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Etteh: To Quit or Stay?

Written by Habib Yakoob

Saturday, 29 September 2007

In a society where morality has values, the Speaker of our House of Representatives, Pat Etteh, (for short), would have since tendered her resignation letter and be contended with being addressed simply as Ex-Speaker.

I remember that in 2006, Maria Borelius, a Swedish trade minister, had to resign over allegation of tax evasion. Borelius had confessed that she took the decision partly on account of morality and that the pressure she was receiving from the press over that allegation (just the way our press is hammering Ette now) had made her life” impossible”.

Last Saturday, The Speaker of the Latvian parliament, Indulis Emsis, resigned, both as speaker and member of parliament, because she was suspected of giving false testimony as a witness during an investigation on government corruption.

But here? No way. The accused does not even think there is such a thing called a moral burden and even if there is who cares! If the accused has the backing of the PDP for instance, which has the killing tendency of referring to every serious national problem as a “family affair”, the accused may totter a bit, then balances and afterwards life goes on.

Which is why Madam Speaker may not think of resigning in the face of the contract scam that has hit her administration and would even tuck her two fingers tightly into her ears so that she would not hear anyone who is speaking about morality.

The Idoko panel set up to look into the allegations of the award of the N628 million renovation and furnishing contracts for the official residences of the Speaker, Patricia Olubunmi Etteh and Deputy Speaker, Babangida Nguroje has just submitted its report, and the Speaker was fingered as not having followed due process in the award of that contract.

And to be sure, this failure to follow due process was not due to any ignorance of the law, (for she was a three-term member of this house and a principal member for that matter); but a deliberately organized and structured disregard of due process to corner some loot into her coffers.

According to the panel, the tender was not advertised;

no in-house bill of quantities and drawings (architectural, structural, electrical and mechanical) as such, there was no basis for arriving at the approved contract sums;
no specific budgetary provision for renovation and furnishing of the official residences of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the 2007 Budget;
no specific budgetary provision for the buying of vehicles for principal officers in the 2007 Budget;
the procedure for the award by the Body of Principal Officers on July 12, 2007 shows major acts of omission and disregard for laid-down procedure;
the memoranda for the award of contracts presented at the meeting of the Body of Principal Officers of July 12, 2007 were raised before some of the quotations for the jobs were processed;
Some of the companies that sent quotations were not registered with Corporate Affairs Commission. They therefore lacked capacity to compete for the contracts in question since the Law does not recognise them as persons;
it appears that some principal officers were excluded from the meeting of July 12, 2007 by not serving them notice for the meeting, particularly the minority leadership;
the contract sum of N238,852,152 in respect of the renovation and furnishing of the residence of the Speaker was for the main house and not inclusive of cluster of structures in the compound; and
all quotations relating to the renovation and furnishing contracts directed to the office of the Speaker and those directed to the office of the Clerk to the National Assembly were first acted upon by the Speaker for the attention of the Clerk to the National Assembly directing him to process. Nothing can be more damning and revealing.

However, the house she presides over has been hurriedly adjourned and it is expected that by the time they resume, much politics would have been played to confine that to the dustbin. In the next couple of weeks, Ette would have to struggle between forces that would be edging her to quit and that which would be struggling to make her stay. But the earlier she listens to the former the better for her and for us.

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