The war against corruption: How has Nigeria fared?

By Theo Nkire
Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption, defines corruption as ‘the abuse of entrusted power for private gain’. For the words ‘entruusted power’ the World Bank uses the words ‘public office’.  Its own definition therefore comes out as ‘the abuse of public office for private gain’.

So when a person in authority, in abuse of his powers, takes a decision to benefit self and not the people he is employed to serve, he commits an act of corruption. According to Transparency International, corruption ‘hurts everyone who depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority’.

In our statute books, corruption is mainly identified by such economic crimes as embezzlement, bribery, money laundering etc.
One good thing that has happened to mankind in her quest to eradicate corruption from society is that corruption is now measurable.

Every year, Transparency International publishes its annual corruption perceptions index wherein it measures the performance of each country through a number of set criteria on a scale of zero (for the most corrupt) to ten (for the cleanest).  The criteria employed include control of corruption, budget openness, global competiveness, human development, judicial independence, rule of law, Press Freedom, voice and accountability.

In Governance Matters iv: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators for 1996-2002, published for the World Bank, Daniel Kauffman, A. Kraay and M. Masruzzi identified monopoly of power, discretion and lack of accountability and transparency as the main drivers of corruption.

Some years ago, I was so perplexed by the problem of corruption in Nigeria that I did an unsolicited Memo to the President.  The title of that document is CORRUPTION: A One Point Agenda for Jonathan.  Much of what I shall say hereafter will be culled from that Memo.

Colours and tentacles
Corruption has grown into an art everywhere in Nigeria; a grand art with many shapes and colours and tentacles spreading in multi-dimensional directions.  Go North, go South; go East, go West; the story is the same: a sordid tale of greed and graft told by every idiot with zest and furry.  Nigeria does not have ten problems.  Nigeria does not have nine problems.  Nigeria does not have eight problems.  Her problems are not seven, six, five or four or three or two.  Nigeria’s problems are one.  And the name of those problems all put together is CORRUPTION!

And so, Nigeria does not need a twenty-point agenda, a ten-point agenda or even a two-point agenda.  Nigeria needs a ONE-POINT AGENDA and the only point that should be on that long list of one is CORRUPTION.
You may wonder why we blame every ill in society on corruption.  The reason is this.  Corruption is the one reason that electricity does not work in Nigeria.

Remove corruption and there will be light everywhere in the country.  Corruption is the reason our roads are in such a sorry state of disrepair.  Remove corruption and there will be roads to everywhere.  Corruption is the reason our schools are in shambles.  Remove corruption and there will be room in our schools for every child.  Corruption is the reason there are no drugs in our hospitals.  Remove corruption and the ‘out of stock’ syndrome will vanish from our hospitals.  Corruption is the one reason there is so much insecurity in the land.

It is because of corruption that the police cannot secure the citizen in his life and property.  Corruption is the reason Boko Haram, the armed robber and the kidnapper are better equipped than the policeman in their chase.  Remove corruption and the citizen can walk about in freedom confident that his life is safe and his property, too.  Corruption is the reason elections are rigged.  Corruption is the reason census figures are disputed.

Corruption is the reason Nigerians do not have clean water to drink.  Corruption is the reason our airspace is unsafe (or was so until recently).   Corruption is the reason our factories are shut and our youths roam our streets everyday in search of work that is nowhere to be found.  Corruption is the one reason the average Nigerian pays more for telephone than people in most other parts of the world.  Corruption is the cause of our numerous ills and it is in its elimination that society can find succor.

The primary purpose of government everywhere is the security and welfare of the citizen.  In Nigeria this principle has been enshrined in Section 14(2)(b) of our Constitution.  Any government therefore, that cannot secure the citizen in his life and property is not, and cannot be, worth the name.  It should lay no claim to the title, government.

This is why it is imperative that our government, and indeed, any government must strive to eliminate corruption from the society it seeks to govern.  In Nigeria therefore, the fight against corruption must be the primary function of government everywhere and at every level – be it federal, state or local – at least, until we reduce it to a minimum.

