It looked complex when it started, but President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption battle is gaining more converts by the day. BUNMI OGUNMODEDE examines the development and and states the conditions that will make the war successful.
I don’t think any Nigerian is in favour of corruption or is against the President’s commitment to ensuring that we turn a new leaf.” That was Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, speaking to reporters at the Presidential Villa, Abuja after President Muhammadu Buhari hosted members of the Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar –led Peace Committee.
President Buhari has not left anybody in doubt on his stance on corruption. Even before winning the March 28 election, the desire to tackle insecurity and corruption was pivotal in his electioneering campaign. To him, something must be done about corruption as the social menace may pull down the country if allowed to thrive.
Going by a survey conducted by the TNS, a leading global research agency with offices in more than 80 countries, 91 per cent of Nigerians are in support of the President’s anti-corruption crusade. Considering his antecedents and spartan lifestyle, about 86 per cent of Nigerians believe that Buhari has what it takes to make the country work again.
Some Nigerians who expected action from the blast of the whistle have expressed reservations as the government has not flung open the prison gates for those who plundered the commonwealth of the land. Many people expected much from the Buhari administration in its first 100 days. They branded the President as “Baba Go Slow”, a name tag he described as fitting. “I am going to go slow and steady. Nigerians should be patient to allow this administration put some sense into governance and deal with corruption,” he told those who see him as a slow coach. He gave the reply at an interactive session with Nigerians in the Diaspora at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC, United States (U.S.). He said he would rather go slow and steady in fulfilling his campaign promises.
But, the corrupt got a clear message – time is up – yesterday, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), marching in support of the President’s anti-corruption battle in major cities across the nation. They urged the President to go after corrupt officials, recoup stolen funds and punish offenders within the ambits of the rule of law. After their solidarity marches, the workers recommended capital punishment for corruption convicts.
There are speculations that some people have on their own been making moves to return stolen cash to stave off the pending embarrassment. Such people, it is believed, will get a soft landing as they would have saved the government the time and resources that would have gone into their prosecution. “They will be asked to go and sin no more,” a source said.
The President’s searchlight has been on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) – for obvious reasons. Oil accounts for over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s revenue. Preliminary probes launched into the activities of the NNPC and other revenue-generating agencies, including the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); Nigerian Customs Service (NCS); Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), among others, discovered the agencies as conduit pipes for public office holders.
The Excess Crude Account (ECA) – the savings for the rainy day – is also being examined.
At its maiden meeting, the National Economic Council (NEC), under the chairmanship of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, raised a committee of five to look into allegation of sharp practices in some money-generating agencies. Specifically, the NEC mandated the panel to investigate a shortfall of N3.5 trillion in remittances by the NNPC into the Federation Account since 2012.
Headed by Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the panel’s other other members are ; governors Nasir El Rufai (Kaduna), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe) and Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos). The NEC decided to set up the committee after a briefing by a director of Funds in the Office of the Accountant-General on the status and management of the Federation Account, which indicted NNPC for remitting only N4.3 trillion out of its earnings, estimated at N8.1 trillion in three years.
The Oshiomhole-panel has since concluded its assignment, with the government appointing Pricewater house Coopers (PwC) and KPMG to forensically audit the books of the NNPC and other agencies.
To curtail the looting spree, the international community, with the U.S. as its arrow-head, has promised to assist the President in tracking the accounts into which stolen funds are kept in foreign banks and help recover same. Back home, the management teams of major agencies (NNPC, FIRS, NPA, NCS, NIS and others) have been changed by the President, who has assured that sinners will not go unpunished.
Apparently buoyed by the President’s body language, anti-graft agencies – the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) – got their energy renewed. Both agencies have woken up to their statutory responsibilities. Those who had written the agencies off as toothless bulldogs have since changed tunes. To them, the agencies have become tools of oppression, used against the opposition. But, President Buhari says anybody giving political colouration to the anti-corruption battle will be missing the point. The upright and incorruptible has nothing to fear, he has said.
In just 90 days, the EFCC has recovered $6.55 million and 248,340 Euros from 55 money laundering suspects at the international airports in Abuja, Kano and Lagos. Besides the seizures, the anti-graft agency has also initiated 71 high profile cases. They include the arraignment and trial of former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation Steve Oronsanye, former Imo State Governor Ikedi Ohakim and his Jigawa counterpart Sule Lamido.
Detectives are poring through the books of at least nine states – Akwa Ibom, Kebbi, Enugu, Lagos, Plateau, Benue, Kwara, Katsina and Cross River. In the past, the states, especially, those governed by the ruling party, were untouchable. But the states under watch cut across party lines.
The Sagay
anti-corruption panel
The President demonstrated his commitment to the war against graft on August 9 when he named prominent Law professor and civil rights activist Prof Itse Sagay as chair of a seven-man Presidentail Advisory Committeee Against Corruption.
Expectedly, the Sagay committee’s brief is to advise the Buhari administration on the prosecution of the war against corruption and the implementation of required reforms in Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
Three international development partners bought into the anti-graft crusade by jointly establishing a $5 million Anti-Corruption and Criminal Justice Reform Fund to boost the Federal Government’s efforts. The partners are: Ford Foundation; MacArthur Foundation and Open Society Foundation.
The Fund, to be managed by Trust Africa, an international development civil society organisation with programme presence in more than 25 African countries, is to assist in the implementation of key components of the Action Plan and the work of the Presidential Advisory Committee.
As part of its mandate, the seven-man Committee is to develop comprehensive interventions for achieving recommended reforms.
Other members of the committee are: Prof. Femi Odekunle, a Professor of Criminology, Ahmadu Bello University, Dr. Benedicta Daudu, an Associate Professor of International Law, University of Jos, Prof. E. Alemika, a Professor of Sociology, University of Jos, Prof Sadiq Radda, Professor of Criminology, Bayero University, Kano and Hadiza Bala Usman, a civil society activist.
Prof Bolaji Owasanoye of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) is member/executive secretary of the Committee.
Likely obstacles
There have been calls in certain quarters that probing past financial misdeeds may, after all, be a waste of time as it will slow down governance. But advocates of a New Nigeria say those who plundered the nation’s wealth must be brought to justice. Some believe that leaving stolen cash in the hands of former officilas is sleeping under a roof on fire and that this could spell doom for the government of the day. Such funds, they caution, could be used to destabilise the administration. Some former ministers in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan have regrouped in Abuja to articulate how best to respond to allegations of corruption being heaped on Dr. Jonathan’s aides. They warned the Buhari administration to refrain from portraying them as corrupt. The former President chaired the meeting, at the end of which the former National Planning Minister, Dr. Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, was appointed to henceforth speak for them. Already, some of them are challenging President Buhari to publish the names of corrupt ministers.
Many have identified inadequate funding as one major hindrance that may slow down the prosecution of corrupt officials when they are eventually arraigned by the State. Observers fear that getting enough resources to prosecute super-rich officials might become an albatross, especially when such offenders have the financial wherewithal to hire the services of the best of lawyers.
Investigating officers will also need funds to work.
Learning from the pitfalls of the past, where judges pander to indiscriminate requests for adjournments by defence counsel, there have been demands for the establishment of special courts to try corruption cases.
The question is what effect will yesterday’s solidarity rallies have? The fact that the workers trooped out en masse to support the anti-corruption war is a strong signal that majority of Nigerians are on the same page with the President.
Will the judiciary rise to the occasion? Will there be more cash for investigators? Will lawyers join corruption to fight back – all in the name of defending their clients? Who will carry the day – Nigeria or corruption? Time will tell.
