Nigerians
can only hope at the moment. Hope that efforts to curb corruption will
not end up in nothing. For it is heading in that direction as things
stand now. Going by the latest comments from the head of this house,
President Goodluck Jonathan, that is. “We talk about corruption as if it
is the cause of our problems. No, yes, we have corruption in this
country. The government has also been fighting corruption.” That was
President Jonathan talking the other day. He had added that corruption
is not the cause of the problem in the aviation sector, as well as the
bad state of most Nigerian roads. Oh, not even Nigeria’s main problem,
he said. It was his reaction to observations made at an event totally
unrelated to corruption matters. No, yes. This is one reason a Nigerian
may sometimes wish that his president observes moments of silence, on
certain matters, under certain circumstances. This comment shows one
thing, however: It shows that the head of this house called Nigeria is
on a different page, different from his citizens who are confronted by
high incidence of corruption wherever they turn.
Now,
once in a while, a writer may wish to let his leader be, and concern
himself with other issues of public interest. When the writer hears a
comment such as the above, and his first reaction is to emit Haa! Then,
his restraints become elastic. Here are reasons: Foreigners who monitor
what Nigerians loot and bring to their countries insist corruption is a
major problem here. That’s one. In the 2012 Corruption Perception Index
of the Transparency International, Nigeria scored 27 out of a total of
100 marks, which placed the country in the 139th position out of 176
countries. As for budget openness, TI assessed it to be nil or scanty,
meaning that Nigerians don’t know much about how their governments go
about expending funds once lawmakers give their approval. Note that the
budget determines what flows where in any year, and you will see the
relevance of openness in expending fund. There have been cases of funds
allocated for road construction. The roads are either not constructed
but huge mobilisation fees are paid, or they are poorly executed. But
while officials here routinely dismiss TI’s annual reports, a few
interesting things make it a body any serious government should pay
attention.
TI
conducts surveys, and interviews foreigners in Nigeria, seeking their
views on how regularly they come up against incidence of corruption in
the course of establishing, or running a business. Some of the materials
that the body also assesses come from the World Bank surveys, African
Development Bank, IMF, other credible World reports, as well as surveys
companies that intend to come into the Nigerian market have carried out
on the business environment. One question that TI may, for instance, ask
a company operating in Nigeria is: Do people use power, especially
government officials, for private gains? The response is that in
Nigeria, they are daily confronted with public officials that ask for
bribes. Nigerians won’t disagree with that, of course, although their
officials will write on why that cannot be the case. And Nigerians would
not have known what they knew in 2012, if lawmakers had not taken their
oversight function seriously. In the process, Senators removed the
mystical eku cloth off the fuel subsidy masquerader, and the
House of Representatives revealed the scam in the pension scheme. Let
Nigerians consider the billions of naira involved in fuel subsidy scam
alone, and judge how corruption cannot be even a remote cause of the
problem in the aviation and road transport sectors. Did Jonathan forget
that in January 2012, construction and maintenance of roads had been one
of the reasons he said subsidy would be removed?
The
President made his remark at the funeral service for the former
National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Azazi. The Presiding Bishop at
the occasion, Bishop of Bomadi Catholic Diocese, Vicarage Hyacinth
Egbebor, had said the insecure conditions of Nigerian roads was a reason
people take to the air. Corruption is at the root of it, the Bishop had
added, and that once upon a time he too was nearly killed on the
deplorable East-West road. The President heard the cleric, and he
reacted. Did any reader notice something that sounds like jest in that
comment, in its context, and in the nuances of how Nigerians understand
words? And the President has figures to back his claim. He and his
officials sat and they discovered that, of most of the cases in court,
“about 80 per cent of them are not corruption cases.” Alright! But has
thought been given to just one corruption case, and in one sector, where
looting is such that it could have overrun the nation’s budget, and one
way or another affects allocations for roads that should be constructed
or maintained? The oil subsidy matter is a case in point.
Subsidy
on imported fuel alone was taking a huge chunk of the national budget,
when lawmakers caused hearings to take place. Now, according to the
Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, much of the billions claimed
illegally as subsidy have been paid back into government coffers. Other
players are in court. Weeks back, the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission chairman said N14bn was moved out of the country between
January and August, 2012, and since September, his men had intercepted
$14m at the nation’s airports. Those are the ones that were discovered.
Could they possibly be part of the funds that could have gone into the
aviation sector, road construction and road maintenance? The governor of
Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, granted an interview after the crash of
the military helicopter that led to the death of Azazi and Governor
Patrick Yakowa. He said his colleagues were interested in the
investigation to unravel the causes of the crash, and they would send
their own observers. He had not made three sentences in the course of
the interview when he made strong allusions to corruption. In fact, he
had said corruption had to be confronted and fought. There is no doubt
the governors were suspicious that the military helicopter had not been
in top condition as of the time it crashed. Yet, there was allocation
for its maintenance in the budget.
Not
long ago, soldiers mutinied because senior officers helped themselves
to the hard currency meant for their allowances in peacekeeping
operations. The soldiers were court-martialled. That was how the career
of fine young soldiers was terminated, their lives hanging in the
balance. Because of corruption in the military. Now their
Commander-in-Chief dismisses corruption as one reason for the nation’s
problems, separating what corruption affects from what it does not. One
should think a primary school pupil knows that when more is frittered in
one place, less of the same will be available in another. Does Nigeria
have a corruption perception problem, with what is reported each day?
Yes. Then it should be confronted, rather than this kind of
justification that is dished out piecemeal, and which no discerning mind
would give a serious attention.
One
should think it’s about time the nation’s leadership stopped
sidestepping the issue. There is an elitist conspiracy to shield from
imprisonment every corrupt person that is a prop for the political class
in this country. The leadership talks about cases and reports it has
seen. Nigerians know of the cases they see, come up against each day.
Obviously, Nigerians see, but the leadership chooses what it wishes to
see, and justifies. Those concerned know how many corruption cases the
current Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation,
Mohammed Adoke, has caused to be withdrawn from court. A reason the
civil society called for his dismissal recently. And lawmakers sit in
the dome after they have admitted they took bribe. Officials aided oil
importers to loot in the oil subsidy scams, but the same officials, at
whatever level, still sit in offices in government agencies. Credible
organisations that other nations take seriously make indices on
corruption available, leadership here ignores them. That, in a situation
where a country like Burundi, for instance, is working with TI in order
to reduce corruption incidence in that country. It is because Burundi
knows this: Nations and international organisations that partner her
take reports from bodies like TI seriously. So her leadership, in all
sincerity, partners TI to reduce incidence of corruption. A sensible
thing to do, because the same TI does not only show problems, it
proffers solutions as part of its report.
Nigeria’s
leadership debunks TI rather than go the Burundi way. And this happens
at the highest level, making citizens distrust the government. Has any
Nigerian seen a leadership which speaks but discerning citizens don’t
take seriously; one that reduces the irreducible to the point of
incomprehensibility and befuddlement? Then he’s seen a leadership that
should enter the silence mode, more often than not.
Punch Nigeria
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