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Tag: corruption

  • Cleric decries high level of corruption, impunity

    The Chief Missioner of Ansar-ur-deen Society of Nigeria, Sheikh Abd’rahman Ahmad has  condemned the level of corruption and impunity in government saying “corruption has been elevated to a state-craft” in the country.

    Sheikh Ahmad stated this at a lecture he delivered at the annual ‘Pray for the Nation 2015’ programme organised by Fatima Charity Foundation (FCF) which took place at Muson centre, Onikan, Lagos.  The lecture was titled ‘Committing Nigeria to the hands of God: What are the roles of the leadership and the citizenry’.

    He said Nigeria is in the present quagmire because the leaders no longer have the fear of God neither do they do things according to the laws and precepts of God.

    “God has a plan for Nigeria, a good plan for everything and everybody to be okay and happy, but we are not listening to God or doing His will thereby thwarting that plan.

    “Our leaders are so selfish and self-centred, they do things with impunity, they don’t care about the people, they want to stay in power by all means even when the people say they no longer want them. Even the people no longer have conscience, they have also forsaken God and when God wants to punish people for their sins He gives them bad leaders,” he said.

    According to the cleric, good governance means handing over the country’s affairs to God, “things are not going right, there is no trust among the leaders and the people don’t trust them either, we see them as looters, we don’t trust our government neither do our leaders care for us; 20 years ago we were better than now”, Ahmad said.

    “Good governance”, he said, “is inclusive of fair electoral process, justice, equity and fair play. When you have been chosen to lead don’t be self-centred, don’t do things with impunity because God will desert you. How can a leader say stealing is not corruption or query why somebody should be jailed for stealing small money? What have we become? Nothing is working, we have a full scale war on our hands and yet we pretend as if nothing is happening”, he said.

    Sheikh Ahmad called on every Nigerian to resolve to contribute their quota “then there would be a lot of difference. I am just saying that Nigerians must stop agonising and complaining, we must get organised, we must change our destiny with our own hands”, he said.

    In her welcome address earlier, President of FCF, Chief (Mrs.) Bintu-Fatima Tinubu said, “we want to see Nigeria a developed nation, prosper and become the pride of Africa. We are here because we know that change must come and that change will come because we are the hope of Nigeria and henceforth, we must pursue a desire to get it right”.

    She stressed on the need to contribute to the greatness of the country through prayers. She said, “we are very much aware of the many problems that have plagued the Nigerian nation which includes insecurity, corruption and general fall in the standard of morality. And if Nigeria is to fulfill her God-given mandate, we need to find urgent solutions to these innumerable problems confronting our nation”.

    She said after 100 years as a country and 54 years as an independent nation, little have been achieved despite huge human and natural resources, “Nigerians are now growing impatient with so much hardship in the land of so much wealth. Most Nigerians have remained stuck in squalor and hopelessness; while our value system has continued to crash with vices such as corruption and theft celebrated, true federalism has remained an illusion and development at all levels has continued to elude us.

    “It is paramount to submit ourselves in prayer for God to remove all the ills plaguing the nation. The world of politics needs to be sustained by fervent prayers, supplications to the Almighty God, to overcome various challenges and harmonise different political currents with a view to enabling growth and development in our dear nation”, Tinubu said.

    Decrying the loss of faith by many Nigerians in the ability of the country to govern itself, Tinubu said the citizens have lost faith and confidence in the leadership of the nation, adding that “without confidence in the system and its leaders, the democratic principles of the nation such as civic participation, voting and community involvement are eroded and further jeopardize the country’s future”.

    Assuring that Nigeria has all the ingredients for success, Tinubu called for concerted efforts of all Nigerians and their re-dedication to the culture of tolerance, eschewing violence, peaceful conduct during and after elections, “and to remember that political competition is not war but an avenue for people to peacefully express their choices through globally recognised democratic channels “.

    Different Muslim groups recited the Quoran and offered prayers for the nation, especially prayers for a peaceful and crisis free election this year.

     

  • Jonathan, Corruption and rule of law

    PDP rallies are often swelled up with rented crowd. We have as authority the Ogun State-based PDP mobiliser for the last year Ekiti governorship election who after Fayose’s unexpected landslide victory told Channels Television that PDP should not be expected to invite people to their rallies without making provision for their protection from the vagaries of the weather. He was commenting on PDP policy of ‘stomach infrastructure’, which he admitted was targeted at PVC holders all over the state. It is unlikely the crowd paid any attention to lies dished out by cynical politicians who themselves have little faith either in the electorate or the ballot box. Long before President Jonathan’s combative flagging off of his campaign in Lagos and Enugu, Nigerians were already familiar with his exaggerated achievements in the economic sector, now the largest in Africa, roads rehabilitation, railways, power generation, agriculture and foreign investment all of which have been wildly celebrated by his transformation ambassadors. But I think what Nigerians were not prepared for was the president’s claim of being the champion of the war against corruption and a crusader for the rule of law.

    Addressing a crowd of supporters at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, Jonathan told the crowd of his success in the war against corruption in the last four years using modern technologies. According to him “There is no government that has fought corruption more than we have done.” The crowd did not bother about proof. But the president all the same went on to provide one. It turned out not to be in the number of corrupt people successfully prosecuted by his regime, but in the fact that  Buhari who the president claims cannot remember his telephone number is too old to understand the meaning of corruption. According to him, “Buhari believes that every wealthy Nigerian is corrupt”; and “If a Nigerian businessman has a private jet, then you are corrupt, if you have a good house, then you are corrupt, if you have a good car then you are corrupt”. The president didn’t need to ask Buhari for his definition of corruption. As a lucky shoeless boy fortuitously turned president and now surrounded by many wealthy friends, owners of big cars, private jets, palatial houses some of whom recently contributed a whopping N21 billion in a few hours towards his re-election bid, he knows better. The president’s only misfortune however is even if his crooked logic remains unassailable among the vulnerable 18 years old he has chosen to work with in order to move the nation forward, the group will not determine his fate on February 14 because they hardly vote.

