While thanking APC members, on 14 December 2014, for choosing him as the presidential flag bearer of the party in the 2015 election, Muhammadu Buhari in the following selected items said : (8) I see it as a tribute and a mark
of confidence to carry the torch as we all join hands to rescue our dear country, Nigeria, from those who have led us into the current
state of insecurity, poverty, sectarian divide and hopelessness among our people. (22c) We will strive to attack
poverty through broadly-shared economic growth and attacking corruption through impartial application of the law.
(22d) We will tolerate no religious, regional, ethnic or gender bias in our government. (27) On corruption, the government will enhance
EFCC's powers to investigate independently. Moreover, we intend to plug the holes in NNPC accounting. There will no longer be
two sets of books, one for the public consumption and another for insiders who profit from this slick fraud. In an APC government, the public will know how much NNPC makes and where all the money goes. (28) No longer shall il-legal
flows of massive sums leave these shores to finance other economies. While our people languish in poverty, we effectively give financial aid to nations that is not justified. I am sick of this. It must stop. The money saved will finance jobs, health care and
the provision of social safety net for the needy, weak and vulnerable of our land. Not only did Buhari win the 2015 Presidential election on the platform of his party, APC, but his party also won majority in the National Assembly. That is what Yoruba people
call, OYINDÀMÓLÁ, meaning honey-poured-into-dignity. Collaboration between Executive and the Legislature controlled by APC would make it easy to enact laws to implement APC election manifestoes, was the natural belief of all Nigerians.
In his inaugural address on Friday, 29 May 2015, Buhari announced that the Army Command Centre "will be relocated to Maiduguri (the Capital of Borno State, in the Northeast) and remain until Boko Haram(?) is completely subdued." Against
what some self-confessed flamboyant and voluble intellectuals are currently claiming that Buhari was a Boko Haram(?) sympathiser, let's recall what he said on Boko Haram(?) in his inaugural address. He said, "Boko Haram(?) is a typical example of small
fire causing large fires. An eccentric and an unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was given posthumous face and following by his extra judicial murder at the hands of police. Since then through official bungling, negligence, complacency or collusion,
Boko Haram(?) became a terrifying force taking tens of thousands lives and capturing several towns and villages covering swathes of Nigerian sovereign territory. Boko Haram(?) is a mindless, godless group who are as far away from Islam as one can think of." Furthermore,
he said, "Boko Haram(?) is not the only security issue bedevilling our country. The spate of kidnappings, armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes, cattle rustlings, all help to add to the general air of insecurity in our land.
We are going to erect and maintain an efficient, disciplined people friendly and well compensated security forces within and over all security architecture." Realizing that the Executive could not alone handle the problems confronting the nation, Buhari
said, "For their part the legislative arm must keep to their brief of making laws, carrying out of oversight functions and doing so expeditiously. The judicial system needs reform to cleanse itself from its immediate past.
The country now expects the judiciary to act with dispatch on all cases especially on corruption, serious financial crimes or abuse of office. It is only
when the three arms act constitutionally that government will be enabled to serve the country optimally and avoid the confusion all too often bedevilling governance today." The problems confronting Nigeria were clearly identified by Buhari and one
had hoped that the elected majority of the Legislature on the platform of APC on one hand and the Judiciary on the other hand would work amicably with the Executive to tackle and solve the identified problems. That hope vanished so soon.
Immediately after the inauguration of Buhari as the President, his party, the APC, ceased to be a political party as declared by Dr Bukola Saraki. According to Saraki, no political Party can dictate to members of the National Assembly,
elected on the platform of their respective political party who among them should be elected principal officers of the Senate and House of Reps. Yet the Constitution says no one can contest for an elected office in Nigeria without belonging to a political
party and which must sponsor one's contest. Those who proclaimed party superiority and discipline were ignored. Before anyone could realise what was going on, Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu had forged Senate Standing Orders 2011, on which the election of
principal officers was based. Against the decision of the APC that had majority in the Senate, Bukola Saraki became President of the Senate and the opposition PDP member, Ike Ekweremadu, became Deputy President. Consequently, the Principal officers of the
National Assembly in 2015 evolved in a manner similar to 419 criminal offence. President Buhari, perhaps out of not wanting to be regarded as a dictator or not realising that he needed the support of APC majority in the Legislature to fight corruption, was
a passive onlooker to the election of Principal Officers of the National Assembly. He even declared the election of the principal officers as constitutional. When he realized the importance of the legislature to his fight against corruption, he ordered the
Police to investigate a case of forgery about the Senate Standing Orders 2011, which outcome led to the filing of criminal charges against Saraki and others by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, although reluctantly.
