Oduah: The axis of revenge

Oduah: The axis of revenge
on november 14, 2013 at 11:05 am in viewpoint
The late literary icon, Prof Chinua Achebe was at his
proverbial best when he stated in one of his novels
that the house the enemy wanted to pull down has
caught fire on its own. Aviation Minister, Princess
Stella Adaeze Oduah, who had massed a lot of
enemies following her landmark reforms in the
sector, is that proverbial house the enemy had long
wanted to pull down.
It is no secret that the Oduah reforms upstaged the
apple-cart in the sector and left some entrenched
interests who had claimed the entire aviation
patrimony as their personal estate wondering what
on earth hit them so fundamentally below the belt.
Coming from a woman with a quiet and unassuming
mien; and an almost vulnerable disposition was
totally unexpected. Little did the cabal know that
behind that cool exterior lies a steely determination
to right decades of rape and desecration of the
nation’s aviation sector!
Having fed fat on the system, and compromised
every aviation minister along the line, the cabal felt
it would be business as usual when Oduah came on
board. By the time it dawned on them that the old
order was truly over, several lopsided, inconsistent
and in the words of the Minister herself, ‘’horrible”
concession and lease agreements in the sector had
either been reviewed or out-rightly cancelled in the
overriding public interest.
The battle line appeared clearly drawn, and ever
since then the Minister has hardly slept with both
eyes closed as the cabal swore to fight with every
ounce in their putrefying vaults. The bulletproof car
purchase brouhaha presented the excellent
opportunity for them to exact their revenge with the
hope of dislodging the Minister and returning the
sector to the ‘good old days of chop-make-i-chop’.
The concessionaires who were affected in this
cleansing exercise fall squarely into this disgruntled
and vengeful category. This category is ignobly
joined by the ubiquitous stakeholders who believe
self-righteously that every aviation minister ought
to worship every morning at their feet in order to
acquire any form of acceptance or legitimacy.
This clan would later increase with latter-day
converts like a particular airline operator whose
rabid dream of becoming the new National Carrier is
turning into a deadly obsession, governors whose
executive impunity is no longer an acceptable
conduct under the current reforms as well as the
Northern elements who are baying for President
Jonathan’s life veins over his alleged 2015
ambition; and conveniently find in one of his most
performing Cabinet Ministers, a perfect cannon
fodder.
There is also an amorphous group that has been
crying blue murder, alleging undue interference by
the minister in the running of the agencies.
Each of these individuals and groups has a dubious
grievance against the Minister which has nothing to
do with any altruistic or patriotic fervour. They
equally have one desire in common -to see the
Minister quickly out through the back door. It is this
coalition of the aggrieved that has coalesced to form
the unofficial opposition that is now fuelling the car
purchase controversy in the media beyond all
reasonable boundaries.
To them, this is no ‘ordinary’ story, hence all and
every effort must be made to keep it alive in the
public psyche, hoping and praying that the
Presidency could, in the process be blackmailed
into taking a decision one way or the other in their
favour.
Perhaps it is necessary to point out that apart from
the oil and gas sector, it is difficult to point at any
other sector in Nigeria that has more vicious and
entrenched interests like aviation. But unlike the
cabals in the oil and gas sector, those in aviation
take no prisoners as the current controversy
surrounding the purchase of two bulletproof cars
has come to conclusively show.
As one reform after another was rolled out of the
Oduah reform mill, and Oduah continued to receive
one accolade after another, the number of those
entrenched interests whose modus operandi was
antithetical to the very essence of the reforms, kept
multiplying.  What the heck is going on here, they
quipped indignantly as decades of rot in the system
was cleared and measures to pave the way for a
more transparent, accountable and self-sustaining
sector were being institutionalised.
It is against the foregoing backdrop that we must
interrogate and hazard an unbiased understanding
of the on-going controversy and the accompanying,
unusual media hype. Now, Saharareporters.com,
that online media outfit that has thrown all known
professional media ethics to the dogs broke the
story of the alleged purchase of two bulletproof
cars for the Aviation Minister.
We must not lose sight of the main plank of the
Saharareporters story. The story was built on the
charge that the Minister ‘’compelled” the Nigerian
Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to procure the
vehicles for her in the sum of N255million. To be
sure, every other aspect of that report, safe the fact
of the purchase has come out to be patently false.
