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Ten days ago, David Mark, the
senate president, was palpably enraged during a plenary session. Mr.
Mark’s anger was directed at senators who were members of the senate
committee on communication which was supposed to have screened the new
management team of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC). The
senators had publicly accused the committee chairman, Sylvester Anyanwu
of fraud over the screening exercise.

“This is an embarrassment to the
entire senate and I feel very sad about this; a senator accusing the
other publicly,” Mr. Mark said angrily. In that rage, he promptly
disbanded the committee over allegations that its chairman, Mr Anyanwu,
carried out the exercise alone at night, and forged the signatures of
two other members of the committee, claiming that six of the members
took part in the exercise.

For a nation that has increasingly
loathed the unending wrongdoings of federal legislators, that seemed
like a welcome decision and the general consensus seemed to be that Mr.
Anyanwu deserved what he got.

However, a more thorough
investigation of the events that led to Mr. Mark’s show of rage
indicates that the senate president’s furious display that day was the
final act in the drama he scripted the previous night.

It was also established that
although the screening of the new Executive Vice Chairman and chief
executive officer, and three other management staff of NCC took place
in the night as claimed, the nominees were vetted only by Mr. Anyanwu
and his deputy, Joseph Akaagerger (PDP Benue state) because of
pressures from the senate president. They had allegedly acted in
response to an earlier threat by Mr. Mark who directed both Mr Anyanwu
and Mr. Akaagerger to produce the report of the screening that night or
lose their plum positions.

Abubakar Argungu (PDP, Kebbi
state), a member of the committee who broke the scam on the Senate
floor narrated how six members of the committee converged for the
screening the previous evening but the event had to be postponed
because the security report and the Code of Conduct Bureau reports on
the nominees did not reach the committee before dark.

“The point Argungu raised is a
very serious one. I sent the security reports from my office,” the
Senate president said. But officials close to Mr. Mark’s office who
would not want to be named, said the senate president sent the crucial
reports later at night, after the committee members had left, and
threatened that if the assignment was not carried out by the committee
that night, it will be dissolved.

“It appeared the senate president was in haste to confirm the nominees,” one of the officials said.

But for the emergency plenary the
senate will hold on Tuesday, the day of the screening debacle was
supposed to be the last one before 29 September when the senate was
scheduled to return from a two month vacation.

“If the nominees were not
confirmed that day, they would have waited till the senate resumed at
the end of September,” Mr. Anyanwu, the chairman of the committee
confirmed in an interview.

Some in the National Assembly
spoke of the intersection of personal interests in an establishment
viewed in legislative circles as influential. “The senate president had
issued the threat apparently because he sensed the committee was
reluctant about the job because of their personal interests,” one
official said.

Loose funds

The Nigerian Communications
Commission is seen as a crucial government agency which averages N45
billion in subventions from the federal government and N18 billion from
external revenue annually. Another layer of pork is a seemingly loose
fund called Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). It was established
“to facilitate the rapid achievement of national policy goals for
universal access to telecommunications, information, and communication
technologies (ICTs),” says the Communications Act of 2003. “It is a
honey pot which invisible hands lick from without trace,” said a staff
of the Commission.

It is managed by a secretary who
reports to the Executive Vice Chairman and the CEO who is under the
authority of the commission’s board chairman. It was not confirmed if
the propelling force for the battle over the fund’s control is because
of the approaching 2011 general elections.

Clash of Interests

There are clear indications that
the whole screening exercise was marred by the selfish desire of a
number of people to place ethnic sentiments ahead of national
interests. There were efforts to ensure that the next executive vice
chairman comes from a particular zone. The south east zone apparently
considered the position to be zoned to their area, while a section of
the north was bent on wresting it away for the first time.

The fierce campaign for who
succeeds Ernest Ndukwe, NCC former CEO, started shortly before he
retired last April. There were five contenders for the office, all
engineers, including two executive commissioners in the Commission,
Stephen Adedayo Bello and Bashir Gwandu. Others were Eugene Juwah, Umar
Garba Danbatta, and Johnson Asinogu, a former employee of the
commission.

When Mr. Ndukwe was leaving, he handed over to Mr. Bello, the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management.

However, two months later, Mr.
Gwandu took over, as the acting CEO, from Mr. Bello who attained the
compulsory retirement age of 60, last June.

Immediately Mr. Gwandu took over
office, Funsho Fawemi, the secretary of the Fund embarked on a
compulsive annual leave of absence, although Mr. Gwandu has denied that
he ordered that.

Despite being recommended by Dora
Akunyili, the Information Minister, Mr. Gwandu was reportedly not
favoured at the presidency because Mr. Ndukwe who has more influence at
the presidency, had another preference.

“Mr. Ndukwe promoted Eugene Juwah, – former executive director of MTS First Wireless – to the presidency,

through Mike Oghadome, the chief
of staff to the President and former deputy governor in Edo state,” a
presidency source said. “Remember Ndukwe was arrested by EFCC (Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission) last year and Gwandu is his antagonist
and believed to be capable of throwing open some secrets if he was
retained as the Executive Vice Chairman. The senate president and his
deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, were then lobbied with an opportunity to
appoint the chairman and one Executive commissioner respectively,” the
source said. “The senate president nominated Peter Igoh from his
constituency and Ekweremadu nominated Okechukwu Itanyi, his former
senior colleague.” Mr. Itanyi was until 2007, the deputy governor of
Enugu State where the deputy senate president also served as
commissioner and chief of staff.

On 22 July, the letter nominating
the new management arrived in the senate and was read by Mr. Ekweremadu
who presided that day and referred it to the senate communication
committee. The committee was given four days to turn in a report.

Ethnic bias

At the committee, three members
were from Kebbi State; Mr. Gwandu’s home state. They were perhaps not
happy with the presidency’s choice and favoured Mr. Gwandu. Some
reports had also accused Mr. Gwandu of bribing the committee chairman
with N230 million to frustrate the screening and subsequently elongate
his stay in office.

Mr. Gwandu who was earlier
adjudged to be the most qualified for the job was considered to be the
first northerner to head the commission since its inception, 18 years
ago.

There was visibly a clash of
multiple interests, few options and little time left for deals before
the day the committee was disbanded.

When the ethnic argument was no
longer tenable, Mr. Argungu’s revelation of a scam at the screening was
the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I am a member of the committee
and there was no screening,” Mr. Argungu said. “I am surprised the
chairman is presenting them for confirmation this morning.” Tanko
Ayuba, also from Kebbi state reacted sharply saying the committee
chairman approached them to sign the screening report that morning.

“It is time for us to own up on
this matter and say exactly the way it is” Mr. Ayuba said. “We signed
only this morning.” When the scandal took an explosive turn, the senate
president called for a closed door meeting where frayed nerves were
calmed.

However, before the closed
door-calming-meeting, the senate president had taken the hard line
option of disbanding the committee. “The senate president overreacted,”
a senator said in an interview.

Denials all

The players in the debacle
however denied they played any dirty role. In an interview, Mr. Gwandu
said he did not bribe Mr. Anyanwu or any other member of the committee.

“I know Sylvester (Mr. Anyanwu)
very well, of course, and I have cooperated with the committee whenever
required,” he said. “But I have never given money to him or anybody to
influence anything. Where would I even get that kind of money from? The
biggest contract I have given is for my complimentary cards.” He also
denied influencing the decision of the northern senators to prefer him.

Mr. Anaynwu, on his part, denied receiving any bribe from Mr. Gwandu ascribing the allegation to his political enemies.

Media assistants to the senate president also denied his involvement
saying the dissolution of the committee that day was a spontaneous act.