By Monima Daminabo

To many watchers of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the recent suspension from office of two key government officials remains another face of his zero tolerance on corruption.

In a development that caught even the affected officers by surprise, the President ordered the immediate suspension from office of Mr Babachir Lawal the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Mr Ayo Oke, Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (the country’s apex intelligence outfit for external operations). Their suspension conforms with extant procedures of the country’s public service with the intention of isolating them from the course of investigations into matters in which they are believed to be complicit. As has been splashed in the public space, their suspension was for acts that not only breached the public trust in them, but also proved prejudicial to the ongoing anti-corruption efforts of the administration.

Babachir case is not unconnected with his earlier indictment by a Senate Committee for the award of contracts to companies linked to him by his office under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) with suspected diversion of funds meant for the welfare of the IDPs. The Senate had established a case of misdemeanour against Babachir and recommended sanctions against him. But the Presidency stalled on the issue which along with other developments snowballed into soured relations between it and the National Assembly. Oke on his part is involved in a case of suspected concealment of diverted public funds totalling N13 billion in various currencies, which was stored in a private apartment believed to be occupied by his wife. Since the stories broke, public reaction to them had attained fever pitch intensity, understandably due to the unusual twists in their individual circumstances. The reported efforts by Ayo’s associates and lobby groups to link the former President Goodluck Jonathan with the loot, constitutes one of such lame twists aimed at spreading the blame for his misdemeanour.

Further details of the circumstances that nailed these two officials and their aftermath are already in the public domain, hence do not require undue elaboration here. Rather more significant are the implications of the sins linked to them, especially with respect to the ongoing war against corruption. At least by virtue of the roles they played, the duo have exposed the stark contradictions in the collective enterprise of the recalcitrant elements in the Presidency, who are simply paying lip service to the anti-corruption fight, thereby working at cross purposes with the President. The clear danger remains the fact that these duo may not be the only nemesis for Buhari in his kitchen cabinet; a factor that may be responsible for the slow pace of dividends from the reform agenda of his administration.

Sometime early in the life of the administration and during his recent charge to Nigerians the President acknowledged that some people referred to him as ‘Baba go slow’, and he noted that it was better for him to go slowly with effective results than rush the country into more troubles with undue haste. While there is no inherent problem with that, the issue remains how and where he will redirect the government in the face of the incidence of likely profusion in the questionable enterprise of Babachir and Oke, by other trusted President’s men, right under his nose.

For as the cliché goes, it is not what happens to a man that matters but how he takes it. In this context therefore lies the challenge of what Buhari will deliver to Nigerians from the lessons of the breach of trust as played out by the suspended officers and several others in the Presidency’s wood work, who will with the new development, strive to mask their nefarious enterprise further from public attention and scrutiny.

This is where the President needs to adopt a comprehensive and thorough review of his administrative template on the basis that the present one has proved grossly dysfunctional. In the next few weeks – specifically on May 29th 2017, the administration will mark two years in office, and the fact cannot be lost on the President that beyond some of his sugar coated praise singers, most Nigerians across the length and breadth of the country are writhing in a state of acute lament with no end in sight. This state of affairs constitutes a clear departure from the expectations of the citizenry from the administration.

It is not surprising that some apologists of the administration may even argue that two years are not enough to turn around the fortunes of the country and that the citizenry should exercise more patience. That position however does not hold water, especially in the face of their bitter experiences with past administrations that simply took the people for a ride. Nigerians are not expecting miracles overnight from the administration, but deserve change as promised by the President in his campaign agenda. That is why even with large areas of miasma and concern in the administration’s derailed political agenda, Nigerians are still willing to work with the President in the task of salvaging the country. Many Nigerians believe that even as there may be a legion of issues with governance, such derive not from the lack of vision of the leader, but from a deficit of follow-through in driving that vision through the party hierarchy and the machinery of governance. This situation expectedly has led to the failure of the administration to deliver on several of its promised dividends to the Nigerian people.

Talking of the way forward it is tempting to associate the case of the suspended SGF with the search by the Presidency for peaceful co-existence with the National Assembly. His sanction by the President has largely thawed whatever icy relationship existed between the Presidency and the National Assembly, and erased any semblance of the former to shield any erring officer in its domain.

After the Babachir incident, the Presidency should provide a wider latitude for the legislature in its anti-corruption war, if it has to break new grounds. As has been advocated severally on this column and other fora, the fact should not be lost on the Presidency that as far as the anti-corruption war is concerned, the legislature has the killer punch. If nothing else, the elegance with which the Babachir matter was handled by the Senate provides a model for the executive.