 Governor Bailu Matawali of Zamfara State dares EFCC to go after President Bahari's cabinet members. And Labour Party factions clash at Presidential Tribunal, as embattled National Chairman Lamidia Papa claims Peter Obey and Julia Sabure sponsored thugs against him. This is Pros Politics and I'm Mary Anna Cohn. Governor Bailu Matawali of Zamfara State has urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC to go after officials of the presidency and members of the outgoing federal executive council. Matawali stated this while reacting to a statement credited to Abdullah Shidh Bauer, the chairman of the Anti-Graft Agency, that with the EFCC, the EFCC had sent various invitations to all outgoing governors and commissioners in a bid to commence investigation. He said such a probe should not be limited to outgoing governors and commissioners, but those working at the presidential villa as well. Matawali also urged the EFCC chairman to ensure that the investigation is not politicised and that all those who were found to be involved in corruption were brought to justice. Joining us to discuss this is Biadu Sholmi as a political analyst and a veteran journalist. Also joining us is Tungi Abdulameed, a legal practitioner and a member of the People's Democratic Party. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us and good evening. Thank you for having me. Good evening. Great. Mr Sholmi, I'll start with you. When things like this are being said, especially from a person like Governor Belu Matawali, most people would want to shoot the messenger and not take the message. Should this be the other way around? Listen to the message and the messenger? Maybe in this case? Yes. If you are to look at the issue carefully, depending on how you want to build, in this case the message and the message are both important. I would tell you in the first instance, a governor like Matawali, South Africa State, only controls 0.78% of federal allocation whereas the federal government controls 52.68% of federal allocation. So given that situation where the 36 state governments are only controlling 26% plus derivation, those entitled to derivation, which Matawali, South Africa State, is not entitled to, so it's only controlling 0.78% less than 1% of the budget. So it's important also to focus on what are going to the agency, the coordinating government that controls 52.68% of the national budget. Though that's quite very important also. On the issue of Matawali in person, even if there are indictments, even if there are suspicions that there are fraudulent transactions at the federal level, further government officials or ministers were involved in one act of corruption of the other, the fact of the matter is it's not a defense for Matawali in his own case. In his own case he needs to be getting his papers when he gets prepared to respond to questions by the EFCC. It will never be a defense for a team or somebody at a late team to say that the police arrested me, why would they arrest me, long why not arrest other teams? So that will never be a defense. But the way the issue is currently, Matawali has a very strong point in saying that even though he hasn't said it clearly in that form, it's only controlling a minute part of the federal allocation, whereas the federal government controls 52.68%. So it's important we take corruption seriously and corruption must not have a kind face to authorities, no matter how highly pleased the person is. We have seen how governments have embarked on reckless following and paying a trillion naira in under 40 days, budgeting a trillion naira for goods and all that. All these things should be carefully looked at. I'm not suggesting any minister has been involved in corruption. But what we are saying is that all this expenditure also needs to be properly scrutinized by the EFCC to make sure that everything is fine. Otherwise, we are in serious trouble given the scale of debt which we have in our country currently. Tunji, let me come to you. Under the Bahá'í administration, one of the key factors or the key things that the President campaigned on in 2015 was to fight corruption, one of the things that were topped here. And now looking back at it almost eight years later, can we really say that the President has dealt with the issue of corruption and looking at it from the position of the Zamfara state, Governor saying that the same invitation that the EFCC is extending to them should be extended to members of Mr. President's cabinet, being that he is supposed to be the poster child of anti-corruption. What are your thoughts on this? For me, the President has not admitted my expectation regarding the fight against corruption. He promised all that he will fight corruption. But for me, there was no fight against corruption. And let us see the President throwing the line of the former government whereby they go after those who are against the party or against them or criticizing their government. Most of the people in their cabinet who have been a leg of corruption or most of the people in their party who have been a leg of corruption have not been there to it. And even some people who are not even in their party, who are FIFA IP or FIFA IP, have been treated with global kids. So I think for me, rather than fight corruption, the President did not even do much in that regard. There are a lot of compromise, there are a lot of issues. To understand, I want to agree with the Governor of Zamfara state, Mata Wali, that the EFCC, if you not focus only on the governors or the states, the Federalists are there. And it's been a practice all this while. Governors have been the target all this. Most times NISTAS and the other people who work with Presidency or the Federal level are often left out of the probing or investigation. I think there are a lot of... If a letter has been written to Governors or Commissioners, the outgoing Governors or Commissioners, they seem to be attended to the Ministers and those who have worked with the President. Because for me, even though there are so many ministries, there are a lot of allegations of corruption. For instance, the Humanitarian Ministry, there are a lot of issues regarding feeding students in school and all those things. There are issues of being used to even just... What is it called? This affusion, Nigerian's affusion. In other words, we want to have our own flight. I