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The incarceration of former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan has been described by a strategic Communication Expert, Mr Lawal Adedayo as the golden prize he paid for fighting oil cabals.
Lawan was a four-term member of the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He represented the people of Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State at the Green Chambers of the National Assembly between 1999 and 2015.
On Tuesday, October 22, family, friends and political associates were happy to welcome him back home, after serving a five-year jail term.
His journey to prison started following the removal of subsidy on petrol by former President Goodluck Jonathan on January 1, 2012.
The policy was greeted with spontaneous social and political upheavals, forcing the House of Representatives to an emergency session on January 8, 2012, after which an Ad-hoc Committee was set up to verify and determine the actual subsidy requirements and monitor the implementation of the subsidy regime in Nigeria.
The Federal Government had informed the nation of its inability to continue to pump endless amounts of money into the seemingly bottomless pit that was referred to as petroleum products subsidy. It explained that the annual subsidy payment was huge, endless and unsustainable.
Nigerians were made to believe that the colossal payments made were solely on petrol (PMS) and kerosene (HHK) actually consumed by Nigerians. The government ascribed the quoted figures to upsurge in international crude price, high exchange rate, smuggling, increase in population and vehicles, among others.
However, a large section of the population faulted the premise of the government’s subsidy figures, maintaining that unbridled corruption, inefficient and wasteful process accounted for a large part of the payments.
To avert a clear and present danger of descent into lawlessness, the leadership of the House of Representatives took the bold and decisive action to set up the Ad-hoc Committee to verify the actual subsidy requirements of the country.
Lawan was made the chairman of the committee and that was how his ordeal began. The Committee decided that the scope of the investigation should be for three years, ranging from 2009 to 2011. The resolution not to limit the investigation to 2011, despite the scale of escalation of subsidy in that year alone, was to establish a trend and to comply with the standard accounting practice.
The actual budget expenditure on subsidy for both petrol and kerosene was tolerable at N261.1 billion in 2006, N278.8 billion in 2007 and N346.7 billion in 2008, but in 2011, it got out of proportion. In 2016, five companies, including the then Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), now the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) were involved, 10 in 2007 and 19 in 2008, but in 2011, the number rose astronomically to 140; a development that called for questions, necessitating the social unrest and the eventual setting up of the ad hoc committee to investigate the whole process.
The Committee held public hearings from January 16, 2012, to February 9, 2012, took sworn testimonies from 130 witnesses, received information from several volunteers, and received over 3,000 volumes of documents in evidence.
At the end, the committee found out that the subsidy regime, as operated between 2009 and 2011, was fraught with endemic corruption and entrenched inefficiency. “Much of the amount claimed to have been paid as subsidy was actually not for consumed PMS.
Lawal noted that the government officials made nonsense of the PSF guidelines due mainly to sleaze and, in some other cases, incompetence. It is, therefore, apparent that the insistence by top officials that the subsidy figures was for products consumed was a clear attempt to mislead the Nigerian people.
According to him, “Contrary to the earlier official figure of subsidy payment of N1.3 trillion, a figure of N1.6 trillion was put forward, while the Committee established subsidy payment of N2,587.087 trillion as of December 31, 2011, amounting to more than 900 percent over the appropriated sum of N245 billion.
However, the Committee was able to establish that there was widespread sharp practices in the system. It, therefore, came up with various recommendations, some of which were that the subsidy regime was characterized by unbridled financial sleaze. It established that some people would just collect millions of Naira from the government without making any supplies, and even they made supplies, they supplied products much less in amount than they collected from the government. It also established that the quantity of fuel consumed in Nigeria on a daily basis was far below the figure released to the public.
“The Committee, therefore, made a wide range of recommendations, particularly ssying that the security agencies, should go after the culprits and make them face prosecutions and the full weight of the law.
“But, that never happened; instead the hunters became the hunted. Those behind the dirty deals are so powerful that they are almost untouchable. They mobilized and fiercely fought back and in the process, the Committee chairman, Lawan, was cut in the web. He was arrested and charged for asking and taking a $300,000 bribe from businessman, Femi Otedola, while probing the multi-billion Naira fuel subsidy fraud.
The matter dragged up to the Appeal Court and in 2021, the Court of Appeal in Abuja sentenced him to a five-year jail term and discharged him on two out of the three counts on the corruption charge brought against him by the Federal Government.
He still continued with the case up to the Supreme Court, but the apex court also in its judgment in January 2024, upheld the verdict of the Appeal Court.
Giving the lead judgment prepared by Justice John Okoro and read by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, the Supreme Court held that Lawan’s appeal lacked merit. The court, therefore, dismissed it.
“Interestingly, while Lawan languished in prison for five years, the alleged culprits in the oil subsidy scam roamed the street free, celebrating and partying that their tormentor had been confined to where he belonged. Some of the culprits are still in the business of oil till today..”
The 62 year-old Lawan was released from the Kuje Correctional facility in Abuja on Tuesday to the warm embrace of his family, supporters and well wishers. His people in Kano knew the truth; they knew that their son was caught in the complex web of high wire oil politics and he paid dearly for it.
Speaking to the crowd that came to welcome him, Lawan said: “Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life as I step out of Kuje Custodial Centre, with a heart full of gratitude to Allah for seeing me through this trial.
“My gratitude is deep, I’m alive and in good health and in high spirits to be with my family, friends, and associates. I don’t take that for granted.
“I remain grateful and indebted to my family and friends who stood by me through this particularly trying phase of my life.”
“The take away from Lawan’s ordeal is that while he was sent to prison for trying to unravel the wrath that characterized the oil subsidy regime, those who were involved in the sleaze and corruption that has brought the country to the current economic quagmire, were mostly awarded national honours, while others carried on with the business as usual,” says Lawal.