    Both in Lagos and Enugu, the president also positioned himself as the guardian of the rule of law. Again, the president did not tell his supporters what he has done to enhance rule of law over the last six years. Instead he resorted to Buhari bashing. He reminded them how back in 1984, without adding that Buhari was the head of a military junta, he jailed their fathers and uncles without following rule of law. And in Enugu, how Buhari jailed ‘some prominent Igbo politicians including former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme and former governor of old Anambra State, Chief Jim Nwobodo’. The president concluded saying: “I am not going to run the government based on my habits; I am going to run the government according to global best practices.”

    But that has been the opportunity the president repeatedly bungled these past six years becoming in the process the greatest threat to the rule of law, first by his partisanship in the saga of Justice Ayo Salami who was eased out of office for having the courage to rule against PDP governors that stole their opponents’ victories in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun and later as an accessory in the undermining of the rule of law in Ogun in 2011, then Rivers, Edo and Ekiti in 2014.

    Nigerians know that as an impeached former governor who was also standing trial over EFCC alleged financial fraud besides murder charges, Ayo Fayose was not constitutionally fit to run for governorship office. But he was the president’s favourite among about 15-odd candidates. He went on without a manifesto to mysteriously secure a landslide victory over a performing incumbent Governor Fayemi. Haunted by the demon that saw him out of office in 2006, even as governor elect, Fayose went with thugs to beat up a judge presiding over his eligibility case, shredded his robe and judgment sheets. The protectors of rule of law kept their peace. Then Fayose drove 19 opposition lawmakers out of town and with the help of 300 policemen, ferried seven PDP members in government bus to the assembly where they hilariously impeached the speaker and appointed one of their own as speaker. A few minutes later, the governor appeared on a national television telling Nigerians he has recognized the new Ekiti speaker. The President and his Attorney General, guardians of the rule of law kept their peace.

    Before Ekiti was Ogun State. In the run up to the 2011 presidential election, President Jonathan was accompanied in his campaign tour of Ogun State by ex-Governor Gbenga Daniel who at the time was ruling his state as a sole administrator after shutting down the state assembly and driving the lawmakers out of town. The president pretended not to be aware of this in spite of strident calls to intervene in what was then a PDP intra party feud.

    In the battle of supremacy between Governor Rotimi Amaechi and the President’s wife in Rivers State, about seven law makers who publicly swore by the name of the president and his wife threw the state into chaos as they tried to illegally remove the speaker and the governor. The state police commissioner became the de facto governor. It took the president over six months and the intervention of well-meaning Nigerians before a tepid statement was issued in his name calling “on all those who were remotely or directly involved in heightening political tension in Rivers State to put an immediate end to their actions which are capable of plunging Rivers State into public disorder and strive to settle their political differences without further recourse to barbaric acts of violence”.

    In Edo State, about seven members of the House of Assembly consisting of suspended members of the ruling party and others barred by a court injunction from entering the assembly premises ignored court order and with the help of thugs took over the house after driving out the majority of members who have since relocated to the government house. The guardians of rule of law maintained their peace.

    However, in the wake of a recent Abuja Federal High Court order to swear in  Bala Ngilari as the Adamawa governor, it took the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bello Adoke, only a few hours after the ruling, to issue a statement directing the Chief Judge of Adamawa to immediately swear in Ngilari. Akpabio, who is the chairman of the PDP Governors’ and the president’s accomplice in many acts of impunity and politics of subterfuge, was to later tell state house correspondents that ‘President Goodluck Jonathan deserved commendation for his adherence to the Rule of Law and respect for the nation’s judiciary’. But since there is no perfect crime, as they say, Akpabio followed with a Freudian slip. “Ngilari is a PDP man; he is not in the opposition… the interesting aspect is that it is a family business for the PDP,” he said triumphantly.

    As I watched the president dance with Ayo Fayose in Ekiti last week, just as I have over time observed his apparent support for the rape of the rule of law, confirmed corrupt elements and various acts of impunity, the more I am persuaded President Jonathan lacks the strength of character to sacrifice his private interest for the public good.

  • Hail Corruption!

    This perverseness in all of us tends to make each one think only of himself and consign all other people to hell, all other members of his group to damnation, all other clients to Hades, and all other citizens to Halifax!

    I looked up my Microsoft Encarta for the definition of corruption. It described it as the ‘dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain.’ I liked the definition so much I did not bother to look for any other. I did not bother to consult our dear president’s dictionary which describes what corruption is not: stealing. I was too afraid of what it would tell me corruption is.

    We are all familiar with the national refrain: the government is too corrupt. I agree. Nearly, if not all, the governments we have been saddled with in Nigeria appear to have had only one item on their agenda: to be more corrupt than their predecessors; and to leave the country more depleted and disconsolate than they meet it. I must say they have all succeeded. The effect is that Nigerians have learnt to be corrupt in all their various places of watch. We have all imbibed the culture of corruption as a people and we are not liking it.

    The definition I stayed with – in case your English is worse than mine, dear reader, which I doubt – simply means that when we overtly or covertly use our position to gain something, no matter how trite, we have engaged in corruption. So, advertently or inadvertently, the only one not guilty of corruption is standing still. That definition rolls practically everybody into the carpet of guilt, beginning with me.

    I think one of the hardest things to manage is power: over food, money, children, properties, students, clients, proselytes, adherents, citizens, etc. Let’s take the first example. It is my belief that the area generally demarcated as the cooking stove offers a super-great temptation to be corrupt. Anyone who has ever found himself or herself in charge of the cooking will testify that you need superhuman strength to resist tasting everything in the pot to death when various kinds of aroma waft up your nostrils. I think the worst of the lot is the barbecue.

