A pragmatic approach to crack corruption
President Muhammadu Buhari moved another step further in his government’s anti-corruption war with the constitution of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, headed by a prominent professor of law and civil rights activist, Prof Itse Sagay. Femi Adesina, the president’s special adviser on media and publicity, said the committee’s brief is to advise the government on the prosecution of the war against corruption as well as the implementation of required reforms in the country’s criminal justice system.
Other members of the committee are Prof Femi Odekunle, a professor of criminology at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Dr (Mrs.) Benedicta Daudu, an associate professor of international law, University of Jos (UNIJOS); Prof E. Alemika, professor of sociology also of UNIJOS. Others are Prof Sadiq Radda, professor of criminology, Bayero University, Kano; Hadiza Bala Usman, a civil society activist while Prof Bolaji Owasanoye of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies would serve both as member and executive secretary of the committee.
One area of the committee’s brief that interests me is that having to do with the reform of the country’s criminal justice system. Without doubt, unless something drastic is done about this, we would only be moving in circles on the anti-corruption war. As things stand, our criminal justice system appears inadequate to tame the corruption monster. Where it is not, some judges have made a mess of it in a way that gives criminals and the criminally-minded undue protection.
The celebrated Halliburton scam is a case study. This is a scandal that allegedly involves several prominent Nigerians, including former heads of state. As a matter of fact, this seems the very reason why we are making progress in reverse on the matter. Today, the case is ordered reopened; tomorrow it is ordered closed. So, we have been going back and forth on a matter for which some of our big people should have been left to rot in jail as a result of their involvement in the $182m bribery scandal. The latest information is that the United States is insisting that the case be reopened for it to return the $130m in its coffers to the Federal Government.
Without doubt, the judiciary has been complicit in some of the corruption cases such that it is even possible to smell a rat in some of the decisions taken on some of them. Of course judges are also part of the society; and may not necessarily be immune to what obtains in the society. But then, it is because we hardly punish corruption, especially at the top. If we do, judges who hawk injunctions would think twice before doing so. Imagine the last time, shortly before the general elections when the chief justice warned judges against unethical practices, the warning sank and that was part of what ensured the sanity witnessed in our courts in many of the cases brought by politicians, with many of them ready to bribe God if he would make himself available to be bribed.
It is only in this country that people who are to be investigated for corruption would rush to court and ask for injunction not to be investigated and the court would grant the injunction. This is one of the few countries where the courts would waste a lot of time trying to decide whether James Ibori and James Onanefe Ibori are one and the same person, even as the substantive matter is yet to be heard.
The point is, for the country to make progress in its anti-corruption battle, the government has to be systematic in its approach. Otherwise, those who looted our treasury would continue to flaunt the ill-gotten wealth to our chagrin and nothing can be more disheartening than that for victims of treasury looting. I could feel the tears welled up in the eyes of one of my readers a few weeks ago when he sent an sms concerning a particular oil baron in the eastern part of the country who still goes about with a retinue of official security men, with siren to boot, even when we all know the damage he has done to the nation through fuel subsidy racket and other scams. Hopefully, President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that security men attached to important personalities be pruned will reflect on the number of security details protecting this oil baron. I can only imagine the millions of other Nigerians who are weeping silently over similar unfair and unjust protection of treasury looters.
Apart from systematically approaching the issue for maximum benefit, there is also the need to reinvigorate the anti-corruption agencies. The way they sometimes lose important cases in the courts seems to show that they lack the requisite professional expertise to successfully prosecute especially high profile cases. And it is some of these big fishes that we need as scapegoats to show the government’s seriousness in this matter and drive home the point that, truly, no one is above the law. That is not the case for now as these big people often buy justice and only get a slap on the wrist for serious crimes committed against the state.
The courts too must be strengthened with the needed modern facilities provided to assist them in the administration of justice. Moreover, judges found wanting, especially with regard to corruption should not only be retired, they should also be made to face the law. There is a lot to do if the country is to make any serious dent on corruption.
All said, however, given the credentials of most members of the committee, there is no doubt that they have the essentials to make a success of their assignment. The chairman is himself a man of proven integrity, and one who should know where the judiciary is being abused to miscarry or delay justice.
President Buhari must realise that his integrity is at stake in this matter. Indeed, it is this question of integrity that has made three influential international development partners, the Ford foundation, MacArthur Foundation and Open Society Foundation to establish an Anti-Corruption and Criminal Justice Reform Fund with $5m to assist in the implementation of key components of the Action Plan and the work of the Presidential Advisory Committee. The government must realise that this is an unusual partnership and must therefore strive to ensure there are results. It is doubtful if any international organisation could have extended such assistance to the immediate past Federal Government to tackle corruption. On their part, the committee members must realise that all eyes are on them to see what they would make of the assignment.
My daddy is gone!
Finally, my dad died on August 11, after battling with death for about one week. It was exactly eight days to his 80th birthday. He took ill on August 5, was rushed to a hospital, appeared to have recovered and was returned home, only to be taken back to the hospital the next day when the sickness relapsed. In our efforts to get him better medical care, we changed his hospital. But death, that necessary end that will certainly come when it will, according to Shakespeare, came and snatched him away at about evening on August 11.
For the benefit of readers who had been wondering why this column had been off in the last two weeks; this explains it all. I spent the first week trying to assist so that the old man could make it, and the next, when he didn’t, trying to recover from the shock. What could have come as an 80th birthday present by way of celebrating him on this same page would be published shortly before his burial. My only regret is that he is no more alive to read or feel it.
I say thank you to all those who have been calling to commiserate with me. It was an experience indeed.
