Senator Saif ur Rehman, the Accountability Czar, is going hell bent for leather. He has lodged three corruption cases against Benazir Bhutto. Another is on the way. Usman Faruki, the notorious former chairman of Pakistan Steel, is in the dock, his misbegotten wealth splashed all over the media. The noose also seems to be tightening around the neck of Hussain Lawai, the former president of Muslim Commercial Bank. And the former principal secretary to the prime minister, Ahmad Sadiq, has been reduced to the status of a despicable approver. All this, in the space of thirty days. Some people think the Senator deserves a pat on the back.
No, quite the contrary. The Ehtesab Commissioner, Justice (retd) Mujujid Mirza, has become a prisoner of the Senator just as much as those the good judge is prosecuting at the Senator’s behest. The cases against Ms Bhutto, for example, are lacking on at least 30 significant counts which make successful prosecution difficult, if not impossible. But the good Senator is not to be deterred. Ms Bhutto roared like a wounded tiger at an impressive rally in Faisalabad recently. The masses are alienated and angry. The Senator had to do something to divert their attention from the government’s mounting failures on the economic and political front.
The same philosophy seems to hold sway in the other cases. Details of Mr Usman Farooqi’s crookedness were collected many months ago but only revealed now. Indeed, brother Salman Faruki was quietly allowed to flee to safer shores before a blitz was launched against Usman (Mr Salman Faruki, it might be recalled, was the brains behind the ill-fated Motorway project which was investigated by the Bhutto regime and found to be full of gaping holes). The same is true of Ahmad Sadiq’s belated “revelations”, except that provisions have now been made in his testimony to try and discredit the former President of Pakistan, Farooq Leghari, because he’s perceived to be a potential troublemaker. Mr Lawai’s case is even more interesting — he’s a valued guest of ARY Gold Traders in Dubai with whom the government of Pakistan continues to maintain important financial dealings. Senator Saif, it is said, is not so much interested in bringing Mr Lawai to book for his alleged crimes as he is in hustling him to become an approver against Mr Asif Zardari.
But somebody should tell Senator Saif where to get off. The “accountability” exercise has degenerated into a cheap propaganda ploy against political opponents and is hurting the ruling regime more than its political opponents. Of course, Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari are corrupt as hell. Of course, the Farukis and Sadiqs of this world were their witting handmaidens. And of course, they, and many others of their ilk, should be brought to book and locked away for ever. But this does not appear to be Senator Saif’s purpose. In fact, he only seems to be interested in grabbing the headlines so that anti-government news can be shoved away from the front pages of the press. Indeed, Senator Saif may have hurt his own cause by spreading disinformation in the case of Hussain Lawai and being extremely insensitive to the plight of the wife and daughter of Usman Faruki.
If accountability is the name of the game, we might ask what the good Senator has done to book more than 1000 bank loan defaulters (of whom the prime minister’s youngest brother is one) who have swiped over Rs 140 billion of public money. We would also like to know how he intends to proceed against the countless crooks in his own party who defrauded the federal and provincial exchequers of untold billions when Mr Sharif was chief minister of Punjab from 1988 to 1990 and prime minister from 1991 to 1993.
Senator Saif ur Rehman has gone out on a limb for Nawaz Sharif. In the process he has rubbished the concept of “Ehtesab”. This may have far-reaching implications. For one, the judiciary has been put on the spot. It cannot lend a helping hand in bringing Ms Bhutto and her crooked friends to book without hurting its credibility by failing to mete out the same treatment to crooked members of the other side. Two, “victimisation” has a habit of rebounding on its perpetrators with a vengeance — the Sharifs were at the end of the receiving stick not so long ago and will doubtless pay for their current vendettas in the future. Three, the leading prosecutors and tormentors of today are fated to become the choicest “approvers” of tomorrow.
We can be sure that one day, as day follows night, there will be real accountability in this country. That is when the Bhuttos and the Sharifs and countless others will be asked to return their plundered wealth or face the wrath of the people. The prosecutors and judges of that day will not be burdened by the sham of “mandates” or “democracy”. That is when the likes of Senator Saif ur Rehman will rue the day they mocked the people of Pakistan and contemned the natural laws of justice.