    When the grill is hot and the meat begins to sizzle, your tongue pushes itself against the palate, forcing the throat to constrict as it bobs up and down in involuntary saliva swallows, and paroxysms of desire prompt you to reach out and cut a piece to taste. Suddenly, like one in a dream, you reach out for a small piece, then another small piece after another, until you find that you have tasted an entire steak. Of course it goes on until someone with foresight knows that an entire joint would be liable to disappear if the utensils are not rescued from you. To be honest, I have always believed that what I eat at the table is not enough to account for my weight gain; I still believe that the corruption at the stove has a lot to do with it! Ladies and gentlemen, what I have just described is a metaphor for the misuse of all the national treasures kept in our care: food, money, children, properties, students, clients, proselytes, adherents, citizens, etc.

    Now, I have a very bad habit: I hate counting money, not even at the bank counter. Naturally, I have been victim to many a deliberate underpayment. I believe that counting money reminds me too much of how short it is in supply in my purse; so I just spend what little I have until I run out of. The other day, someone wanted to send some money through me to someone else and was surprised that I did not bother to verify the sum. Well, I explained, if it falls short, the fellow should know that the shortage would not have come from me.

    I explained to him that one of the greatest instances of corruption, is to ‘quickly borrow’ someone else’s money in your keeping to meet an urgent need until you can go to the bank to replace it! My sender was dumbfounded. I do believe at that moment he thought I was an angel, until I hastened to explain that I only knew that after the children had grown. When the children were young, I cannot now recollect how many times the monetary gifts they had received from visitors were ‘quickly borrowed’ for ‘something urgent’. Yes, you guessed it; I had the power over their money: it was in my keeping.

    Someone else now has power over my money because it is keeping it: the bank. Have you noticed that banks not only charge you COT but also all kinds of things including the VAT on the COT? I understand why I am charged some money on my transactions, but who on earth is supposed to pay the VAT tax on what they have charged me? Is it me or the bank gaining from the charges they have deducted from my own account? What kind of corruption of logic is this, I ask?

    Then, take the case of private transporters, i.e., drivers given charge of vehicles. It is well known that very few of them can resist the temptation to pick up paying passengers with your vehicle on their way to and fro or either of your errands. You would never be the wiser but for some tell-tale signs of forgotten or dropped items in some corner or the other of your car. You think it is the lure of the fare or companionship that makes them do it? No, it is the lure of the make-belief; the need to pretend that the car belongs to them at the point of departure; the power to decide.

    Have you ever had to deal with estate or house agents? My goodness, I tell you, they are one species of humans. I have never known a group of people to eat more from where they have not sown. They not only charge a great deal higher than the fellows who struggle to build the houses, they evict, discharge and acquit at will. Now, if that is not an example of the exercise of power and abuse of power, I don’t know what is.

     Time and space will not permit me to mention the various bodies and associations whose executive members, learned and all, appear to be only interested in using the resources of their associations to solve their own personal problems. What about civil servants and technocrats who are supposed to protect the state: e.g. certify that the road has been built or contract executed satisfactorily but who agree to look the other way at a fee when the job has been done shoddily or not at all? What about GSM companies that charge us the earth and then sell us to private enterprises to inundate us with offers of all kinds of unwanted services? What about parents, teachers, schools, villages who wangle unfair advantages for their wards?…

    It is easy to conclude that this country is all ‘messed up’ as we say up yonder because everyone is busy pointing accusing fingers at others, quite forgetting themselves. I don’t believe though that the situation cannot be redeemed; it can. As you can see, it may take more than one man or one party or one group. It requires each and every one of us.

    There is a perverseness in all of us which tends to make each one think only of himself and consign all other people to hell, all other members of his group to damnation, all other clients to Hades, and all other citizens to Halifax! In the end, we all suffer and groan and wait for a deliverer. The deliverer is you, you and me! Until we recognise that we have the power to undo this evil in our hands, we might as well continue to drone, ‘Hail Corruption!’ at wake time each morning.

  • Corruption-friendly governance

    In spite of former leaders’ flaws, Jonathan’s rot is worse

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and one-time military strongman Ibrahim Babangida delivered a blow to Jonathan individually and in separate contexts, and suggested that his government scandalously encouraged corruption.

    The nation’s president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had ironically earlier identified corruption as one of Nigeria’s twin problems.

    At a special New Year service at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, Jonathan had said: “There are two main problems confronting us as a nation: The issue of insecurity in the North where we have the Boko Haram terrorists and in the South where we have commercial kidnapping. The next thing that people worry about after security is the issue of corruption.”

    It is noteworthy that the country has an undesirable international reputation for official corruption, and Jonathan, perhaps unwittingly, reinforced the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI). The assessment was based on the extent of public sector corruption in 175 countries and Nigeria was ranked 136th. The country scored 27 out of a maximum 100 marks, and was listed as the 39th most corrupt nation in the world. This has happened on President Jonathan’s watch.

    Against the background of this ugly picture, Babangida’s interview with the media unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may be appreciated and contemplated. Babangida was quoted as saying, “I don’t have the facts but if what I read in the newspapers is currently what is happening, then I think we were angels.” It is an instructive reflection of corruption perception relating to Jonathan’s tenure. Although  Babangida headed a military regime discredited for  allegedly institutionalising corruption in Nigeria, it is a statement on the scale of corruption in the country that it could confer  sainthood on a Babangida regime that sullied the nation’s moral landscape. So terrible was the corruption and depletion of public treasury in the Babangida era that he once wondered why the nation had not collapsed.

    In his own case, Obasanjo lamented: “Our nation is plagued with insecurity, economic downturn, increase in poverty, corruption and impunity in doing things.” He told visiting Southwest women leaders at his Presidential Hilltop Estate in Abeokuta, Ogun State: “Nigeria does not deserve the position it has found itself today.”  Although, on the surface, his comments had a matter-of-fact ring, it would appear that he conveniently glossed over his own contribution to the observed regrettable state of the nation, especially in his  years as a democratic president and even beyond. The truth is that the Obasanjo administration had its own condemnable dimensions of corruption and impunity.

