tourism cum business leverage of the state as well as providing employment.
Nuhu Ribadu, the former anti-corruption czar, as an aspirant is bringing an interesting twist to the race. Mr. Ribadu, who is best known for his unrelenting war against corruption, appears to be the most desired bride of the emerging political milieu.
Nasir el-Rufai, the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has not hidden his desire to run for highest office in the country. His most saleable credential was his dodged drive at returning the country’s capital to its master plan. He is known to be fearless and outspoken.
Pat Utomi, though of an older generation, has political ideals that depart from those of his contemporaries. Mr. Utomi, who is an accomplished technocrat, has been in the forefront of the call for a change in the manner of governance in the country.
The question is in what bracket does Goodluck Jonathan belong?