President-elect
Muhammadu Buhari has a reputation of a no-nonsense clean man who has a
low tolerance for corruption. Such a reputation was partly responsible
for his victory in the last presidential election, which many believe
was one of the most keenly contested polls in the history of Africa’s
most populous country. But how far such an image will come in handy as
he confronts the scourge of corruption in the coming days and weeks
remains a matter of conjecture.
The incoming President is
already talking tough about what he will do when he assumes office on
May 29. He has already told those who care to listen that no corrupt
politician would serve in his government. He has also promised to plug
most of the leakages of the national treasury and announced that he
would be probing the allegation of the $20bn, which a former Central
Bank governor, Lamido Sanusi, alleged had yet to be remitted to the
federation account some time ago.
No doubt, all
these statements are very useful to send the signal that the incoming
government will not be business-as-usual. Indeed, political will is very
crucial in any successful fight against corruption. The General
obviously has a lot of it. However, it is not sufficient. How he will
translate his grand rhetoric to verifiable action remains a daunting
challenge.
It is instructive to note that individuals do not
fight corruption, institutions do and if you ask me, I will say our
institutions have been eroded significantly. Different scholars have
described the character of corruption in Nigeria in many interesting
ways. Many say it is endemic, some say it is perennial, while others
insist that it is systemic. In all, the virus of corruption seems to
have eaten deep into the fabric of the Nigerian society including the
political class. Many refer to the scandalous level of theft of public
funds, which has led to scandalous wealth of the ruling elite, with
growing poverty and misery among the masses.
We must not forget
that previous anti-corruption interventions in Nigeria have yielded
elusive results. Some accounts suggest that Nigerian leaders might have
stolen or mismanaged up to US$412bn of oil revenue since independence,
which amounts to six Marshall Plans. One observer noted that both
military and civilian regimes in the country were pervaded by
corruption, aided and enhanced by oil revenues, which has created
extreme kleptocracy leading to the scandalous wealth of the ruling
elite, with growing poverty and misery among the masses. As if to
reaffirm this, two Nigerian scholars, Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer
Obadare, once observed that in Nigeria, public office is regarded as an
opportunity for stealing, something that is now known as access to the
national cake, referring to public funds derived from oil. Billions of
dollars traceable to Nigeria are still lying in many offshore financial
centres like Switzerland, Luxemburg, Cayman Islands, British Virgin
Islands, Kingdom of the Principality of Liechtenstein and others. That
should give the incoming administration a snapshot of what lies ahead.
I
contend that the nature of corruption in Nigeria has not been
adequately understood and, unless that happens, Buhari may end up
applying the wrong remedies. While I do not claim to have all the
solutions, I must counsel the incoming administration to be weary of
pre-conceived and untested ideas about reforms that do not have
relevance to our peculiar context and political terrain. Strengthening
the anti-corruption institutions will be a good idea, but when there are
too many agencies doing the same thing, it may end up creating
unnecessary duplication and promoting the corruption it is meant to
fight.
I have read that the incoming government is contemplating
extending amnesty to corrupt politicians. Nice idea. One is curious
about how it will pull that off though. Will they confess their sins and
bring back part of the loot? What will be the criteria upon which it
will choose those who will benefit from the amnesty? The issue of
establishing a special court will be something nice to consider at this
time. But who will be the judges? These same judges who grant dubious
injunctions even on public holidays and at weekends to pursue
preconceived political agenda? It is the Nigerian judiciary that added
the word “perpetual” in the global lexicon of injunctions – all to
protect the corrupt and powerful.
My sense is that whatever
anti-corruption approach that should be adopted must be made to be
multifaceted just as the problem itself. We must not forget that the
constitutional role of the National Assembly in providing oversight over
executive excesses and rascality must be encouraged. If we have a
National Assembly that is up to task, then the problem of corruption in
Nigeria will be reduced by more than half. What we have seen in the past
is a parliament that is bedevilled by myriads of corruption scandals.
So who will the lawmakers discharge their constitutional role to when
they have the same problems amongst themselves? Many observers will
argue that there can be no better time to encourage an ethical
introspection within our parliaments than now. Furthermore, the
complimentary role of the civil society groups and the media should be
encouraged and deliberately strengthened.
There are many other
indirect ways of fighting corruption like the issue of growing public
trust and social capital among the society. While corruption is a
negative manifestation of social capital, public trust is a positive
manifestation of it. This has been tested in many Nordic countries that
now have low levels of corruption. It involves leveraging on
pre-existing networks of relationships among people in a society. There
are empirical evidences that in societies where there is high public
trust, there is usually low corruption and vice versa. Which means that
the high corruption in Nigeria may be linked to low public trust. With
the increasing level of mistrust in Nigeria arising from the divisive
politics of the past, it is urgent and needful to begin to rebuild
public trust among citizens, religions, for government and for the
political elite in general. The direction of action of the incoming
government will set the pace of how it will be perceived. Buhari’s image
and his anti-corruption stance are useful but to rid Nigeria of the
menace will take a little more. The stakes are very high and the world
is watching how he will match his words with prompt action. Buhari must
not allow the euphoria that heralded his victory and the expectations of
Nigerians be dampened.
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