    However, in spite of the shaky platforms on which Obasanjo and Babangida made their observations about the country’s slide, and their own questionable morality in the context of governance, it must be noted that their interventions are not without a redeeming quality. At least, by their negative evaluation of the performance of the Jonathan presidency they helped to further highlight the present rot, which should be viewed as a positive role.

    It is remarkable that, while pinpointing the problems of insecurity and corruption, Jonathan boasted: “We are coming out with programmes and plans to clean up. These are things you just don’t use a magical wand to wave off; otherwise even before I became President, there wouldn’t have been corruption in Nigeria.”

    The disturbing implication of his reasoning is that the country has been a victim of a chain of corruption-friendly governments. Jonathan should be told that words are not enough. His track record offers little hope to a country in dire need of correction. He has been in the saddle for about six years, and if he had no plans for corruption since, how can he boast one now?

  • Corruption now worse than before, says Babangida

    Corruption now worse than before, says Babangida

    Former Military President Ibrahim Babangida has faulted the perception that he is corrupt.

    He challenged anybody with proof of corruption during his 1985 – 1993 regime to come forward with them.

    Gen. Babangida said members of his government are angels compared with what he is reading in the newspapers about what is going on now.

    He requested any Nigerian with a shred of corruption against him to release the facts to the public.

    The former military president said the $12.4b Gulf Oil War windfall of 1991 was not stolen.

    Gen. Babangida made the clarifications in an interview with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s press crew for the agency’s in-house magazine, “Zero tolerance.”

    The EFCC released the transcript of the interview to reporters in Abuja yesterday.

    He said: “Let me tell you something, maybe you have a hand in it. I have been the most investigated President Nigeria has ever had. By now, somebody should have come forward to say here it is.

    “Every government that came after me investigated me because of that perception as they wanted to retrieve the billions I stole.”

    He said he and those who served in his administration were saints and angels going by the level of corruption in the country.

    “Well, we had different approaches. I think my government was able to identify corruption-prone areas and checked them. If you remember in this country, there were things they call essential commodities. These are also sources of corruption. You go and buy Omo or food or whatever it is and we got government to take its hands off such activities. Let people use their own brains, hands and labour, nobody has to do it for them. So we did but I am proud to say that was much more effective.

    “I don’t have the facts but if what I read in the newspapers is currently what is happening then I think we were angels

    On the allegation that his military regime institutionalized corruption in Nigeria, Gen. Babangida said though he had been aware of such insinuation, the assumption is incorrect.

    He added: “Yeah, I know. Maybe I have to accept that but anybody with a sense of fairness has no option but to call us saints. I give you an example, in a year I was making less than $7billion in oil revenue. In the same period, there are governments that are making $200billion to $300billion.

    “With $7billion, I did the little I could achieve. With $200billion, there is still a lot to be achieved.”

    The ex-President said being branded as corrupt was a question of perception.

    He said: “It is said that perception is not reality. Why the perception? I should ask you because it is the perception of the media. You believed quite wrongly that we are all crooks and I bear no grudge whatsoever against anybody but I know time will come when they will say after all, they did something and this is what is happening.

    “Now, even our fiercest critics give us credit for certain things we did.”

    Pressed further on his investments, Babangida admitted owning shares in a bank.

    The interaction is as follows:

    What are these investments?

    I would assure you, using my head, I came to the conclusion that the best investment for someone like me is banking. That’s all.

    You have shares in banks?

    How many banks?

    No, in one bank.

    A major shareholder, sir?

    Yes

    Which bank are we talking of?

    (Cuts in)…Again investigate…laughs.

    On how he built his Hilltop Mansion in Minna, Babangida said: “I cannot estimate because it has appreciated. I know what my friends spent. No, my friends contributed.

    “They were friends before we came into government and friends while I was in government.

    “I started building it in 1991, took two to three years so that by the time I finished, I would have a house to sleep in.”

    Concerning the $12.4billion oil windfall from the 1991 Gulf War, Babangida insisted the money was not stolen.

    “First of all, that war lasted three months, about ninety something days. It didn’t last up to a year. So get the facts straight.

    “Secondly, the oil price at that time was below $18 per barrel. So, there is no way you could make $12.4billion in three months.

    “We could not have made that amount of money but Pius Okigbo knew what he was doing. He had brains and he said between 1986 or 1988 to 1994, monies accrued to the Federal Government at that time was about that money you are calling windfall. He said so. It is there in his book.

    “Then the other thing he said, the monies could have gone into generative investment. I am not an economist but I have an understanding of what this is.

    “Our argument then was if you have the money, why keep it and be looking at it when you have a lot of things that will benefit the ordinary man. So that money was not stolen.

    “It is what you see now in the country. Thank God most of the infrastructure we put in place are what you are using today and proudly so.”

    Asked to identify the infrastructure, Gen. Babangida said: “Abuja for example, I built Abuja. Today, we have a brand new capital. We used that money.

    “I gave you a Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. You cannot build it now for all the money Nigeria is making. And what did it cost me? N500million, N600million, N700million.

    “For the first time, a dual carriage way was seen in the Northern part of the country between Kaduna and Kano and then linked it up from Abuja. You cannot afford to do it now; you cannot even afford to touch it because there are a lot of competing needs.”

    Despite the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, he admitted that the poll was the most credible in the history of Nigeria.

    He also opened up on why a former Minister of FCT, Gen. Mamman Vatsa was killed after his involvement in the 1995 coup d’etat.

    He said his hands were tied by military law which was inevitably applied by his regime.

    The annulled poll was won by the late business mogul, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, who later died in detention while struggling to reclaim his mandate.