Today, Nigeria is Number 144 out of the 177 countries surveyed in 2013.  Among our neighbours, Ghana scored 46 to emerge Number 63; Ivory Coast 27 to place Number 136.  South Africa was Number 72 with a score of 42 while the best country in Africa is Botswana which emerged Number 30 with 64 points.

Among the leaders world-wide are Denmark and New Zealand that came first each with 91 points.  Judging by the index, Russia is about the most corrupt among the world leaders.  She came in at 127 with a score of 28.
So Nigeria has not done well on the index in recent years.  From 121 in 2008, Nigeria has moved 23 notches down the ladder to 144 in 2013.  This is not an encouraging story.
Apart from our poor performance on the index, Nigeria has over the years taken bold steps to fight corruption.

In addition to such institutions as the Nigerian Police, the SSS and other security agencies traditionally set up to combat crime, the Nigerian Government has established agencies such as the EFCC (together with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit), the ICPC, the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Federal Character Commission and the Public Complaints Commission to help in the war.   There are also various other pieces of legislation that help in the war against corruption.  Some of these are:
i.    The Electoral Act 2010
ii.    The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000
iii.    The Money Laundering [Prohibition] Act, 2004
iv.    The Public Procurement Act, 2007
v.    The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Act, 2007
vi.    The Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007
vii.    The African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption 2007
viii.    The United Nations Conventions Against Corruption 2007
ix.    The Freedom of Information Act.

Besides, Government has initiated certain programs aimed at reducing, if not eliminating corruption from the system.  They include the Integrated Personnel Payments Information System (IPPIS); e-payment for all government jobs etc. Many of these programs are of course, new and have been adopted in the main at the federal level.  There is no doubt that by the time these programs are accepted by the States and the private sector, Nigeria’s standing on the Corruption Index will improve tremendously.

The war against corruption can never be an easy war.  It is a war against principalities and powers; a war against the most powerful people in the nation – former Presidents, Governors and former Governors, Senators and Ministers – men of power and of influence and wealth; Chief Executive Officers of the most powerful companies in the Country – of banks and industry.  So it cannot be an easy war.  It must be fought with tact and cunning.

You cannot confront them frontally; they will destroy you.  The noise you make of your successes may be your undoing!  Do not expect too much of an open support from the powers-that-be today.  The men you go after may be their friends and sponsors.  It is enough if they allow you a free hand.

If you consider that UNESCO ranks economic crime the most common crime in Nigeria (followed by drug trafficking and human trafficking in that order) you will better appreciate the enormity of the problem posed by corruption in our society.  It is true that corruption can never be completely eliminated from any society; but its awful effects can at least, be minimized.

On Saturday June 5, 2011 India’s most popular yoga guru, Ramdev, called on his followers to embark on a fast to the death to protest official corruption in India’s public life.  India is nowhere near Nigeria in the list of corrupt nations. Yet a man is ready to lay down his life to ensure corruption is eliminated from India’s public life.  This shows the seriousness of the problem.

Having surveyed the problem in our Country, in Africa and worldwide, what then do we do if Nigeria must be saved.
To my mind, for Nigeria to win the war against corruption, three professions are critical.  The first is the profession of the law to which I belong.  The second is the Computer profession to which you belong and the third is the Accounting profession to which our friends on both sides belong.

While the legal profession will assist the legislature in enacting adequate laws to ensure success, it will be the responsibility of your profession to help provide the necessary technology and software to wage the war and build into our system those programs that will help eliminate corruption. Of course, it will be the responsibility of the Accounting profession, the Accountant and Auditor to ensure those loopholes that fester the nest of corrupt leaders are closed.

It will also be the added responsibility of the legal profession to ensure that the judiciary plays its role by ensuring a quick dispensation of justice to all who come before our Courts on corruption charges.

