By Adesina Soyooye
The embattled Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, Mr Danladi Umar, is fighting to keep his job. He is fighting using two fronts – the Public Relations Officer of the CCT, Ibraheem Al-Hassan, and the Police.
On the two fronts, he seems unlucky. None is comfortable with embarking on a cover-up on his behalf.
Recall that Umar was, on Tuesday, enmeshed in an unbecoming incident at the Banex Plaza, Abuja.
In a video that went viral, Umar was seen slapping and kicking a Security Guard on the business premises.
The reason for the attack was that the Security Guard had asked Umar’s driver to re-park the car as he had parked wrongly.
Umar reacted violently, and engaged the security guard in a physical attack. But scores of people at the plaza, who felt Umar, a big man, was deliberately humiliating a lowly man, reacted in anger, and almost lynched Umar, but for the quick intervention of the Police.
The unbecoming behaviour caused a National outrage, with many people asking Umar to resign from office.
The national body of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, said it would investigate Umar’s conduct, and make a decision on what to do.
From the outrage, Umar seems to have realised how much damage the incident has done to his image and reputation. He has, therefore, started a damage control process.
First he rushed to the Police and alleged that it was the security guard that attacked him. The security guard was invited by the police. They took his statement. And detained him, but he was released by the DPO as soon as he, the DPO, watched the video of the attack.
Second, he put pressure on the CCT’s PRO, Al-Hassan to tell a lie about the events of the day, and asked himto denigrade the Igbo.
In a statement Al-Hussein was forced to hurriedly put together, Umar asked the PRO to say he, Umar, was attacked and almost lynched by “Biafran boys” – meaning the Igbo. That stung, and put more heat on Umar and his Al-Hassan.
Seeing the attack on his press statement, worsened by bad spellings and grammatical errors, he quickly admitted he was put under pressure by Umar to issue the statement, and attribute the attack to “Bifran boys.”
Now, Umar is in a deeper trouble than before. Aside from showing bad behaviour  by attacking the security guard, he has been exposed by his PRO as an alleged ethnic bigot.
With the NBA and several individuals and associations asking for his resignation, it remains to be seen how much damage control will save Umar.