    Babangida said: “Yes, it (June 12) is a day in the history of Nigeria and the day the most credible election was held

    “We gave you a lot of reasons but I understood the passion. At that time, everybody was fed up. The sentiment was:  just pack your things and go. Our thought process is very limited.

    “First of all, on June 23, 1993, I was on the air and I told Nigerians why we had to do what we did but I was sensible enough to know that whatever I said nobody was interested. So, the important thing is get out.”

    He admitted that the annulment was supported by some Nigerians and pro-June 12 activists.

    He added: “I hate to say it but when we annulled June 12 poll, the same Nigerians supported the intervention of the military, true or false?

    “True because you saw it, you are old enough. All those who fought for June 12 ended up serving the military government they didn’t like and that perpetuated a longer stay of the military in government.”

    Asked why he used the phrase ‘step aside’ to leave power in 1993, Babangida said it was a military parlance.

    “Everyone of you though that I was not keeping pace with the Nigerian dream. We have a tradition in the military. If you are marching in a column, when they say left, you should obey the command. If you right foot, somebody will shout at you because you are affecting the column, you should step aside so that the column will continue. That was what I did.”

    On why Gen. Mamman Vatsa was killed, Gen. Babangida said he was hamstrung by the law.

    He added: “Because others before him faced the same law, the only change in that law was introduced by us to give room for appeal.

    “If I was involved in that coup and it flopped, I would have been shot too. So it is the application of the law but then it is painful.

    “We made the law, others suffered the consequences.”

    Responding to a question, Babangida said the military indulged in coup d’etat each time there was frustration in the society.

    He however described military interregnum as a phase that the country was going through at that time.

  • After the deluge: beyond corruption and regional realignment of forces in a post-PDP Nigeria

    After the deluge: beyond corruption and regional realignment of forces in a post-PDP Nigeria

    It is not hyperbolic to speak of a post-PDP Nigeria in mythic terms. To speak of our country as a land readying itself for cleansing and restitution after a great deluge that lasted for a long time and laid nearly everything to waste is to deploy the powers of language and symbolic logic to try to capture what Nigeria has gone through in the last sixteen years. This order of discourse moves us beyond the dry, conceptualist universe of political economy in which a country like Nigeria under the rule of the PDP is described as a failing state.

    With the discourse of symbolic and mythic logic, we are much closer to the human and psychic realities of the nation and the masses of its peoples in a period of great travail. For there are parts of the country in which, quite literally, it is as if one is in a physical terrain that looks very much like a land washed over by a great flood, a massive tsunami. Parts of the Niger Delta and the North come to mind here: those parts of the Niger Delta in which farmlands, fishing waters and the entire physical environment have been blighted by oil spills that are never cleaned up; and those parts of the North that have been seized by the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency. But these are only the worst expressions of realities that confront us everywhere in the country in which great suffering and insecurity have become the daily experience of millions of our peoples and the majority of the young that see only bleak futures ahead of them. At any rate, beyond the relatively more benign biblical parable of seven fat years coming after seven lean years, I see a post-PDP Nigeria as a land gearing up for a massive cleanup after a political tsunami, a moral and spiritual valley of death. The only caveat to add here is the necessity of anchoring the symbolic discourse of floods and tsunamis in concrete observations concerning the probable course of capitalist democracy in a post-PDP Nigeria.

    It is of course possible, though highly improbable, that the PDP will continue to rule after the general elections of 2015. In that case, I hasten to observe that my reflections in this piece will not have proved futile and delusory; rather, they would have turned out to be prescient in the sense that, by a reverse logic, the deluge will continue, the moral and psychic morass will not come to an end. This is because PDP cannot, and will never reform from within; it will never clean up the Augean stables of filth and rot it has created. If it rigs its way into perpetuation of its misrule, it will be emboldened to raise impunity to new levels and we and the whole world will be astonished by new forms of monumental corruption, waste and mismanagement of our natural and human resources. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala once said that she would be quite satisfied if she was able to reduce the scale of looting and squandermania in PDP’s Nigeria by 4%; in a post-2015 general elections era that maintains the PDP in power at the centre, that 4% will dip into the minus percentile range, that is if it has not already done so. The worst will never reach its bottom in PDP’s misrule for what we confront in it is an abyss, a bottomless cesspit. Dear readers, dear compatriots, do not withhold yourselves from dreaming about and working for a post-PDP, post-deluge Nigeria especially as it so happens that there are solid grounds on which to base projections of the PDP’s complete rout in next month’s elections, these being the roles that corruption and a new realignment of forces among our political elites, our ruling class will play in the presidential elections. Let me explain.

    Barring the stealing of victory by the PDP through massive rigging and a will to use very costly repressive violence to contain mass resistance to rigging, the 2015 general elections will be fought primarily around the twin axes of corruption and the electoral alliance of mainstream politicians of the “core” North” and the Southwest. Corruption of course exists in all the ruling class political parties and is to be found at varying levels in virtually all the state and local governments of the country. As almost every commentator on corruption in Nigeria has stated, the scale of corruption in Nigeria is nothing short of systemic: it is the noxious glue that holds everything together among godfathers and clients among our political elites; and it is the nefarious bond that binds the rulers to the ruled with regard to the unofficial and manipulative redistribution of resources between the few thousands of the haves and the millions of the have-nots. Given these factors, the question arises as to how and why corruption has come to loom much larger in the coming February 2015 general elections than it had ever done in all previous elections since the return to formal, civilian democracy in 1999.

    The answer to this question is simple and unambiguous: under the Jonathan presidency, more specifically under the Jonathan administration’s endgame to the PDP’s era of arrant misrule, corruption has far exceeded the systemic to become extra- or para- systemic; it no longer has rhyme or reason, method in madness, or logic in illogic. Trillions of naira and tens of billions of dollars vanish or are unaccounted for, even as government workers and contractors are unpaid; state governors go cap in hand to Abuja and return with near empty bowls, month after month. The looting frenzy has reached dizzying heights of impunity and this is why corruption is the first and perhaps main issue of the coming elections. Additionally, this is why short of massive and violent rigging, Jonathan and the PDP will lose as they more than deserve to do. Most Nigerians are focused on corruption as the main issue of the elections, especially given the myths, legends and facts concerning Buhari’s alleged distaste for corruption The U.S. and the European Union will in particular be keenly watching the outcome of the elections and the main reason for this is also the scale, the extra- and para-systemic nature of corruption in the Jonathan presidency and its offshoots around the country.

