ABOUT an hour before I started writing this, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu read his nationally transmitted address on the 64th Independence Anniversary of Nigeria. Not unexpectedly, he made of this speech a pep talk to advise Nigerians not to lose hope in the face of the mounting economic, social and political challenges that have followed the reforms embarked upon by his administration. His speech painted a picture of a better future for Nigerians. 

While all of this may be appropriate words to say to a beleaguered people passing through some of the harshest times of their lives in a country that was touted as the torch-bearer of the Black race at Independence, the address was marred by some irrelevant remarks, especially because those remarks, even by the President’s own admission, were to be part of a separate announcement. They had no place in that speech.

I speak here, specifically, of the conferment of national honours on the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio; his deputy, Barau Jibrin; the new Chief Justice of the Federation, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun; the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abass and Benjamin Kalu. Even while it has become customary to confer national honours on appointees into some of these positions, whether or not they deserve the honours, the state officers in question are perforce known associates of the president. Like other past beneficiaries of such honourary conferment, not many Nigerians outside the close circle of the president, the honourees, their families, friends and cronies would celebrate the awards. Are they for overseeing the implementation of policies that have caused so much pain that those in government are quick to shield themselves from?

Just what have these people, some of who have pending corruption cases with investigative agencies, done or achieved in these positions to justify these honours? Without prejudice to her but using her simply because she is a good example of the point I’m making, what has Justice Kekere-Ekun achieved in her new position to justify the award of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger? She has only spent three days or so in that office! I guess someone could argue that getting to that office is an achievement that justifies the conferment of that award on its own. I insist, however, that such awards are best given after retirement when a proper assessment of an appointee’s tenure can be made.

Let’s be clear: Bola Tinubu is not the first to do this. As I already pointed out, it has become customary for some state officials to be conferred these honours on being appointed into office. But there is something distasteful about it as it’s like rewarding a worker in advance of the discharge of their duty. This is something most of us will hesitate to do in our personal transactions. And where state officials are concerned, it makes no difference if, as is often the case, they go ahead to soil their name and the office into which they were appointed. 

This is nothing but a cheapening of the national awards, when they are conferred on people simply on account of the position they occupy or, in fact, persons of questionable credentials. How many of those whose names are followed with tags of national honours are ex- or potential convicts on leaving office? How many of them, like Yahaya Bello, a former governor of Kogi State, are under investigation today? Some might ask where the honour is among thieves.

Which brings me to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission under Ola Olukoyede who was appointed chair of the Commission, a year ago this month. Some controversy was thrown, then, around his appointment by those who wondered if he was equipped for the job, not being a career police investigator as his predecessors who also rose through the ranks as pioneer officers of the Commission. But counter and equally persuasive arguments were proffered by others who thought that Olukoyede was fit for the job. At any rate, he was appointed and confirmed in that position soon after. His first major test came some six months after his appointment following the end of Yahaya Bello’s two terms as governor of Kogi State.

As is the custom for most state governors in Nigeria, the EFCC’s head office was to have been Yahaya Bello’s first port of call on leaving office. He knew this well before the end of his time in office. Nobody, therefore, expected him to balk the trend or bring into it the drama that has since characterised his case. No, such encounters between the EFCC and former governors and other state officials have never been drama-free. Remember the case of Ayo Fayose, a former governor of Ekiti who, after years of taunting Muhammadu Buhari, was expected to have his date with the EFCC after he yielded his immunity from prosecution? Fayose didn’t wait to be apprehended. He, with Nyesom Wike, then governor of Rivers State and irascible thorn in Buhari’s flesh by his side, made a loud visit to the EFCC office. Fayose’s time with the EFCC was not prolonged. It was the tradition and nobody expected Bello’s case to be different.

But like the coward that bullies, like Bello, are known to be, he spurned all covert and, later, overt invitations he received and promptly went into hiding like a child running away from a scary sight. The EFCC invitations were not just from any junior official. They were from the Commission’s chair himself. This was Bello, so-called White Lion of Lokoja whose electoral hymn of ta-ta-ta-ta-ta was the cries of his political opponents. He had grave charges of corruption running into scores of billions of naira, many of them incurred in manifestly laughable but nonetheless criminal circumstances, hanging down his neck like a rap star’s bling. Bello was nowhere to be found. He was afraid of being photographed in handcuffs by cameras of photographers procured by a female opponent, he allegedly said. 

Olukoyede fumed, spat and swore to resign if Bello was not docked. The frightened kitten didn’t budge for months where he hid, allegedly under the protective cover of his successor, Usman Ododo, in Lugard House. 

Then suddenly he showed up at the EFCC office and stayed for hours without being questioned for a moment. He walked out of the office unobstructed only to be trailed for arrest in the dead of night to the Kogi State Liaison House in Abuja by EFCC operatives engaged in a manufactured gun fight. It’s been silent at the EFCC office. And as if that was not enough, the Commission is being fingered for dropping the money laundering charge of Brobrisky. It’s silence still from Ola Olukoyede. Hmn!