This is no surprise as the Saharareporters.com
thrives on falsehood, blackmail and other underhand
tactics unknown to the media profession.
Tragically however, no one seems to be paying any
attention to the other lies peddled by the online
medium. For starters, the lie that the Minister
‘compelled’ NCAA to procure the vehicles has been
exposed for what it is- a huge lie as investigation
by the House Committee has not proved any iota of
compulsion on the part of the Minister.
Secondly, there has been no shred of evidence
supporting the claims in the report that the vehicles
were bought for the Minister. In all their testimonies
before the committee, the Minister, NCAA, First
Bank, and Cosharis Motors declared that the cars
were bought for the operational use of the agency.
Instructively, the Committee has not found any
evidence to the contrary.
Thirdly, it has emerged that the alleged sum of
N255million was never paid to Cosharis Motors as
the vehicles were purchased under a Lease
Financing arrangement by First Bank plc. Fourthly,
the claim that the bulletproof/security vehicles were
not captured in the 2013 Appropriation Act is
incorrect. Item 6 on the budget listed every other
vehicle type and numbers (for example 5 nos Prado
jeeps, 10 nos Hilux pick-up vans, etc) in addition to
2 nos security/safety vehicles.
Now, if the House Committee on Aviation members
are insisting they never appropriated bulletproof
cars for the agency, it is incumbent on them to
explain to Nigerians what those 2 nos security/
safety vehicles represents because every other
vehicle type was listed by brand and quantity to be
procured.
If anyone were therefore, to blame for the
procurement of the bulletproof cars, it ought to be
the Committee that provided the opportunity for the
NCAA to interpret the 2 nos security/safety vehicles
whichever way it wanted. Or are we to take the
Prado Jeeps and Hilux cars which were clearly
spelt out both in brand name and quantity to mean
the same thing as security/safety vehicles? The
honourable thing for the lawmakers to do is to admit
that they erred by making an open-ended provision
for the purchase of 2 nos security/safety vehicles
on Item 6 in the budget without specifying the
brand.
Else, it would be taken to mean that the Committee
and the entire House is now the latest leg in the
nebulous and ever-expanding axis of revenge
traducing the Aviation Minister for undertaking
drastic reforms to reposition the aviation sector in
Nigeria.
Or is there more to it than meets the eye, since we
have been told severally that the committee earlier
‘rejected’ the request for bulletproof cars? Did
someone play smart by inserting the 2 nos vehicles
by subterfuge?
Now we come to the real crust of the matter-the
question of culpability or otherwise of the Minister. If
what we have read in the newspapers and online
media is anything to go by, then it is very
unfortunate. Reports indicate that the House
Committee found Oduah guilty of ‘abuse of office’ by
allegedly exceeding her approval threshold of
N100million. We must not lose sight of the fact that
the said ‘reports’ were from unofficial sources.
To be sure, the said reports appeared a clear 24
hours before the Certified True Copy of the Report
was laid on the table in Plenary. Who leaked the
report to the media and what was his or her
motivation? Could it be that some underhand
dealings had taken place, hence the rush to assure
the paymasters that the ‘job’ had been done in
accordance with the terms of the agreement?
Whatever the circumstances, the fact is that the
leakage casts a long shadow not only on the
reputation and integrity of the Report itself, but also
over the Committee and entire House. The integrity
of a report that found its way to unauthorised hands
and even widely published in the media, a clear 24
hours before it was due to be officially presented to
the House is, to say the least, already
compromised. We are not even interrogating the
fact the syndicated Report did not appear to take
into any account, the testimony of the Minister in
arriving at its the final recommendations.
This scandal should not be allowed to pass as if
nothing untoward has happened because this is
against all known Legislative Practice and
Procedure. The leadership of the House must give
the serious attention which this matter deserves by
mandating the Committee to produce a fresh Report
that would not be tainted by any suspicions of
compromise.
This is the only way a Report into this serious
investigation will have any measure of credibility
and command the legitimacy required of a
document from the second highest legislative organ
in the land.
Else, it would be taken to mean that the Committee
and the entire House is now the latest leg in the
nebulous and ever-expanding axis of revenge
traducing the Aviation Minister for undertaking
drastic reforms to reposition the aviation sector in
Nigeria.
Mr Obohro Embe a public affairs commentator,
wrote from Warri, Delta State.