want to remember the logo, to launch the logo of the Nigerian Air up to date, we do not see anything and nothing has happened. So many issues of corrupt practices within the people who are in this government. I remember a Minister who claimed to that he was giving a 50 billion error for the purpose of this job for three months and now I don't know anything about those jobs. There are issues that need to be probed that we need to get more information regarding that. You remember the Minister of Work at the States, that this program he introduced and 50 billion was approved. Today I am not aware of what has come out of that program. In terms of giving people three months' job or whatever, they will be giving 20,000 or 30,000 a month. I can't even ask me, I don't know what has happened to it. So I want to understand that I want to agree with Matawali that if you are extending any proof to the governors or commissioners, it seems to be extended to the people within the presidency of the federal level. In that regard, it will be seen as being fair and not being against people. Because most people, most times, if the police and the security agency, they see themselves as part of the federal government, and they want to be, they are being seen most times as being used against people in the States, particularly those who are not in line with the federal, most times that is what I have been saying. To be seen as a fair agency or a security agency who is fighting corruption, it should be done without fear or fear without any, they must apply blind for the approach that we don't even know who is concerned. Just fight your own corruption and let's see what is happening then. So to understand that I said again, I agree with him, I want to agree with my brother that it is not an excuse for Matawali to say because those are the federal ponies who are not being invited. Therefore, his own case should also not be treated as such. In other words, you face your case and then you can also advise them to also go out to other people. So I want to advise the PFC to ease to that advice and also extend their invitation to former minister. I'm trying to crack my head and remember either part of present ministers or past ministers that have been fighting for query after election. What are after their title? Most times we hear about governance but most times we don't hear about minister. We hear only about governance we don't hear most times about the minister. We hear about commissioners most times we don't hear about people at the present. Even to me, the present is not accepted from being invited for query because it is not being able to present. If you call out to minister and you are interested in getting them, most of them will say these were approved by the president. So if the president approves an issue, it needs to be investigated and asked questions or what happened to this and what happened to this is not even approved. So for me, it is not going to be it's not only the governor or commissioner being invited. Those are the federal level as well to be invited. So I hope to agree to start with you. Okay. Mr. Chowmi, let me come back to you. Let's talk about governors now. How careful have governors been in the past seven plus years in terms of how they approve funds, how these funds are spent, who follows the money, et cetera, et cetera. Let's take for example, I mean because you know these governors just like presidents also hide under the umbrella of immunity, but then that's immunity ends the moment you step down as governor. But let's take for example, the governor of Cross River State who in the past seven plus years has given audio promises and when you go to ground you see absolutely nothing. And recently he alluded to the fact that paying of salaries was an achievement of sorts in seven plus years and these are people who have had their assemblies approved billions and trillions of Naira but nothing to show up for it. Let's talk about this. Should this not be detail for every single governor across the country and even the previous ones before now? Oh yes. We are in a serious problem in Nigeria. We have a situation where those who are supposed to carry out oversight functions over the executive are failing to do so. If you take for instance, the issue of loans the National Assembly kept the loans for Mr. President until we ran into big trouble being back now. The same thing has happened in the states they kept approving it and the state government kept taking loans until when they can no longer afford to pay salaries and those who are paying salaries are seeing it as a big achievement. Now the crucial issue is the issue of development. What happens to the capital loans? Because billions of millions of Naira have voted on a monthly business in the state budget for capital expenditure. How come, like the example you gave in addition to cross-strait state that not much is seen for appropriated funds where the funds released or not because it's one thing to appropriate is another thing to back it up with cash and attend the expository of funds. So that is all the moralism why there has to be a proper role of many of those states that failed to have much to show for money appropriated. Because that is the way to start. You have to start from the worst ones since I don't think the ESCC have the resources including the ICPC to cover the current ones not to talk about going into the past. So we have to look at the worst situations who them how. At least to first draw at a point that when money is appropriated for capital you must have something to show for it otherwise we would pull you up. That is one part because that's an aspect of its management. The other part is corruption. Did you personally benefit from the contracts? Have you been able to throw your ponies, you know, against capital against the provisions of the law or in an illegal way? These are issues which needs to be dealt with. Nobody would deny the fact that the states are stinking. So also is the federal stinking the raking of corruption. We all know that. I remember the minister was the acts of rest was probing the minister over some billions and suddenly the whole thing went dead. We've not had anything about it and not the only one. I know that one or two other ministers are being pulled up currently. They are being asked to make themselves available at the end