Category: Politics

Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner Mr Mike Igini spoke with MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE on the proposed centenary celebration, threat by the Boko Haram sect, corruption and other national issues.

How are you able to combine human rights activism with your current role as a public officer?

First, in my current capacity, I am a political appointee, not a career civil servant, I am not angling for the plateau of a career ladder, furthermore, the mandate for this job under Section 2 of the Electoral Act includes the education of Nigerians on sound knowledge of good democratic practices, this is a statutory obligation, and so, I will be failing in my obligation if I hide behind a transient public office that would come to an end shortly and fail to point out those wrong actions that are making life difficult for us all. Since these issues align with public interest matters and advocacy within the framework of civil society, I see no reason to change my disposition or convictions that we can do far better than we have done and achieve more if we can be honest enough and tell ourselves inconvenient truths of the reality of our situation. If I sense that I may be required to undermine my convictions, I will respectfully go back to my Law practice.

How can Nigeria get rid of corruption?

What worries me the most about corruption in public office are three very disturbing observations; one is the level of lack of remorse on the part of a number of public office holders or what seems to have engulfed the conscience of public officers who are trustees of public good and interest. I don’t understand how for instance someone can go to sleep, come to work every day and watch innocent retired policemen struggling for their retirement benefits, when you know you have kept billions of such funds in your own private account. Or how someone can drive to work to a dirty office sweating under poorly furnished and poky working environment when he knows he has kept the funds to refurbish such office to himself, or how someone can drive through very terrible roads knowing he has kept the funds to repair or maintain such roads in a private account. The second observation is the impunity from a sense of a lack of consequences, and in this I attribute most of the blame to law enforcement and judicial administration. The reason democracy is always qualified with the phrase “ the rule of law” is that without the law, democracy is a futile exercise. Corruption in Nigeria has been fueled largely by the shinanigns in our court rooms when it comes to high profile corruption cases where frivolous applications are filed and pursued up to the supreme court just to stall trial, hence, what we have now is democracy without the rule of law, that ingredient must be in place if we want to mitigate corruption.

The third observation is that whenever we talk about corruption in public office we often single out a few visible actors. This is a very wrong approach because we have never seen a governor who goes to the bank to collect state funds from the bank manager. We demonize the main leaders, yes we cannot excuse the leaders because they should be value exemplars regarding accountability and corruption, but before any of the ex- Governors or any executive head in any public organization can collect public funds, it has to pass through processes involving a lot of paper work. So how do we keep demonizing chief executives and we leave out the motley crowd of chief officials in the entire bureaucratic systems who were involved in the paperwork required to safeguard such funds. Our problem is that of a systemic failure; therefore, it must be given a systemic solution. How, for instance, do we hope to tame corruption, when there are no administrative triggers that can immediately raise multiple control alarms when a pension fund manager moves N37 billion to the wrong place, is there any bank in Nigeria which will close for work, if it cannot account for N5 billion at the end of a working day?

You have maintained that the system that allows corruption to thrive should be held responsible for pervasive corruption. What about the individuals who run these systems?

The individuals are components of a system, the system is far more important than the individuals and must be stronger than the individuals. Management controls in any system should embody the whole system; that is why you have in any management system both bureaucratic and normative controls. Bureaucratic control includes financial controls, quality controls and so forth, while normative control includes the codes of good practices expected of any member of an organization, all control mechanisms should have consequences for avoiding variance from expectations. We can see from the degree of variance from the expected performance in our public services that the control mechanisms are either anaemic, absent or defective. The important question is what are we doing about it, or what do we plan to do about it? Because as the doctors say, accurate diagnosis is 70 per cent of treatment. Now that we know the disease, how do we plan to cure it and rehabilitate our system?

Is that the reason why you have consistently declared that, without the rule of law, Nigeria would not make any meaningful progress?

Absolutely yes! The rule of law through consequences for wrong doing with negative impact on society or variance from expected conduct. If you give six months imprisonment for embezzlement of N30 billion and you allow the convict to spend that six months in the executive annex of a high class hospital, or restrict the convict to a government guest house, what message or consequence has been sent to the empirical world of those who undermine the sources of the collective wellbeing of the people in a society?

How can Nigeria overcome its security challenge, particularly the unending killings by the Boko Haram sect?

