The Sack of Lady Farida

By Sam Onimisi
The appointed of Mrs. Farida Waziri in 2008 as Chairman of the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was parachuted in a haze of geo-political balancing, with a tinge of gender condescension. With the admission of the President that the election that made him a year earlier was flawed, the physical beauty of Farida and her choice was a deliberate ploy to soothe the nerves of the Nigerian public that were smarting from the clumsy ouster of the populist Mal. Nuhu Ribadu. Co-incidentally or by the usual Nigerian ‘arrangee’ administrative system, the recommending authority was the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mr. Michael Aandokaa, who was also a Tiv like Farida, thereby producing an ethno-centric hue. The choice of Farida was thus smeared, apart from the real qualities of the beautiful woman. Her sack was no less controversial, given the brusque manner with which many public officers are routinely dismissed.
Farida’s tenure at the EFCC was tinted with these sideswipes such that her real achievements went, almost un-noticed and unappreciated. Before going too far, there is the need to revisit one of her patrons. Michael Aandokaa, the surly looking fellow who depicts the picture of an irredeemable village champion happened on the national scene from his Gboko base ahead of more well known lawyers from Benue State.
Aandokaa courted public disfavour by his various controversial stance and pronouncements which were mostly against the grains of public opinion. One of his associates once claimed that the manner in which he pushed the case for the replacement of Dora Akunliyi at NAFDAC – again with a candidate from his village – was entirely untidy. During the illness of our beloved late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Aandokaa was at his controversial best as he opined that the sick president could rule from his sick-bed in Saudi. According to this archaic Aandokaanian law, it was possible to extract directives from a living-corpse and so, he joined the Katsina Clique to ensure that Yar’Adua lives, and rules forever, inspite of his lifeless body.
As if his middle name is controversy, for the first time ever, Aandokaa saddled Nigeria with two Chief Justices all at the same time when he caused to be sworn in at night, Justice Allolious Katsina-Alu before the expiration of the tenure of his predecessor. Do not ask me if he would have done this if Katsina-Alu was not a Tiv, since I have no means of knowing. The man got a just deserved dismissal as soon as President Goodluck Jonathan got his bearing right as acting President. The Legal Privileges Commission (pardon me if I don’t get this right) moved in fast to disrobe Aandokaa as Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN. Well, how he got it in the first place is a wonder and his deregistration was something of a good riddance to a bad rubbish. Not being a lawyer, I confess that I am not in any way qualified to judge gentleman Aandokaa although; I enjoyed the liberty of his sack. The focus on the person of Aandokaa here is for the distractive influence he had on Farida if he was so close to her as people claimed. The value of her output and achievement are bound to be badly perceived and this was stacked against Lady Farida.
The facts of Farida’s exploits at the EFCC cannot be obviated by the seemingly official smear campaign against her; for if statistics are anything to go by, she did far better than her predecessor. A woman who inherited 10 high profile cases in 2008 now has about 65 in court for persecution. She also secured over 400 convictions within her three years tenure. Farida made over $9 billion recoveries during the same period in addition to shutting down over 5000 fraudulent email addresses through which 419 criminals transacted their trades. In fact, over 80 suspects are currently under trial for such cases; this is apart from about 1500 cases pending in the courts. What all these add up to is that regardless of how Farida got into the EFCC, she has more than prove her mettle and deserved a better treatment than she got from her employers.
She was also very careful about her public pronouncements, unlike her predecessor who was always singing like a bird. Even when she was unjustly criticized, her responses were always measured to suit the occasion, and never was there any occasion (at least to my knowledge) did she over-reacted. Therefore, it was a commendable feat for a woman holding such a sensitive position to have subjected her emotion under strict control. Her personal demeanor could not have been responsible for her sack as she behaved in many ways, a decent person. Why then was she so shamelessly treated? Could it have been on the account of the company she keeps? And how was that injurious to her job or the government?
The sack of Lady Farida was made easy by the unitary system of government in place which emphasizes winner-takes-all. In such a unitary administration, the form is the only goal to be pursued with vigor, but the substance must be severely given a wide berth by all those who want to remain in the good books of the authorities, especially if they desire to keep their jobs. The issue here is not about competence, output and input which translate to achievements. This is because any achievement, no matter how excellent if perceived as against the interests of the powers-that-be, would be seen as a demonic incursion that must be exorcised with electric alacrity. Has this been the case with Mrs. Farida Waziri of the EFCC? We shall find out soon if we dig deeper than the surface.
Governance, according to Daniel Kaufmann, “governance is the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised for the common good. This includes the process by which those in authority are selected, monitored and replaced; the government’s capacity to effectively manage its resources and implement sound policies (economic dimension); and the respect of citizens and the state for the country’s institutions (the institutional respect dimension).” In Nigeria, we have no native traditions of governance even though every ethnic nationality in Nigeria has one; but they have not been aggregated to form a Nigerian traditions and institutions of governance. What obtains here is a combination of British and American practice of law and judiciary as well as political and administrative traditions and institutions which tend to produce gangsterism instead of governance.
Unknown to us, the two cannot work together without breeding corruption, given our multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. In other words, our unitary system of amalgamated traditions and institutions could only spin corruption because they are centrally controlled without regard to our plurality and diversity. It is a trial and error system whose best hope is hit-and-miss by luck or ill-luck. It is such that good things happen on their own or by accident and not by any plan of any government. Therefore, whenever a person is appointed by whatever consideration, he/she must put a ceiling to his/her performance index or else s/he gets a dismissal for upsetting the apple-cart of happenstance. But how come that a person got sacked by doing the very best possible, what he/she was employed to do?
Corruption is the impairment of integrity, virtue and moral principle even as Daniel Kaufmann defined it that “corruption is the abuse of public office for private gain.” If Farida Waziri was a member or supporter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which controls the government of over two-third of the 36 states in addition to the Federal Government in the last 12years; it also means that the party would have produced over 2/3 of the Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) of corruption who ought to be arrested and prosecuted by agencies like EFCC. And Lady Farida was doing just that – oblivious of her membership of or sympathy for the PDP, which has now been provoked and made angry to the point of fighting back – and the victim, unfortunately is, Lady Farida? No, the victim is Nigeria whose corrupt foundation corrodes its super-structure for an ultimate crash or collapse in a moment or someday. Is government still fighting corruption? I think it is the turn of corruption to fight government, or what is your take?