El-Rufai is blinded by sentiment.

I was about asking why Mallam Nasir El-Rufai(aka Mr Demolition) will publicly okay the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu’s  report which has been proven not to be okay, but then again it hit me, that they are both birds of identical plumages that flock together. This is a report that was publicly disowned by some members of the committee during its submission ceremony on November 1, 2012, at the Presidential Villa.

It gives me a serious course to worry when “leaders” who are supposed to teach the younger generation the true essence of honesty, transparency, morality and other beneficial virtues, begins to lie just to cury favour. The same report that this character is subscribing to is one that says in paragraph 4, page 2 that “The data used in this report was presented by various stakeholders who made submission to the Task Force in the course of our assignment at various dates, which have been disclosed in relevant sections of the report. Due to time frame of the assignment, some of the data used could not be independently verified and the Task Force recommends that the Government should conduct such necessary verifications and reconciliations.”

It is an exhibition of stupidy, high level of incompetence, irresponsibility and personal negligence for receiving data and submitting a recommendation without proper verification and reconciliation. Is it not funny that the so-called report is asking the “government to conduct all necessary verifications and reconciliations”? Its just a formal way of pushing the job back to the government that set the committee up in the first place, to thoroughly appraise data and figures with a view to determining where there are revenue leakages in the system. If the data and figures were not verified as admitted in the report then on what basis did it arrive at the conclusion that some companies and agencies did not pay what they ought to pay to government? How did the Task Force expect the government to prosecute those it indicted? On the basis of unverified and unreconciled figures?

The former minister of FCT said “the Federal government should not throw the baby with the bath water.” He rode on by saying that “They should not question the integrity of the whole report just because a couple of members, clearly with interest, have spoken out against the report. The report is substantially ok. More than 20 members of the committee have not come out to disown the report. The other three have not written a minority report.

Orosanye said exactly what he saw in the report even though he was a member of the committee. During the submission ceremony he made it clear that the report lack credibility, resulting to Ribadu pegging him “bought”. Now that the report is out, it proves he was right all along.

If not for the over-stretched gentleness of President Jonathan, should someone like Ribadu be allowed to head a committee let alone one with such high level national interest. El-Rufai should stop messing himself up by making statements that drag him more closer to the mud.