We must take a hard look at our security structure in order to meet the challenges of our time. There is no country which can secure every part of its border and every single spot, hence the current trend is for community policing, where we have a ‘whole of society’ approach to securing the community with everyone playing a role in the welfare of the community. But it is the responsibility of government to create an ambiance in which everyone must feel a sense of belonging and an obligation to contribute. It is true that we cannot expect everyone in any society to conform, but we have to find a way to attain a consensus of the majority in order to manage pockets of deviation.

The Boko Haram phenomenon is not a novelty in state development; we have a situation in which non-state actors take up an anarchic strategy and try to impose their ideology upon the state. This is not the first time people have made such attempts in human history, on social, religious or economic motivations. However, what we must find out is, what is sustaining such efforts and what impels people to be captive of this motivation? Because we can repress the acts of Boko Haram, but if we do not try to understand the idea behind it, we cannot extinguish it, because the best weapon against an idea is a superior idea, when you present the superior evidence of an idea to contest other ideas, in the end humans will tend towards what suits them best, this is why I find the methods of Boko Haram very suspicious, particularly because it purports to be a religious group, how do you bring people to God by killing innocent people, the best persuasion for any religious principle should start with the relationship of its adherents to other people and its respect for the life of others..once you start any argument by taking the life of innocent people, in my view you have nothing to say that is worth listening to, and when you propagate ideas by compulsion and not persuasion, It has no place in the modern world because conviction to any idea must be voluntary to be sustainable.

What is your reaction to the Federal High Court ruling that N37 billion should be paid as compensation for the destruction of Odi communities in Bayelsa tate?

The massacre and total destruction that took place in Odi was reminiscent of the civil war. The action in a supposed ‘civil rule’ reflected the lowest point of discredit of our democracy. The action was uncivil, crude and savage to say the least. The court of law has just added its voice and seal to what has been well condemned and has moved beyond mere condemnation to a deservable award of monetary compensation. It is a confirmation of the views some of us held then, that the wanton killings and total destruction of a whole community by soldiers ordered by the government of former President Obasanjo was a retaliation for the unfortunate and extremely condemnable killing of a number of policemen by militants and not an action to restore law and order nor taken in search for and arrest of those who killed those policemen in the course of serving the fatherland, because no militant was arrested or killed in that unfortunate incident. Instead, government soldiers led action on rather innocent able-bodied young men and women law abiding village people, mainly old men and women who were unable to run and escape the shooting of the ravaging soldiers who set houses ablaze, as recalled and graphically shown a few days ago on AIT news bulletin. The judgment could not have come at a better time than now when former President Obasanjo has been in the news recommending this same approach over the Boko Haram challenge that would have led to wiping out communities in the northern part of the country, if adopted by the current government because of the action of a minority extremists group, that do not represent the values of the majority of our brothers and sisters in the North. Just imagine what would happen in the northern part of the country, if this method had been adopted. One hopes such judgment would be extended to the victims of the Zaki Biam massacre where similar killings and destruction took place.

What is your reaction to the federal government’s plan to appeal against the judgment?

To appeal against the judgment is to justify the ‘Assad type’ method that was used in an attempt to solve a militancy problem that led to mass killings and total destruction of a whole community, a method which turned the protective weapons of the state against the people it should protect. That method has not found attraction to the current government with respect to the Boko Haram challenge; and more importantly a court of law has condemned it and has awarded compensation. What government should do now is to simply comply and ensure payment of the compensation ordered by the court because the court judgment also portends a moral judgment which seeks to ask the question of how much we value the lives of innocent citizens, to negate the court judgment would be to belie the constitutional claims made on the welfare of citizens in section II of the constitution.

By next year, Nigeria will be 100 years as a country on account of the 1914 amalgamation. What are your thoughts about this milestone?

My thoughts are questions like why are we still grappling with the problems of nationhood? Why are we just a country and not a nation? And why are we not at peace with ourselves as a people with common goals? People from every part of the country are talking about the urgent need for development. In fact, the challenges, either of militancy, kidnapping or the current Boko Haram’s murderous campaign, that is religious in content, have all been attributed to lack of development.

Yet, we have refused to address those factors that have undermined development. We abandoned the federal template and its fiscal features, which those who fought for our independence settled for as the best arrangement that would accommodate our diversities and at the same time promote rapid development and competition as witnessed in the First Republic. The key issues that create such centrifugal forces that tear us apart are known; yet, they remain unaddressed. Now is the time to come together in a forum and address issues that have undermined the smooth runing of this country.