    And of course the other big issue in the election is what is being described as the return of power or, more specifically the presidency, to the North, this in an alliance that brings large segments of mainstream political forces of the “core” North with those of the Southwest. This is an infinitely more complex issue than the unifying and idealizing “ABJ” (Anyone But Jonathan) battle against corruption.  In the postindependence political history of the country, this is not the first time that this sort of alliance has happened, the NPC-NNDP alliance of the 1960s being the first time that a joining of forces between the North and the Southwest came to power in the center in our country. But this time around, the alliance will not be a simple repetition of history, a mere regrouping of similar ideological and programmatic tendencies. In the earlier case, the two parties did not completely merge, for the simple reason that neither the NPC nor the NNDP wanted to lose its regional identity in a single party in which regionalism was or could be completely subsumed into a national party whose regional currents took second place to a nation-wide plurality. Now the allied forces have merged into a single party of diverse and even contradictory ideological and policy orientations and as a consequence, we are about to enter into an almost totally unprecedented space of ruling class politics in our country.

    The parameters for apprehending this new space are already being set around very familiar oversimplifying ideas and perspectives. Perhaps by far the most common among these is the view that the new President will be Northern and Muslim while the Vice President will be Southern and Christian. This will certainly be the dominant view in the Western press and even within the ruling circles in Europe and the United States. And to be very candid about this, the thoughts, the emotions and the aspirations of a very large segment of the Nigerian electorate are also driven by this particular perspective. But like the question of corruption, this subject of a balancing act between a Moslem North and a Christian South begs the question of how a post-PDP Nigerian ruling class will be different in policy, programmes and issues from the era of the PDP and the long military interregnums before it. This is quite apart from the fact that the North is neither wholly Moslem nor the South wholly Christian.

    Perhaps the most important consideration of all is the fact that the APC being unlike any other merger of disparate ideological forces we have ever seen in the political history of this country, we are almost certainly on the cusp of a new order of political discourse in a post-PDP Nigeria. In this, our beginning observation is that the present coalition within the party is centre-right, with the proviso that a center-left formation is slumbering underneath the present dominant formation. There are some among those reading this piece who will think that these reflections are premature or perhaps even meaningless in the context of present-day ruling class politics in our country. These caveats, these objections will be our starting point in next week’s concluding essay in the series as we focus on what sort of capitalism a post-PDP ruling class party will institute as a replacement for the present vacuum that combines a looting frenzy with a thoughtless, fundamentalist and unregulated capitalism driven by a latter-day primitive accumulation of the basest and most unregenerate kind that the world has ever known.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Institution tackles corruption

    An anti-graft unit has been set up at Federal Polytechnic, Oko in Anambra State to tackle corruption in the institution.

    Dishonest conduct in its various forms is said to have become quite an issue at the federal institution located in Anambra North Local Government Area of the state.

    As a result, the institution in collaboration with Independent Corrupt practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC) has set up what they called Anti- Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) to fight the monster.

    Oko Federal Polytechnic has survived many turbulent periods and stood the test of the time, growing from strength to strength.

    The institution is one of the fastest developing tertiary institutions in the country, drawing strength from the synergy and cooperation with various universities within and outside the country including Sharda University, Greater Noida, India.

    The flag-off of the anti-graft unit at the school attracted the institution’s management staff, an ICPC team, Federal Character Commission personnel and the Chairman, Aguata Traditional Rulers Council, Igwe Col. O. O Muoghalu of Isuofia.

    Before the inauguration, Rev. Victor Uzuakpunwa of the Chapel of Light Church had committed the school and its management in the hands of God.

    The nine-member (ACTU) led by Mrs. Nnenna Nwobi, who were taught the ICPC slogan by the leader of the graft agency Ezeh Nwafor “shun corruption, it is evil”

    Addressing the people, the Rector of the institution, Prof Godwin Onu, said that since the inception of the current administration of the school, the institution has been put on a turnaround plane with the introduction of digitization.

    According to Onu, “we are digitalizing every process in the Polytechnic so as to eliminate bottlenecks experienced in the discharge of official business”.

    “In the course of doing this, we realized that if we must succeed we must tackle the issue of corruption headlong as it has become endemic in the system”.

    “Virtualy all aspects of public life have an element of corruption entrenched in it and that gave rise to the establishment of an anti-corruption and transparency unit in this polytechnic headed by a seasoned hand and backed by ICPC”.

    “Corruption is at the very core of the survival of the nation’s tertiary institutions. There is no doubt that our ivory towers are supposed to be repositories of knowledge that has the capacity to uplift knowledge and chastise vice and offers authority to virtue”.

    The Rector said there were quite plethora of unethical behaviours brazenly manifested in the polytechnic at inception which, according to him, included extortion of students by staff.

    Others were undeserved award of scores after examination, gratification, indecent dressing, godfather syndrome, political interference in management of institution and channeling greed towards public office among others.

    However, he said that ACTU has come to stay, adding that the institution would do everything within its power to support the activities of the office to fight corruption.

    For the ICPC helmsman Ezeh Nwafor, who represented the head Enugu zone, Udonsi U. Arua, commended the institution for being cult free unlike what happens in some other institutions.

    He said the coming of ACTU would equally bring to an end all other vices that exist in the institution, but warned that the members should not use it to intimidate or harass innocent persons.

