By Lewis
Obi
Compared to his 1984 offensive
President Muhammadu Buhari’s current war against corruption is looking like a
child’s play. Granted, he does not have the same tools he had in 1984-85,
the dictatorial powers which enabled him unleash a blitzkrieg which herded
scores of politicians into prison. But it is also true that the tools he
has now, moral leadership, freely granted him by the people, are grossly
under-utilized. Then in 1984, he was literally a young man of 42 with all
the impetuosity that comes with youth. But now he is wise, mature,
deliberative but slow. There’s probably no other way to explain how he
did not see the “security report” delivered to the Senate by the Department of
State Services on his nominee for chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC).
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| *Buhari |
A
Nigerian president is a very busy man and is not expected to see most of the
things done in his name. But the fight against corruption is considered
Buhari’s priority on which he has staked his reputation and honour. He is
expected to know the demands of Murphy’s Law, and if he would be unable to see
the confidential information being forwarded to the Senate about his nominee,
his leg man, his liaison to the Senate, should and ought to have seen it,
because, conventionally, he is to shepherd the nominee through the confirmation
process. Indeed, it is his primary task to ensure that the nominee is
confirmed and it is required of him to do everything, including previewing the
DSS report, before it ever gets to the senate chamber. He, the liaison
man, ought to be the one to blow the whistle, to alert the President about the
unfavourable DSS report, and to alert the President of the onerous task of
securing the nominee’s confirmation, and, if need be, to ask for a replacement,
given the negative report.
Thus,
the investigation of whether Mr. Ibrahim Magu was suitable or not for the
crucial position of the anti-corruption czar ought to have been done before his
name was forwarded to the Senate. The vetting of any official whose
position depends on a favourable confirmation by the senate must necessarily be
done first by the executive branch with a more rigorous benchmark than the
Senate’s, to prevent the kind of embarrassment which has occurred in the last
few weeks. First, it was the $29.9 billion external loan, tossed by the
Senate for lack of appropriate documentation. Now, even if the Senate has
an axe to grind or is making political demands, the Presidency ought not to
provide the body even better ammunition.
The
worst case was that of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF),
an official who should be, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. It is
awful to retain an official like the SGF after the kind of censure he received
from the Senate, irrespective of whatever motive his defenders choose to assign
the senate. What has become clear is that the Buhari administration has
no internal mechanism to do background checks, to vet its officials, to ensure
they conform to required integrity checks. Is it not disgraceful that
after more than 18 months in power, the administration has not got its
officials to fulfill the basic Code of Conduct requirement of completing asset
declaration forms? Such basic matters ought to be completed before an
official takes the oath of office. It also indicates to most Nigerians
that apart from the President and Vice-President Yemi Osibajo, who publicly
declared their assets, no one else in the executive branch seems committed to
the President’s fight against corruption.
The
picture is even worse in the legislative branch where only Senator Shehu Sani
is the lone Federal legislator to have declared his assets publicly.
There are 469 Federal legislators in Nigeria
The legislators continue to loot the treasury as if there is no tomorrow.
They are so brazen about it. They have done so for 17 years and not a
single individual has been held to account even when they are caught
red-handed. Officials of the immediate past government have been
arraigned in dozens, have been let off on bail, but so far not a single
conviction. Nothing has changed in the streets where there are all kinds
of rackets at every corner. The great bastions of corruption – the
police, the Customs Service, Immigration people, traffic officers and soldiers
who man the numerous checkpoints that dot all the highways – carry on in
regular fashion. The cynicism about the war on corruption is
pervasive. The government recently introduced a campaign called “Change
Begins With Me” which appears to be anti-corruption but is read to be far
removed from the fight against corruption.
The
rhetoric against corruption is popular and you’d hear even members of the
Senate, the largest collection of the most corrupt people in the country
composed mostly of former governors, party lords, and shady business moguls,
speak so eloquently about the need to curb corruption. The same situation
obtains in the House of Representatives which recently launched a campaign and
a bill to legislate immunity for themselves against any kind of prosecution,
seeing that one day, Nigerians, after so many years of playing dead to the
looting of the nation’s treasury, might demand some accountability. The
bill has gone through a second reading and is soon to become law.
In a
few months President Buhari would have been through the first half of his
tenure and it is sometimes difficult to know if his heart is truly in the fight
because, being the moral leader of the country, there is no evidence he
is trying to persuade his party to join him in the fight. That his
ministers had not filed their assets declaration forms shows he does not seem
to put them in the fight. Yet for a profound change to take place in an
aspect of Nigeria
*Lewis Obi, former
Editor of the defunct African Concord magazine, is a veteran journalist (lewisobi66@gmail.com)
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