JOIN NOW, EARN 50% OF OUR TOTAL REVENUE MONTHLY

PRESIDENT Buhari has deliberately upped the
ante on corruption in this campaign because he
wants to make next month’s presidential election
all about graft. His decision last week to suspend
and replace the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter
Onnoghen, on allegations of corruption was
calculated to escalate the issue of graft in this
election and upend his main opponent, Atiku
Abubakar and his party, People’s Democratic
Party, PDP. But in seeking to outsmart his
opponents and win next month’s polls, Buhari is
abusing his incumbency and trampling on the rule
of law in a way that risk undermining the
credibility of the entire elections.
President Muhammadu Buhari display a sign for
4+4 to join Legislators who supported his re-
election bid as he addressed a joint session of the
National Assembly for the the presentation of the
2019 Appropriation Bill at the National Assembly,
Abuja. Photo by Abayomi Adeshida 19/12/2018
Last year, President Buhari said that “Rule of law
must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s
security and national interest”. I knew that the
real test of how the derogatory statement on the
rule of law played out would be his handling of
this year’s elections. Surely, if national interest,
as defined by a president, could trump the rule of
law, then nothing, not even democracy, is
sacrosanct.
Some criticisms of the Chief Justice’s suspension
have focused on its constitutionality, that is,
whether the president has the legal power to
suspend him. But the issue goes beyond legality.
The rule of law is as much about process as it is
about substance. Of course, if the Chief Justice is
corrupt, he can’t be above the law. But assuming
the president has the power to remove him, then
the relevant issues that could affect the
legitimacy of the decision are process, timing and
motives. President Buhari’s action failed those
tests.
First, the process was flawed. For a president
who relishes being called “Baba go slow” and
who always had to be dragged kicking and
screaming before suspending members of his own
government accused of corruption, Buhari’s haste
in acting, within days, on the Chief Justice’s case
rightly raised concerns about procedural fairness.
Allegations of corruption against a country’s Chief
Justice would, in most serious democracies,
follow structured and appropriate investigative
and disciplinary procedures, rather than dealt with
arbitrarily by the president. Buhari said he acted
on a court order. Really? But how many court
orders has he ignored? Picking and choosing
which court order to obey smacks of the
politicisation of justice.

And what about the timing? Why, for goodness
sake, in the middle of a crucial election? Why not
a year ago, or even before Walter Onnoghen was
made the substantive Chief Justice? How many
countries would appoint a chief justice without
thorough checks on his or her background,
including financial affairs? My guess is that
whatever secret information the Buhari
government has against Justice Onnoghen, it had
it at least a year ago but decided to wait until the
election to detonate the “bomb” for maximum
impact to raise the stakes on corruption. But for
what purpose? Well, that brings us to Buhari’s
motives.
As I said earlier, President Buhari’s action was
designed to make the upcoming election all about
corruption. Indeed, as his party, All Progressives
Congress, APC, said last week, “This election is a
referendum on corruption and integrity”. Elections
are normally a referendum on the incumbent, but
the APC is cleverly, with premeditated escalation
of the corruption issue, making it a referendum on
their opponents’ integrity. The APC’s slogan
“Don’t let the treasury looters come back to
power” is a powerful one that’s likely to resonate
with ordinary Nigerians who believe Atiku and the
PDP are weak on graft.
A study by three Canadian scholars on election
campaigns shows that an incumbent with a poor
record of achievement can successfully redirect
voters’ attention away from his failure by framing
the issues in an election campaign to undermine
the credibility of the opposition. That’s what
Buhari is doing. The president is not campaigning
on his record because he has failed on the
economy, on security and, despite his moral
indignation, on corruption, which is present in his
party and government. But Buhari still has a
reservoir of personal goodwill on corruption, and
he is using the integrity card mercilessly against
Atiku and PDP, who are widely perceived to be
weak and vulnerable on corruption. And, of
course, they are!
Recently, Eurasia, the international consulting
group, said that, as president, Atiku “would focus
on enriching himself and his cronies”. But instead
of confronting the negative perceptions, Atiku and
his allies are feeding them. In a recent interview,
he said that, if elected, “I am going to enrich my
friends”, and one of his key allies, Buba Galadima,
told a newspaper that, “Even if Atiku breaks into
CBN, we will make him president”. With such
reckless statements, why wouldn’t the negative
perceptions persist. Add to that the toxic legacy
of PDP’s 16 years in power, associated with
widespread corruption.
To be sure, Buhari is right to attack Atiku and
PDP on corruption. But trampling on the rule of
law to escalate the issue or preventing
businesses, through intimidation, from supporting
Atiku’s campaign, as rumoured, while being
funded by businesses and bribing voters with
TraderMoni is a blatant abuse of incumbency.
Buhari should fight fair, not dirty!
source: www.vanguardngr.com/2019/01/2019-presidential-poll-buhari-is-fighting-dirty/