I say reluctantly because the case was ceremonially filed but not actively prosecuted till the end of the 8th Assembly. The second arm of governance, the Legislature, was firmly in the hands of corrupt elements and Buhari's only remaining hope in his fight
against corruption was the Judiciary.
As I stated in part III, Buhari's outburst against the alignment of the judiciary with corrupt elements occurred in January 2016, in far away, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As the situation remained unchanged, Buhari seized the opportunity
at an International workshop organised by the National Judicial Institute (NJI), on Monday, 18 July 2016, in Abuja to speak on the role of Judiciary in the fight against corruption. Parts of his speach read,
"Critically important also, is the sacred duty of the judiciary to ensure that criminal justice administration is not delayed. I am worried that the expectation of the public is yet to be met by the judiciary with regard to the removal of delay and the toleration
of delay tactics by lawyers. When cases are not concluded the negative impression is given that crime pays.
"So far, the corruption cases filed by the government are not progressing as speedily as they should in spite of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Act 2015 essentially because the courts allow some lawyers to frustrate
the reforms introduced by law. /..../ Thus, we cannot expect to make any gains in the war against corruption in our society when the judiciary is seen as being distant from the crusade. /...../ The Judiciary must fight delay of cases in court as well as it
fights corruption in its own ranks, perceived or otherwise." With his speech to the Judiciary, Buhari appeared to have only poured water on the back of ducks because treasury looters and the Judiciary are inseparable partners in Nigeria. Already, in February
2016, Buhari had submitted a Bill to the National Assembly to set up a special Court to try cases of corruption, kidnapping, armed robbery and drug crimes which Nigerian lawmakers ignored and refused to discuss. Two important events took place in October 2016.
The BBC Hausa Channel had an interview with the wife of President Buhari, Aisha, in which she alleged that the government led by her husband had been hijacked by those who did not know what the APC promised the electorates that voted the APC party and her
husband into power. She emphasized, "The President (her husband) does not know 45 out of 50 of the people he appointed. I don't know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years. Some people are sitting down in their homes and folding their arms only
to be invited to head a government agency or take up a ministerial job." When she was asked about what could be done to bring governance into the right path, she replied that over fifteen million Nigerians that voted for her husband to become President
should pour out to demonstrate against usurpers of the mandate given to the APC to rule Nigeria. Aisha Buhari is a grassroot democrat and had APC national leader at the time, Professor John Odigie-Oyegun, been worthy of his position he should have acted on
Aisha's proposal to mobilize APC supporters throughout the country to protest against the conservation of PDP policy in an APC government. President Buhari was on a state visit in Germany when the contents of his wife's interview in the BBC became public issue
and there, he was asked to comment on it. In the presence of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the German Minister of Defence, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, Buhari said,
"My wife belong to the kitchen, living room and the other room." That was an expensive locker room joke that took honour out of Buhari and, even brought negative reactions from many of us, his admirers. The second event in October 2016 was the raids
by the DSS and EFCC in the homes of certain High and Supreme Court Justices. Raw cash both in foreign and domestic currencies found in the homes of the Justices were so enormous that Professor Niyi Osundare wrote a satire titled, Oh My Lord : Tell Me Where
to Keep Your Bribe. Some of the Justices were prosecuted but as it is often the case when thieves are empowered to try thieves, they always end up doing esprit de corps. Despite enormous incontrovertible evidence that Judges had auctioned out justices in exchange
for pecuniary rewards, Courts trying the Judges ruled that the Judges could not be prosecuted because they were not first reported to the National Judicial Council for disciplinary actions. Thus, Judges dismissed cases of corruption against their fellow Judges.
I have wondered a lot on why Nigerian masses, whose prosperity in life depends on Buhari's fight against corruption, have remained passive onlookers to the small clique of religious and ethnic renegades, who in alliance with the Judiciary, are looting our
collective patrimony with impunity. Arise O Nigerians and protest against criminal impoverishers in our midst as Aisha Buhari suggested in October 2016. Armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, farmers/herders' clashes, cattle rustlers, unemployment, extreme poverty
and insurgency are all direct products of the Nigerian treasury looters sustained by the Nigerian Judiciary and its taproot, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). Most of Buhari's appointees working with him are not interested in fighting corruption scourge
in the country and as such they constitute vital components in the forces of insecurity to all Nigerians. That Buhari is yet to see this truth is still a mystery to me and in part V, I will try to address issues which I think ought to have attracted his attention
to and action against the pro-corruption elements in and around his government.
S. Kadiri