POLITICS TODAY

By Aminu Mohammed
Ambition. Vision. Vanity. Any human being with these three deadly sins must do everything to preserve his self esteem. Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto state combines these three and to achieve all these three in life within a short time, material quest must be at the fore.
Tambuwal’s quest to rule, dominate, exercise power began at the National Assembly in 2003 when he was elected as a member from Tambuwal/ Kebbe Federal Constituency. Tambuwal went to the National Assembly with a deadly ambition, to rise to stardom, to rule Nigeria and to capture it all, to rule humanity. He went with the three deadly sins, very ambitious with a vision and mission to crush anybody that would stand on his way.
Within a very short time he rose from a committee chairman to a minority whip and then leader of the minority and capped that quest with the Speaker ship seat against all odds. That was when he believed it was time to unfold his lifetime agenda, to rule Nigeria. In 2015, he flew a kite with the hope of testing his political strength and capacity by holding series of meetings with his political associates whether it was time to declare his presidential ambition. The fear of Buhari in 2015 was a collective article of faith by all the presidential aspirants including the then president, Good-luck Jonathan. Tambuwal got the message and tactically withdrew and went back to Wamakko for the Sokoto state APC governorship ticket.
However, in 2018, Tambuwal dumped the APC and returned to the PDP to fulfil his personal desire of contesting in the presidential race. Atiku floored him. He retreated and kept hope alive and now that 2023 is fast approaching, Tambuwal believes is time to strike once again.
Politics, power and money are inseparable. In Africa, money is the major ingredient of winning elections and so a desperate politician who wants power by whatever means has to have funds to execute his campaign slogans, trips and other activities. In this category of desperate politicians, Tambuwal is not an exception.
In the last few weeks, there has been a trending and disturbing news in the country which revolves around the Sokoto state government under Tambuwal. A ” classified document of huge Financial Misappropriation ” alleged to be from the EFCC on how the Sokoto state Treasury has been personalized, vandalized and being LOOTED by top government officials for more than six years is on the front burner. According to the document which has gone viral anyway, very close allies of governor Tambuwal have misappropriated and looted close to N190b from the state Treasury. Most of those who have been aiding and abetting in the loot are already on the EFCC Radar and have been regular guests to the Zonal Office of the Anti graft agency in Sokoto. This is one of the reasons why the said document cannot be easily ignored. The document further revealed that out of the over N500b accrued to the state in the last six years, about N190b has been diverted to individual accounts leaving the state BLEEDING AS THE CENTER OF POVERTY in Nigeria. The sixty- four thousand dollar question here is, who supervised the looting of such quantum of money and is Tambuwal aware of this Fantastically Corrupt Practice in his government?
To understand the leadership style of Tambuwal, one has to trace the history of his stewardship at the National Assembly where he was House Speaker for four years. His tenure as a Speaker was not corrupt- free from financial impropriety. Former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala told the Nigerian public that she had to bribe principal officers at the National Assembly to get National Budget passed and she specifically mentioned the Tambuwal/ David Mark era. Again Tambuwal was at the center of a N1b Amnesty budget scandal between 2012 and 2013 when a former deputy speaker of the House, Chibudom Nwuche was fingered as Tambuwal’s henceman in that Amnesty budget padding. Although, Tambuwal’s media aide then late Imam Imam told the nation that Tambuwal had never engaged in any legislative, political, administrative or business relationship with Hon. Nwuche but there were allegations of Nwuche’s company, Foundation for Youth Development ( FYD) received a N4b contract from the Amnesty office under Mr. Kingsley Kuku. There are other expos on the Tambuwal tenure at the House of Representatives but the government kept denying any wrong doing but this recent EFCC revelation is not one of such the government foot soldiers can easily deal with because the figure looted is alarming considering the underwhelming performance of the Tambuwal administration in the period covered by the document and even now.
The defence put up by the governor’s spokesman is very shallow, weak and has failed to address the issues raised. The state and the nation expect more from the government in its defence than just blaming political opponents as trying to pull Tambuwal down because of his presidential ambition. The Sokoto state government is duty bound to tell the state how much it has received from the Federation Account since June 2015 to date, how much it has received as Federal Government Intervention Funds, how much money was collected as Paris Club Bonanza, how much money it has received as Bailout and most importantly, how much Foreign and Domestic Loans it has collected on behalf of the people of the state and where all those monies were sunk because for a government to have collected over N500b and fail to execute N1b project in any of the 23 local governments, that administration is a prime suspect as far as embezzlement is concerned.
For a government to be seen as project oriented one, there should be structures on ground to support how the citizens’ money is spent for development. In Sokoto, there are no structures to convince neither the EFCC investigating the government nor the people whose monies are allegedly looted in large scale. The Tambuwal administration should exonerate itself from this “Fantastically Looting Spree” by publishing all monies received from 2015 to date and tell the people what the monies were used for. From 1999 to date, this administration is the least performed in terms of uplifting the poverty rate in the state, it is the least performed in executing viable projects, it is the least performed in the area of human capacity building as it has created higher rate of unemployment with no social investment policies to cushion the harsh effect of its bad governance.

Concerns are being raised because the administration has failed to provide quality education, portable pipe-borne water, good roads, drugs in its hospitals and most importantly, security which the governor keeps blaming the Buhari administration as if the state government is not a major stakeholder.
The alleged looted N190 billion is good enough to provide security for the entire state, fund education, provide drugs to government hospitals, build good roads and uplift socio-economic activities which would greatly reduce poverty through various employment opportunities. The EFCC Investigation is therefore a right call to know whether government is for the entire people or a selected few.

In a memo titled ” forwarding of Interim Intelligence Report on Sokoto Government”, dated 13th, September, 2021, addressed to the EFCC Chairman, the Commission’s Director of Intelligence, gave a breakdown of the financial transactions as follows:-
That between January 1st, 2015, and August, 31st, 2021, the state government received a total of 567, 160, 024, 619. 30(five hundred and sixty seven billion, one hundred and sixty million, twenty four thousand, six hundred and nineteen Naira, ninety three kobo), cumulatively.
According to the memo, all the monies were paid into the bank accounts operated by the state government, as follows:- Accountant General FACC Account number 0697434238 Access Bank, Secretary to the government Account number 07000669798 Access Bank, and Permanent Secretary Account number 0700669554 Access Bank.
The report revealed that out of the over Five hundred billion Naira that was cumulatively paid into these accounts, about 189, 155, 043, 852. 09( one hundred and eighty nine billion, one hundred and fifty five million, forty three thousand, eight hundred twenty five Naira and nine kobo), had disappeared into various accounts operated by cronies, friends and close aides of the state Governor
The EFCC probe should not be mistaken as a political witch-haunt by the Buhari administration or political opponents within the PDP who are also aspiring for the presidential ticket but rather a call for prudence from leaders who personalize state apparatus like the Treasury.