By SUNDAY ODIBASHI
The Senate, on Wednesday, found quality political substance to ridicule the Presidency on the approaches to the anti-corruption war in the country by the various security agencies.
National Daily is of the view that the excuse by Senator Danjuma Goje that the Police raid of his residence now delays the passage of the 2017 budget was a mere metaphor of telling the executive that the security outfits have gone beyond the bounds of legal restraints in handling corruption allegations.
More importantly, the inadequacies of the defects of the whistle blower policy and the distortional consequences are becoming obvious.
The President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, at the plenary session had lamented that the Police said their action was predicated on information from a whistle blower; he contended that till the time of the plenary session, the Police had not made any formal pronouncement on their findings or the wrong of Senator Goje. Saraki, therefore, admonished that if the Police acted on wrong or misleading information, they have to apologise to the Senator, representing Gombe Central.
The President of the Senate, thereafter, advocated that the Inspector-General of Police must find a way of returning those documents to enable the Senate proceed with legislation on the 2017 budget.
At the Senate plenary, being monitored from Lagos on Wednesday, Senator Goje, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, had acquainted the Chamber that the senators had intended to pass the budget bill into law that yesterday and send to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent but that he could not present the document at the plenary because it is among the documents taken away by the Police who raided his residence in Abuja.
Some stakeholder have articulated that this is the most simplistic manner of conveying to the Presidency the dissatisfaction over the current attitudes of security operatives in the country, essentially, in handling corruption issues.
Senator Goje had addressed the Senate that the 2017 budget documents, including 18 files, laptop, money, etc., were among the things taken away from his residence by the Police during the raid.
Senator Goje, in his comical deliberation in the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly, was telling Nigerians that the 2017 budget proposal bill is contained in a single compilation, there were no duplicates and no other member of the Appropriation Committee in either the two chambers has a copy of the document that the Committee had worked on in the past months.
However, that was a good message to the Executive that the level extra-legal activities by security operatives is becoming writ large and Senator Goje’s comic was a corresponding way of responding to the executive way of doings things by fiat.
About 40 policemen had raided Goje’s residence last Thursday, carting away some monies and documents.
Apparently, the Senator, who is a former Governor of Gombe State, held the Police responsible for the delay in passing the 2017 budget. He insisted that the Police have hijacked the budget on advent of the invasion of his residence in Abuja. “I don’t know if the Police are now working on the budget. They have hijacked they budget,” he said.
The Inspector General of Police has been drawn into public discourse of obstacles to governance in the country, thus, putting the Police boos in dilemma.