What is
insufferably scandalous about the Nigerian condition is that the more it
appears we are on the cusp of effectively routing a debilitating menace
plaguing the nation, the more in reality, it becomes deep-rooted.
Nowhere is this more
obvious in contemporary Nigeria
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| House Speaker Yakubu Dogara and Senate President Bukola Saraki |
As though to mock the
brutal focalisation of the past administration as the sole embodiment of
corruption in the nation’s political experience, we are now confronted
with a situation where those who are the self-declared precursors of a
corruption-free era are the ones who are now smeared with the miasma of
corruption.
Think of the racking allegations of the members of the House of Representatives
being responsible for a massive manipulation of the budget the point becomes
clear. Of course, no one inveighs against the statutory right of
the lawmakers to tinker with the nation’s budget. But what has
justifiably provoked the ire of the citizens is that such a discharge of a
statutory obligation is by no means for the good of the citizens. It is solely
for the interest of only a minority of the citizens – the lawmakers
themselves.
To be sure, there is no
deployment of a newfangled method by the lawmakers for the alleged
perpetration of corruption. For to a large extent, the purpose
of seeking a public office in these climes, despite all pretentions
to altruism, is simply the padding of budgets. There have only been accusations
and counter-accusations because the deal has gone awry.
The Senate has
protested its innocence as though such scandals could only be associated with
the House of Representatives. Yet, the citizens are aware that the special
new breed of politicians that former Military President Ibrahim Babangida
tried to mint through his endless transition, and that the current
dispensation is expected to sire remain elusive in the Nigerian political
space. Thus, we remain saddled with politicians who maim, kill,
forge birthday and educational certificates, sell their houses and
borrow, become cultists, fawn on unscrupulous benefactors and scramble
for juicy committees not because of the big positive
difference they would strive to use their offices to make but the
prospect of self-aggrandisement through padding.
The lawmakers drove
this point home by their riposte to former President Olusegun Obasanjo that as
far as corruption is concerned, he holds the inglorious record of fertilising
it in our post-1999 political dispensation. To the lawmakers, the evidence is
handy. It was Obasanjo who attempted corralling the National Assembly
into endorsing his infamous agenda for a third term by bribing them with as
much as N50 million in Ghana-must-go bags.
Thus as a nation, what should be of concern to us is not the accusations,
counter-accusations and the feckless attempts by anti-corruption
agencies to probe, but the ubiquitous character of corruption and the fact that
to defeat it, we need to deploy more efforts than the existing ones.
Or, how do we
effectively fight corruption when it is clear that some past leaders who are
suspected to be corrupt are not being hounded by the anti-corruption agencies
and are rather being hallowed as elder statesmen and political mentors? How do
we decimate this pandemic affliction when our political leaders are still
allowed to have access to sleazy funds under the deceptive rubric of security
votes? The president, the governors and council chairmen have security
votes from which all manner of egregious tastes are catered to – from
acquiring more paramours including under-age girls and buying several
vehicles for them , to sponsoring the weddings of cronies
overseas.
All this is happening
at a time that there is a massive economic crisis ravaging the land
with the attendant loss of jobs, grinding poverty and suicides to escape
unending frustrations. In this regard, although we appreciate the
destabilising vision of Dambudzo Marechera in The House of Hunger,
the searing post-colonial condition would have been better captured if he
had lived longer and reflected on Africa
through the prism of the Nigerian condition. Indeed, contrary to the
modest expectations of the citizens who voted them into power, our current crop
of leaders have capriciously bifurcated the country into the
house of greed and the house of hunger. The citizens inhabit the house of
hunger while our leaders luxuriate in the house of abundance and greed.
The lawmakers are not
concerned with how to raise the bulk of the population to a higher standard of
living. All they are interested in is how to amass more wealth; how
to recoup their investments in their political ventures. To
effectively stem the rampaging corruption that has rightly been acknowledged as
a blight on our development, we must sincerely re-strategise our campaign
against it. In this regard, we should begin by stripping our president,
governors and others of the privilege of having security votes. The allocations
to security agencies are enough to handle our security matters. We must
not leave room for a governor to be receiving over N1 billion
monthly under the guise of security vote that is not accounted for. And if at
all we must allow the argument that security votes have been used in some
states to boost security through the provision of vehicles and equipment for
the police, for instance, then there must be a clear template
for accountability for the president, governors and others who are given
these allocations to make them invulnerable to misappropriation. For
as long as the executive has security votes as a means of self-enrichment,
the legislature would continue to justify its appropriation of all kinds
of huge amounts of money for amorphous constituency projects.
Besides, corruption has remained vitalised by the warped electoral
process underpinned by the breadth of one’s financial influence. It is
such a process that throws up leaders who are not eligible for public office by
their character and passion to serve. Therefore, there should be a transparent
electoral system that would produce credible leaders who are not solely
actuated by the desire for material acquisition as the case we have now.
The legislature would
continue to pad budgets and devise other ways of enriching themselves at
the expense of the citizens as long as the executive that has the
anti-corruption agencies cannot be said to be immune to corruption.
The lawmakers would not take seriously the anti-corruption campaign as long as
the president himself continues to open himself to the charge of being an
embodiment of parochialism.
Again, our lawmakers
are quite aware that they are only serving themselves by their actions that
negate the constitution and the interest of the citizens and that is
why they are clamouring for immunity. If they have no immunity now and all they
use their offices for is the perpetration of corruption and the plunging of the
citizens into the mire of impoverishment through remorseless mis-governance,
what would they not do to serve themselves when they have immunity?
*Dr. Onomuakpokpo is on the Editorial Board of The Guardian
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