     

  • Re: Oduah: Canonising corruption

    Sir: I read with utmost disappointment a letter with the above title in your esteemed newspaper where one Babatope Babalobi vented his frustration against the former aviation minister, Stella Adaeze Oduah.  Ordinarily, such deliberate and cowardly writing deserves no attention but for the purposes of decency, good conscience and posterity, it becomes necessary to correct certain impressions in order to answer some questions concerning the issues raised in the article.

    It is  not true that the former aviation minister was found guilty of any criminal matter by any court in the land for any wrong doing as to prevent her from holding any elective or public office in the country. The issues under reference emanated from disputed cost of bullet-proof BMW cars meant for her ministry. She  did not steal the money or failed to purchase the cars. She also did not ride in them.

    But at the heat of it all, she opted to leave the office in dignity.  Not many Nigerians holding public office would bow out with humility and dignity as she did.

    Princess Oduah cannot be said to be a saint but it should be noted that there is no office or ministry that has never been mired in more serious controversies. Please check the records.      Why Babatope Babalobi after a very long time since the imbroglio suddenly became exceptionally aggrieved raises so many questions.

    Is this not a hatchet job against the Princess over her victory in her senatorial ambition?

    On the issue of Oduah’s academic standing, whose interest is Babalobi protecting or does he not know where to lodge his complaint? ls it the Phd holders, engineers and professors who held sway in the aviation industry when our airports were mere motorparks and our aeroplanes dubbed flying coffings?

    Today, Oduah has recorded history as the amazon of the aviation industry whose positive contribution in the sector will remain indelible.  In his jaundiced view, Babalobi failed to commend Oduah for upgrading Nigerian airports to compete with those of the civilised world. If no other people are proud of Oduah, the Igbos are because the feat she performed at the Enugu airport, lifting it to international standard is remarkable not to talk of approval for Asaba airport.

    Concerning her victory at the PDP primaries, it showed how popular and likeable she is among the people. For the avoidance of doubt, unless the PDP wants to lose the Anambra North senatorial seat, they should not field another candidate. In the senatorial district, Oduah has touched the lives of many in practical terms. She has a foundation that has given succour to widows, scholarship to the indigent, employment to the unemployed, loans to farmers, promotion of sports talents etc.

    Oduah’s life is full of achievements which have really not gotten into her head. She has respect for the elderly, priests and religious leaders irrespective of denomination.

     

    Chukwunwike Ononye, 

    Akili Ozizor, Anambra State

  • Oduah: Canonising corruption

    SIR: Princess Stella Oduah is set to return to public office with her nomination last weekend as the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for Anambra Senatorial seat. According to media reports, she defeated the incumbent representing the zone- Margery Okadigbo by 259 to eight votes.

    Oduah was Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation until February, when she was dropped from President Jonathan’s cabinet. Though no official explanation was given for her ‘sack’, her critics claimed victory, saying it was in a subtle Presidential response to  Oduahgate, an acronym that epitomizes and summarizes the national hoopla, odium, and obloquy on the  ministerial approval she gave for the purchase of two bullet proof armored BWM cars for  scandalous sum of N225m (N255m?). The princely and obviously inflated cars were meant for her official use, as the then Minister of Aviation.

    A Presidential panel that inquired into the transactions reportedly indicted her, though typical of similar reports,  the findings and recommendations were never made public, nor implemented by the Jonathan’s administration.  Also, a Committee of the House of Representative similarly indicted the Anambra Princess; and not surprisingly the report has not been officially tabled for discussion in the plenary of the House of Representative.

    Stella Oduah educational qualifications and certifications is also mired in several controversies, as the Masters and Doctorate degrees she claims from American university have been questioned.

    Against this backdrop, it is therefore highly politically instructive that the disgraced former Minister is staging a comeback to public life, through the ruling party that unceremoniously dropped her from the cabinet and she may soon become one of the ‘Distinguished Senators’ making laws for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Whether she eventually wins the senatorial election in the 2015 general elections is not relevant for this analysis. The mere fact that a Federal Minister ‘sacked for waste of public funds, could pick a Senatorial ticket less than 12 months afterwards, is poignant for understanding Nigeria’s politics.

    Her political victory affirms the long held notion that Nigerians are not only corrupt, but corruption is official. On the part of the party that qualified her to contest in the first instance, it shows corruption is the official manifesto of the PDP; while the message from the people that voted for her in the party primaries is that issues, are not relevant in deciding political fortunes or misfortunes. As far as her people are concerned she has done so well in spite of the myriads of allegations against her, and she should go back to go and scoop more of the national cake.

    Her victory in her party’s primaries also shows that the future for good governance in Nigeria is bleak, under the present political system. Nigeria’s political system glorifies money over ideas, recycles ineptitude over diligence, and canonizes corruption over integrity.

    Her coming also exposes the ineptitude, indolence, helplessness, and irrelevance of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies. Gone are the days, when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFCC) would threaten and bark that past public officers being investigated for corrupt practices, would not be allowed to contest for public offices. The EFCC of today has been castrated by the powers-that-be, and has become an impotent bull dog, that cannot even bark, not to talk of biting. The EFCC is a passive observer of the primitive distribution and allocation of our collective wealth among the governing and ruling class. Like a castrated dog, the EFCC now watches helplessly, when certified corrupt public officers are flaunting their putrid opulence, and pitching the noses of those who had the temerity to accuse them of malfeasance.

     • Babatope Babalobi,

     Coordinator, Movement for Revolutionary Change,

    Lagos 

  • Celebration of corruption

    Last Sunday, Dr Doyin Okupe once again did what he does best-insulting Nigerians and assaulting their sensibilities. After months of jamborees around a nation at war by TAN, a body suspected to be an assemblage of government contractors, to celebrate President Jonathan as the best leader our nation has ever produced, the government decided to set aside its temporary setback on the battle front, roll out the drums to celebrate some of its recent victories in its war against corruption. According to Okupe, these success are to be measured in terms of redistribution of billions of naira through government improvement on the “the old corrupt system of government direct procurement and distribution of fertilizer” and  the “nation’s movement from its 144th position on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index last year to 136th position this year”.

