Abba Gana Shettima
29 April 2010
analysis
In his inauguration speech in 1999, former President Obasanjo resolved to tackle corruption in the country, thereby giving us a glimmer of hope after decades of unaccountable military rule.
The former President argued that, 'corruption will be tackled head-on. No society can achieve its full potential if it allows corruption to become the full-blown cancer it has in Nigeria'. Also, in his second inauguration speech in 2003 the former President reiterated his determination to continue the war on corruption, and even claimed some triumph in the battle, promising that 'we are determined to fight this evil to a standstill'.
Obasanjo's successor, Umaru Musa Yar'adua, now recuperating from a debilitating ailment and temporarily off the political scene, also promised, shortly after he was sworn in as president in May 2007 'to intensify the war against corruption, more so because corruption is itself central to the spread of poverty'.
Unfortunately, after a decade of the so-called 'war on corruption', the PDP-led federal government has failed to walk through the corruption morass. The decade of anti-corruption rhetoric has produced maximum fuss and minimum achievement. While one must acknowledge some of the laudable achievements of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) in tackling the menace of corruption, a lot still needs to be done. As a matter of fact, the war on corruption already appears to be a lost one for many reasons.
One of the fundamental reasons why the war on corruption has so far not yielded any positive outcome is the fact that, contrary to the frequent promises made by the top echelon of the country's leadership, many sacred cows have been allowed to get away with corruption.
In the 1999 inauguration speech, former President Obasanjo promised that in the war against corruption, "There will be no sacred cows. Nobody, no matter where, will be allowed to get away with the breach of the law or the perpetration of corruption and evil". Similarly, President Yar'adua also pledged that there will be no sacred cows in his administration's anti-corruption fight, declaring that even if any person close to him like his son were found to be corrupt, he will not be spared.
But all this is simple political talk, as events since 1999 has clearly shown that the war on corruption has been a selective one. Rather than allow the EFCC to independently fight the war on corruption, the political leadership has often used the powers of the anti-graft agency for political witch-hunt. For example, it's an open secret that Yar'adua's election was facilitated by some of the most corrupt politicians such as James Ibori, former governor of Delta State.
So long as Yar'adua was in control, Ibori had no problem and was actually considered one of the most powerful people around. Now that Yar'adua has temporarily lost political control due to ill-health, Ibori has been declared wanted by the EFCC and alleged to have already fled the country. Yesterday's power broker has become a fugitive today. Ibori's case clearly demonstrates the inconsistency and dishonesty shrouding the war on corruption. Sadly, this is the more reason why the present set of corrupt political class is the wrong army to wage the war on corruption.
If the government's war on corruption is based on the whims and caprices of those at the helm of affairs, the citizens are not helping matters either. Daily, there are reports of rented crowds besieging the premises of the EFCC demonstrating for and against some corrupt politicians. As someone rightly observed in a personal communication, if care is not taken, we may wake up one day to see all the chairmen of the 774 local government councils in the country renting crowds to demonstrate against the EFCC.
One cannot fathom the level of docility and even cold complicity exhibited by such unpatriotic bunch of Nigerians, particularly the youth, who demonstrate in support of corrupt politicians. When the police recently attempted to arrest James Ibori in his hometown of Oghara, a group of some 1,000 heavily armed youth engaged in a fire fight with the law enforcement agents, thereby providing the necessary cover for Ibori to escape. While the shoot-out lasted, some of the armed youths seized the Benin--Warri expressway and prevented free flow of traffic on the busy road. Extremely bizarre things are happening in this country and no one seems to bother.
Corruption has done a great deal of havoc on this nation and yet some of the staunchest defenders of the corrupt are ordinary Nigerians--the frontline victims of the ravages of corruption. Over the years, politicians and bureaucrats have stolen money from agriculture and left us yawning with hunger; they have pilfered money meant for water supply and left us thirsty; they have diverted funds voted for power supply and left in a cloud of darkness; indeed, they have stolen our dreams for a better Nigeria and left us stranded like some caravans lost in an unforgiving desert. Despite all this, why and how should some young people garner the audacity to stage demonstrations and even engage in physical combat in support of the corrupt?
I do not totally agree with former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida that the youth have generally failed but it is not out of place to say that some of the youth have been a disgrace to the nation and especially to their social class. The youth should be vanguards of positive social change and not some ignominious band in support of all manner of criminality including corruption.
In Nigeria, almost every evil, including corruption, often wears virtuous ethnic and religious masks, and simply disappears from our view once it is committed by one of us. And it doesn't matter even if as a result of corruption, a state Governor fails to pay his workers' salaries on a regular basis; the hospitals are converted into mere consulting clinics; and as Ben Okri crafted in his The Famished Road, the schools become avenues 'to teach illiteracy' and the rains 'turn the roads into gutters'. What is more, it matters less even if as a result of the monumental thievery in the land, electricity is provided only from time to time--only when the politicians want to 'see better how to rob us'.
As things stand now, the present war on corruptions is already a lost one. The nation has a clear choice to make. Either we assiduously and sincerely re-launch the war on corruption or we forget about it altogether. The current climate of pretence will not take the nation anywhere. The war on corruption is not going to be an easy one and it's everybody's business, with the exception of the corrupt, of course.
Every patriotic Nigerian has a stake in this war. Every Nigerian is either with this war or against it, because there is no neutral fence where anybody can comfortably sit and watch. Fighting corruption in Nigeria is akin to staging a bloody but necessary revolution, and as Mao Zedong reminded us way back in 1927, 'a revolution is not a dinner party...or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely'.
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