of the regime. Okay, fine. So be here. But the fact of the matter is we need to do an overall comprehensive assessment of projects. Why were these projects not executed or partly executed? What happened to the funds that were created for it? And then we now focus on the individual. Did you gain materially, you know, from public projects or rather through your companies or did you have any links with those companies, you know, executing those projects? Because that is the major way in which money are fleeced without being traced to either the governors or the ministers or anybody. They use their companies. So it's a lot about it. But we can start from the worst ones, like the one you give an example of, across the state, when you start from the worst ones to say, look, let us agree on something. You cannot appropriate capital and then you have nothing to show for it. There must be something to show for it. Some money was released to you. What did you spend it on? So I think that's the way to go currently. Tunji, it's interesting Mr. Shome is saying that, you know, there needs to be some accountability, the watchdogs, and then that's where the ICPC and the EFCC most importantly comes in. But how can we really fight, you know, corruption in this country if these same institutions are seen as an appendage or an attack dog of whatever government is in power. And then of course, just like Matawali rightly pointed, that they pick and choose or selectively decide who they want to probe or who they want to deal with as a result of the fight against corruption. Do we really have an anti-corruption war in this country and how viable is it? To me, I won't say we have an agency fighting corruption but whether they are fighting it or not it's a different it's a different bugging. For me, they are not fighting in the way it should be fought. They are not doing the right thing. That's from the battle in the gym. In fact, the former president was accused of using to fight the political enemies and that same has continued to date. Most were doing the woman was in Syria or something. I don't remember the conflict again. Yes, the same thing the immediate first same thing. This one too. So most times these agencies are being used to attack people in the state not to federal. I see back in my head we remember five months old minister that has been investigated by I am aware that there is allegation against the minister of the consulate city and it's been that allegation against the finance minister. I'm not hearing EFC trying to make any effort to say we want to invite them to question them. So you see with this fight corruption is not seen as because those who are supposed to fight are biased. They have been seen, just like you said they see themselves as appendages of the government in other words whoever the president of is wherever they go after so if you actually want to fight corruption, whether you are in my party, whether you are from my state whether you are from my religion or whatever we should ignore those area and then fight it as it is. Don't look at anybody, don't look at the face of anybody don't say this because this is a party mark and then you will use a party you can remember the I am aware the matter is in court but what is going on in it, nothing and that is the way they were given. Most times they will just fight case in court and then abandon it there so the public will not see they will not charge them to court. So if you are not seen there with our fight against corruption, we can't get down the corruption will continue to be there because we seem to agree to allow people to fight corruption. You see, we talk about we talk about those who are supposed to checkmate them and not do the right. Yeah, they are not doing because we are too we are not expecting them to do it. When the president when he was checking the papers of the president regarding gold and all this something I think I say it's a club on the progress of the government they are not seeing the difference between those areas because those are proven to have gone that time probably they are there over 100,000 or 300,000 because he was asking them provide details of what you want to acquire, what you want to do with it they will not provide it, they will not approve people will say it's blocking the government it's fighting the government, it's not allowing the government to complain so that's why those people are also fighting are not fighting and that's why you see the one here and say I will do whatever the president wants to do I will be online with the president and I will go together and do whatever he wants to do and that's why you see no approval people before are not being taken you see no money being collected for expense without appropriation and it's going down and same thing will likely happen here because it's seen whereby the president will be the one to appoint a president you don't expect any proper checks and balances because it will definitely happen to the president not to the country and that will have been a problem to the president to the people to the party to the president to the country so if you appoint me and most people in this country once they are appointed by a particular president or whatever whatever he wants to get they give it in and that's why you don't see the checks and balances the process is growing every day because they are all part of the corruption so if the government if the incoming government wants to buy corruption is to do a way without such a practice whereby you want to just get anything done and then make sure that you allow party interest to override your work so if you want to do we need to close our eyes and blind our eyes to party interest or whatever interest that we have so otherwise we will continue to do what we want to do Mr. Showami, back to you let's go back to Mr. President and the presidency Transparency International in 2022 furnished us with some information about in fact some people would call it evidence that despite the resolution by Mr. President to fight corruption corruption is still waxing strong under his government in fact the newly released 2022 corruption perception index had ranked Nigeria in 2022 amongst the most corrupt jurisdictions in the world and for so many people this is not necessarily surprising and for others they cannot believe it even Mr. President had come out