    The problem however is that many Nigerians seem to share the views of Adewale Maja-Pearce who in a piece titled. “The Nigerian Status Quo” written for the New York Times on November 16, that“The current Nigerian government is widely seen as the most corrupt since independence from Britain in 1960”. Everything President Jonathan has done in the last six years seems to reinforce this view. In fact for many, who have not only watched helplessly as few greedy politicians and their fronts confiscate our national patrimony, but also witnessed the imposition of economic policies which have failed in the West where there are rules on a people that operate without rules; or where the rules are violated by government where they exist, government is an accomplice.

    Unfortunately for Okupe, this feeling cuts across party lines. Aminu Tambuwal, a PDP member until few weeks ago, is for instance on record as saying that  President  Jonathan’s “body language” did not indicate that  he had the political will  to stem  corruption in the country. He had then decried Jonathan’s penchant for setting up committees to probe corruption allegations instead of allowing the statutory bodies set up by law such as the EFCC, the ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices and other-related Offences Commission) and the Code of Conduct Bureau to do their job. He had then cited the oil subsidy and Securities and Exchange Commission scandals, the Pension scam as well as the ‘Oduaghate’, to buttress his allegation of Jonathan’s perceived paying of lip-service to the war against graft. Of course, sycophants surrounding the president trivialized the serious issue by asking “Is he (Tambuwwal) now a sorcerer that he now goes about reading people’s body language?”

    David Mark, the Senate President betrayed his frustration in the celebrated pension scam case. Mark had asked the President who was suspected to be shielding Maina to ‘choose between maina and the Senate’. And on John Yakubu who embezzled N27.2billion and got reprieve after paying a fine of N750, 000, David Mark had observed: “for any living human being to have stolen the money of those who have laboured for this country, I think it is only God who can decide their fate”.

    And not too long ago, deeply troubled Senator Victor Ndoma Egba, the senate majority leader told his subdued colleagues on the floor of the Upper House, that he was sure none of them could have imagined the level of decadence in our society. He then gave a personal testimony. According to him, his old father, a retired justice of the appeal court had authorized one of his sons to sign for his pension. The young man was made to sign for the over N7 million boldly written against his father’s name but was paid N5 million. The N2 million which he described as ‘blood money’ was forcefully taken as bribe by government officials. “If that could happen to a retired justice of Nigerian Court of Appeal whose son by the grace of God, is the majority leader of the Nigerian senate, the plight of lesser beings could be better imagined”, he had moaned

    Okupe perhaps also thinks Nigerians cannot appreciate the reason their leader is often treated with disdain by Western leaders and African countries that once looked up to us for direction has been on account of his inability to tackle corruption. Except those who live by lying to the president, Nigerians know President Jonathan has been captured by fuel subsidy fraudsters, armoured car scammers, and beneficiaries of government import waivers who import the labour of other societies to the detriment of our jobless youths. President Jonathan made his choice. And this he has reinforced by his policies in the last six years.

    First let us start with the pension scam. All attempts to bring sanity to the pension system have been sabotaged by the presidency. For instance the Senate Joint Committee on Public Service and Establishment and State and Local Government Administration spent four months to investigate the alleged mismanagement of N469bn pension funds.  On June 20, 2012, it submitted a report establishing the diversion of N273.9billion between 2005 and 2011. It also discovered in December 2012 another N195bn fresh pension fraud.

    Senator Aloysius Etok, the chairman of the pension probe panel also discovered that Abdulrasheed Maina spent N1billion screening 29 pensioners, another N8 million on a weekly basis on 38 security officers guarding him and was also found to have forged his transfer letter from Borno State. The man refused to honour six different invitations from the Senate which prompted the senate president to issue a warrant of arrest. While moving around with police escort, accompanying the president to welcome foreign dignitaries, Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba said – “We have not seen Maina. He is still a wanted man; anyone with information about him should please contact us”. Just as princess Oduah was part of the president’s delegation to Jerusalem shortly after ‘Oduahgate’ scandal; Senators Olubunmi Adetunmbi and Enyinnaya Abaribe have claimed Maina was in the entourage of the president trips to some foreign countries. For Jonathan, friendship takes precedence over the nation.

    But friends turn foes when he is challenged. That was the fate of the former CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi following his letter to the President alleging that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had failed to remit $49.8bn, to the Federation Account. The figure was later scaled down to $20bn. The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala later admitted that at least $10 billion remains unaccounted for, and explained that President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered a forensic investigation into the missing money. The race for 2015 has eclipsed all that.  Sanusi the harbinger of tales considered unpalatable by government has been shoved out of office. In NNPC, it is business as usual.

    And to further confirm that another name for the Jonathan presidency is corruption, we can take another look at the fuel subsidy scandal. The actual budget expenditure on subsidy for both petrol (PMS) and House Hold Kerosene, in 2008 was only N346.7b .The major actors were four companies along with NNPC. The four became 140 by 2011 under Jonathan. As against N245 billion Appropriated  in 2011, N2, 657.087 trillion was paid with much of the amount  not for consumed PMS but shared by government officials and PDP stalwarts including those who did not import a pint of fuel. Okupe told us we should praise the president who in an election year allowed the sons of his party’s current and immediate past chairmen taken to court for their alleged involvement in the fuel subsidy scam.

    That they have not been successfully prosecuted, the president claims were because ‘the wheel of justice grinds slowly in our environment’. But the same wheels were energized to secure justice for Boni Haruna in four days after seven years grilling by EFCC to pave the way for his ministerial appointment. In the case of Ayo Fayose, after 52 court appearances and months of detention by EFFCC, between 2006 and 2014, the same wheels were disabled to ensure he became governor without first ascertaining his eligibility as an impeached former governor.