Pakistan’s premier anti-graft institution, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), gets its new chief. The ministry of law and justice has issued a notification announcing the appointment of Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal as new NAB chief on Sunday after President Mamnoon Hussain approved his appointment under section VI of the NAB Ordinance. The new chief would serve the NAB for four years. The former Supreme Court judge has been appointed NAB chairman with the consultation of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah. The appointment is the result of the government-opposition consensus that both leaders could reach after discussing several names in their four meetings. Syed Khurshid Shah has praised their party nomination saying that “Justice (r) Javed Iqbal has an outstanding record as a judge”. He also appreciated his work as the head of the Abbottabad Inquiry Commission, and believed that the new chairman would fulfill his duties efficiently. According to source privy to the development, quoted a Daily Times correspondent in his story, that the government has also taken the military leadership into confidence over the name of Justice (r) Javed Iqbal. It is good sign that the military leadership was taken into confidence. Justice(r) Javed Iqbal was appointed as an additional judge at High Court in Quetta in 1993. In 1999, he was one of the judges in the country who retook their oaths under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), following the military coup by General Pervez Musharraf. On immediate effect, he was appointed as the Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court on 4 February 2000. He was elevated as a ‘Senior Justice’ of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 28 April 2000. He also served as acting Chief Justice of Pakistan from 9 March 2007 till 23 March 2007. However, he was among the 11 judges who refused to take oath under PCO again on November 3, 2007. No one can quote any good examples of accountability carried out by the previous NAB chairman. The new one won’t be any different. No NAB chief would be able to deliver the desired results until the bureau is detached from the government and given an autonomous status under parliamentary oversight Most importantly, he has headed the Abbottabad Commission and the commission formed to probe the cases of the missing persons. Reports of the both commissions are ‘missing’ as yet, while cases of enforced disappearances continue to surface. Experts and analysts are of the view that a few names of the better professionals were echoing in the power corridors. Any one of them could have been rather better choice instead of the one that has been selected. Is it really possible for the government to genuinely take up the cases of their own party stalwarts, aides and allies in the politics? Certainly, none of them could afford real-time accountability. Government and the opposition just have to keep on fooling the public as they have been doing for ages. Only the ruling faces change, but the evil intentions and practices remain the same. In many ways, the new NAB chairman suits both the government and the opposition. Firstly, bigwigs of the PML-N and PPP are facing corruption cases so they would be happy to have a ‘submissive’ chairman who looks busy and do nothing, following in the footsteps of the previous NAB chairman. No one can quote any good examples of accountability carried out by the previous NAB chairman, so the new one won’t be any different. No NAB chief would be able to deliver the desired results until the bureau is detached from the government and given an autonomous status under parliamentary oversight. Let’s see what comes out of the exercise being done by the new NAB law committee of the parliament. In the given circumstance and scenarios of the present political nexus, the new chairman NAB will be facing a number of challenges in the days to come. Most political heavy weights would be facing the so-called accountability process. They would eventually be given clean chits and nothing would be proved against them. Keeping in view the previous practice, we may access the future scenario at the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that will not be different in any case. Perhaps the nation is always destined to notorious nexuses, whether political or the state institutions against the political and democratic forces. Shall we term the appointment of the new NAB chief as a result of the consensus or the nexus of both parties, the government and the opposition, or in connivance with to save the huge corruption and embezzlement of each other’s top men? Real accountability will only begin when people start showing their resentment without any political push, and show their decision in the elections by rejecting the corrupt candidates. The corrupt elements can only be eliminated by the public pressure, not by the lame accountability mechanisms. The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed Published in Daily Times, October 10th 2017.