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| Hon. Faruq Lawan |
By Babangida KAKAKI, Kaduna.
The regaining of freedom for once a conscience of the National Assembly Lower Chamber from from kuje correctional centre is a manifestation of destiny and marked a watershed in our nation's democratic journey.
As a dogged politician, Hon. Faruk Lawan spent four-term (from 1999 to 2015) as a member of the House of Representatives from the Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State.
Hon. Lawan bestrode the legislative chamber like Colossus when he served in the House of Representatives for fourteen years. Though, not bestowed with a robust physique of a successful wrestler, what he lacked in body mass is more than abundantly made up for in intellect. It is this profound intellect that has kept him in the frontline since he was elected into the National Assembly in 1999.
As legislator, Hon. Lawan had chaired key positions in the Lower House. From been the pioneer Chairman of the Ethics and Privileges Committee in 1999, he had at various times served as the chairman of Committees on Appropriation; Finance, Information and Education and, Indeed, availed Nigerians of his legislative experiences as he held sway.
Prior to his travails that put him behind bars, Hon. Lawan has unblemished records spanning 13 years. Despite falling from grace to grass, as a matter of fact, he is still remains the best to have come out of Kano State so far. Inarguably, no federal lawmaker has come close to him, let alone surpass his enviable records till date.
In the 2007 corruption scandal that forced the former Speaker of the House Patricia Etteh to resign, Lawan led the Integrity Group, an alliance of Representatives opposed to Speaker Etteh. She had to go, and she went down the drain.
In January 2012, Hon. Lawan chaired the House of Representatives committee that investigated the Nigerian government's fuel subsidy scandal.
The committee was set up in the wake of a nationwide strikes that followed removal of the fuel subsidy Goodluck Jonathan's administration causing the price of fuel to rise.
The committee's report released in April the same year, revealed a huge scam in which some fuel companies were paid hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies by the government for fuel not delivered. The scam was estimated to cost the country a humongous sum $6.8 billion.
In February 2013, Lawan was charged with bribery after he was alleged to have accepted the sum of $500,000 from Femi Otedola, a Nigerian billionaire oil tycoon, as part of a $3 million bribe solicited from the latter.
Otedola claimed that Lawan demanded the bribe to have his company, Zenon, removed from the list of companies that the committee had implicated in the scandal. The initial fuel subsidy report said that Zenon owed more than $1 million to the government, but legislators later voted to remove the firm from the final report. Lawan said that he accepted the bribe as exhibit to nail the firm, which he informed both the committee and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about.
On 22 June 2021, Justice Angela Otaluka, sentenced the former federal lawmaker to seven years in prison in a trial many believed was a political vendetta.
After completing his sentence, Hon. Lawan is seen attending public functions with political bigwigs, who believed strongly that he was a victim of political vengeance due to his stance against corruption of some unscruplous politicians and their business accomplices
His political fate has been estranged with intrigues, gimmicks and the pull-him-down-syndrome his long standing enemies who hold grudges against his roles in defending democracy, rule of law in cahoots with their business associates.
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