If you are wondering why Nigeria’s ailing economy has continued to defy all known solutions, or why Nigeria’s ruling class has deliberately dithered to maintain the nation’s refineries, or build new ones that would save the world’s sixth largest oil producing nation the economic misfortune of refining its crude oil overseas, the Hon. Farouk Lawan led adhoc committee’s report on fuel subsidy management has laid that puzzle to rest.

If Farouk Lawan  led committee’s report is anything to go by, Nigerians need not scratch their heads too far to know that with the present cabal of political and economic elite, it is not yet Uhuru for Nigeria and its downtrodden masses, and that all the preachments about Nigeria becoming economic haven by 2020 are just mere political rhetoric’s that are not worth anybody’s breath.

Notwithstanding the current episode that threatens Lawan’s hard-earned integrity, his committee deserves a standing ovation for letting us know some of the financial vultures in high places that have been fleecing the nation through the oil subsidy. The courageous revelations and the outstanding manner the public hearing on the oil probe was conducted made the committee an uncommon hero. The fuel subsidy probe is arguably, the most outstanding breakthrough the nation’s legislature has recorded in the past 13 years of our fledgling democracy.

The startling revelations that thundered forth from the probe report saw mind-boggling increases in payment under the subsidy regime; from N261.1billion in 2006 to N278.8 billion in 2007; and from N346 billion in 2008 to as high as N2.5 trillion in 2011. As if these increases are mere token to warrant public backlash, N999 million was allegedly paid out in a total of 128 cheques amounting to N127.872 billion within a 24-hour period on the 12th and 13th of January, 2009. It all looked like a fiction too surreal to believe.

But the fleece was not over yet. Further revelations from the report show that different departments of government could not agree on the exact  amount paid the oil barons within the period of probe . While the official quoted amount was N1.3 trillion, the Accountant-General of the Federation put the figure at N1.7 trillion. Then, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) came out with a different figure of N1.8 trillion. But the Lawan’s committee revealed that the actual amount paid the oil magnates was N2.5 trillion.

What other revelations do we need to ascertain that what was being subsidized over these years by the Nigerian State was not fuel subsidy, but high-level corruption of unimaginable proportion?

That Nigeria’s political class is infected  by moral leprosy is a bitter truth ordinary Nigerians have learnt to swallow on daily basis. What perhaps remains a puzzle and which might weigh heavily on people’s minds is the new episode the fuel subsidy probe has entered. The twist of event reads like a well-acted Hollywood movie. I doubt if the Hollywood stars would not extend their invitation to the major actors in what has become Faroukgate.

It is a sad irony to accept that the House of Representatives has become a victim of its own trap. The $3 million-bribery allegations dangling on the neck of the two principal officers of the probe committee has made the hunter the hunted. Or how do one situate the inglorious tune the committee’s chairman, Lawan Farouk and secretary, Anthony Emenalo  are currently dancing to, even naked, with their suspect, Mr Femi Otedola?

The video clip showing Farouk Lawan receiving $500,000 bribe from Femi Otedola at about 4am on April 24, and Emenalo, receiving another $120,000 bribe from the same man  four hours later, totaling $620,000 out of the $3 million bribe deal, represents the ugliest moments of a nation gripped by moral leprosy. Both men, Otedola and Farouk, made a mockery of purity the while clothes they wore in the video represent.

It was not the first time Nigeria’s legislature would feast on scandal, nor the only time the well-starched apparels of our lawmakers carved in different forms of babariga, kaftan, agbada and eti’bo would be soiled. The nation has lost count of such mess in both the upper and lower chambers of the legislative arm – the Buharigate, the Etteh  saga the Bankole scam and lately the pensions fund fraud and the capital market scandal that led to the fall of its investigative committee chairman, Herman Hembe. But none of these arguably, calls to question the integrity of the nation  as much as the current scandal. The Faroukgate reminds one of the Watergate scandal in the United States in terms of sophistication.

Faroukgate, I presume,  must be an interesting movie to watch. By the accounts given by Otedola and Lawan, both men have already whet the appetite of their prospective audience. We are not interested in who approached who for what. The two major actors have established the fact, that one approached the other and something exchanged hands. The sudden deletion of Otedola’s Zenon Oil and Gas Company and Synopsis Enterprises Limited from the list of 15 indicted companies that collected forex from PSF but did not import fuel, few hours after the ‘sting operation’, has justified the purpose. Zenon and Synopsis were said to have collected $232.975,385 and $51.449,977 respectively from the PSF without importing fuel.

But what could have led Farouk Lawan into this shady affair given his high pedigree? Could it be fear of poverty? Certainly not. The diminutive lawmaker cannot be said to be poor having been serving his Kano Federal Constituency as a four-time legislator since 1999. Going by the jumbo allowances and other estacodes the lawmakers receive, Lawan must have saved enough wads in his local and foreign accounts.

May be, he was driven by greed. But common sense ought to have dictated to him that he who goes to equity must do so with clean hands. The pint-size lawmaker ought to know that the oil mafia whose toes he had stepped on would do everything humanly possible to get back at him, and if possible, cut him to size.

I sympathise with Lawan because of his past records. He had played the hero’s script several times. He is one man who had oiled the engine of a true democracy with his alluring,  sweet-sounding voice and people-responsive posture of an activist. His heroic role in the Etteh saga when his group spearheaded the removal of Patricia Etteh as the Speaker is still fresh in our memory. What then suddenly came over Farouk Lawan?

By the suspension order slammed on Lawan, the House of Representatives has tried to wash its hands off the dirty deal. The Kano-born lawmaker is now carrying his cross all alone. But the allegory of this scandal is that the Faroukgate is not just a shame of individuals. It is the shame of the entire nation.

The scam has merely extended the rogue appellation former President Olusegun Obasanjo used to designate the nation’s lawmakers to the entire nation. Of what use is a nation whose political elite are rogues and common criminals? The nation can only be derobed of this ugly appellation if the current scandal is not used as an alibi to either rubbish or overshadow the fuel subsidy probe report, as many people have speculated. After all, you don’t throw away the baby with the bath water.

There is no doubt that the Mafia’s net has caught Farouk Lawan. What is not certain yet is whether or not they would succeed in cutting the pint-size lawmaker to size. But if the $3 million scam turns out to be the curtain on Lawan’s promising political career and a final zeal on his gubernatorial ambition, Femi Otedola and his cabal of oil barons who had fleeced the nation through phantom oil subsidy must not be spared either. A bribe giver is as culpable as the bribe taker.

Boye Salau