Corruption And The Rules Of Engagement

By Chuks Iloegbunam

The fight against cor­ruption has been dominating national discourse since the inception of the Buhari ad­ministration. The Rules of Engagement of the Nige­rian Armed Forces recently weighed in as a topic for de­bate. Discussions on corrup­tion have remained central for two reasons: Candidate Buhari indexed his presiden­tial campaign on it. And it is the one topic President Buhari seizes every opportunity to declaim impassioned commit­ment.

*President Buhari

At the annual Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation Lecture in Abuja last week, he was at his sanctimonious best: “Without our collective will to resist corrupt acts as a people, it will be difficult to win the war. Nigeria has been brought almost to her knees by decades of corruption and mismanagement of the public treasury. We must come to a point when we must all collec­tively say ‘Enough is Enough.’”

Unfortunately, the Presi­dent’s anti-corruption rheto­ric, and the manner his gov­ernment is prosecuting the war point to duplicity. This is because the fight against entrenched corruption can­not succeed unless it is sys­tematized. But Buhari’s anti-corruption war is bereft of system. It is selective. It is running on the wheels of me­dia hysteria. It is unconcerned with preventive measures. It is overloaded in censure and sanction. It is, therefore, bound to end in tragic failure. Commentators unwilling to acknowledge the foregoing cannot honestly claim to love the man or support his presi­dency.