to say that oh well it's not about the positioning it's about the fact that when you fight corruption corruption fights back but there are those who also political pundits who have said that Mr. President's administration was mostly marred by cronism and nepotism and this just as Tunji has said has been a clog in the will of things you know turning around and many people actually had hope high hopes for Mr. President what do you think the major issue has been or what has been the major downfall of the Bahá'í administration Yes the President got to a point at a point on the battle against corruption he started well and I believe that he meant well but along the line he found himself having to work having to trust people who in any case should really be under investigation and he had little other options if you look at his personal control he prefers old relationship people who he knew personally you know to work with yet many people have called it nepotism which in many case I have no doubt it is when you behave in that way but the fact of the matter is he made some strides some good some good achievements but at the same time we have very terrible ones for instance on corruption it failed absolutely in my view on security the security situation even though it was a rapidity of Boko Haram but at the end of the day he ended up with Pandit III when Boko Haram mutated from occupying local governments into spreading into tiny cells in different parts of the North which he has not been able to take till today so there are so many then the public perception of the regime is also not too good there are a lot of things that went wrong people felt he was not sympathetic to the plight of the people the farmers when they were faced with the nomadic elders destroying their farms so there are a lot of problems left, right and center which Mr. President himself said he is happy to be the state now and allow other people to solve the problem now he got overwhelmed in my view at a point in time you know they say that nobody really understands where the shoe pinches except to wear it I am guessing that Mr. President didn't know exactly what he was coming in for or what he was going in for when he was campaigning he knew what some of the problems were but again how are you overwhelmed if you had planned if you had a roadmap many people are saying that one of the major problems of Mr. President and the APC led administration was they had no plan they just wanted to take over do you agree? I think that the people of the state in the past so he knew exactly the challenges he knew the complexity of the Nigerian situation what I think is the fact that he ruled the country as a state under military and under civil civil civilian rule it's going to be a totally different game you can't just think that people should be locked up it's the first aspect of the constitution that is normally suspended by any military regime so therefore it is easier for them to abuse people abuse people's rights get people locked up rightly or wrongly he thought he would be able to do that when he came in he realized that the experience he had as a military head of state is totally different from his experience in the civilian dispensation so I think that is precisely what he got wrong even other things to be done the way he ruled under the military then the other problem he had was because it was widely seen the military was widely seen to be abusing people's rights the Americans and the Europeans refused to sell hands at a point in time to that administration until the second tenure for reasons suspected that peace is of human rights so he has his own problems and by the time he was able to adjust in the second term some people just felt yes this is the time we can just spend and spray because the president is now conforming with the dictates of civil dispensation OK Tunji finally let me come to you the president had said that he is proud to be living behind a legacy of fighting corruption and as we all know the president is very excited he is eagerly looking forward to when he goes back to Daora and he has said he has tried his best for Nigerians even though you and some other people are saying that you have not seen exactly what he has really done could the president be really leaving in some sort of blissful ignorance for him he has done his best for him we may have done his best but for me his best is not good enough as a student if we do an exam and we say your best is not good enough that means it is not pass that means you have failed and so as far as for me it depends and I am not surprised because for me I think Mr President was not prepared to come and be called Mr President he was not prepared to come he was not prepared he was not prepared for that he has no solution to all our problems he was not there as a mere or king or oba that would just sit down and say I am in my palace and nothing he does not think that cadastra should have been president showed that he was not prepared to solve problems there would be problems that president would sit down and say I am not the priest for days for months he would say president would not address his people he would say president would not address political issues he would go to abroad he would be happy he would pretend that he doesn't know if you see president where people are being killed if there are people in the cabinet and there are a lot of corruption and nothing would happen to them and they would simply take their position you see a president by a minister there would be strife for 8, 7 months or 6 months nothing would happen to that minister and the president would see me there so for me the president is satisfied being achieving his aim of becoming the president he is not achieving his aim of becoming the president anyway I don't know whether he has to manage political issues I don't think that he has the capacity that he has not shown it to me because I am concerned so the president is going I think for me he is not for fear because I have not done the right because I am concerned I want to say thank you Biada Shomey is a political analyst and a veteran journalist thank you so much gentlemen for having this conversation with us we appreciate it we'll take a short break when we return we'll be discussing the clash among factions of the Labour Party at the Presidential Tribunal in Abuja, stay with us