If we rise from this breakfast and the issues we have raised in this talk can generate further discussion in the days that lie ahead, this morning may have been well spent; and if after this, your profession can initiate a move to bring our three professions together in a joint effort to chart a new course for the war against corruption, then this would have been a glorious morning indeed.

To succeed, emphasis must be on prevention not punishment.  Emphasis is no longer on catching the thief and punishing him.  Emphasis today is on how to make it impossible for the thief to find what to steal.  This is why programs such as the cashless society, electronic payments etc are important to the war on corruption and terrorism.

A reduction in the amount of money a customer can draw across the counter is sure to reduce incidents of corruption such as the one in which a former Minister of Education was involved sometime ago where large amounts of cash were moved in Ghana-must-go bags from across the counter.

Legislations such as the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, the Banks and other Financial Institutions Act, the Failed Banks Act etc are all aimed at curbing corruption.  Besides, we do not need to reinvent the wheel.  Nigeria should approach such countries as Denmark and New Zealand that have virtually eliminated corruption from their public life to borrow the necessary technology and knowhow.

Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have been of immense assistance to Nigeria in her war against corruption and terror. Of course, Nigeria’s participation in the global coalition against terrorism and money laundering is already yielding fruit in many ways.

Institutions such as the EFCC, ICPC the police and the various other security agencies that help in the war against corruption are each very important; but their emphasis, no doubt, is in detecting the offender after the event and prosecuting him.  If the Courts find him guilty, he pays the price.  If he is not found guilty he quickly returns to ply his trade with a bigger war chest.

More openness in government will also help. It is for this purpose that the Freedom of Information Act was enacted.  In Brazil for example, all government expenditure must be published online within 24 hours.  This is to ensure accountability and transparency in government business.  The result is that the average citizen can have access and judge for himself whether those in authority have been honest in their dealings and whether the price quoted for goods and services to government are fair.

Everywhere you go in the world today the slogan in fighting corruption and its attendant evil of terror is FOLLOW THE MONEY – the money trail, I mean.  Follow the money wherever it leads you and you can never go wrong;

Indeed, Nigeria has done very well in setting up institutions and programs that tend to block the loopholes which the corrupt official explores in his bid to beat the system.  The virtual elimination of the telephone bill and the NEPA bill (in parts of the country) is a step in the right direction. However, a lot still remains to be done.
So the battle is on, though not won!  The fight must be strengthened if the nation must be saved from the throes of indiscipline and greed.

* Theo Nkire was first Attorney-General of Abia State

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Why Goodluck Jonathan is Likely to Win the 2015 Presidential Election by a Landslide By Femi Aribisala

By Femi Aribisala.

Goodluck Jonathan is currently the only presidential candidate in Nigeria. The others are nowhere to be found.

I have been a student of elections for 42 years. I obtained my first degree in History and Politics from Warwick University, Coventry, England in 1975. In my second year at Warwick, I obtained a scholarship to visit the United States to study the circumstances behind the 1973 election of Maynard Jackson as the first African-American Mayor of Atlanta, and of a major Southern metropolis in the United States since the American Civil War.

Since then, I have been fascinated by elections. Unfortunately, Nigeria remained under military rule for an inordinate length of time. The most fascinating election I have ever observed was the first election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States in 2008. Obama secured the nomination of the Democratic Party against the formidable Hilary Clinton; and he then went on to defeat the Republican nominee, John McCain, in the general election.

President Jonathan

Anticlimax

Obama’s 2007/2008 election campaign has since become a textbook-case of outstanding political strategizing in the United States. His superior tactics ensured that his victory quickly became inevitable, even against all the odds. Therefore, some of us were able to call his nomination as Democratic Party candidate and election as president very early; to the discomfiture of doubting Thomases who could not imagine a black U.S. president in their lifetime.

The forthcoming 2015 presidential election in Nigeria is another election that has become easy to predict, but for different reasons. Yes, it is a much ballyhooed election, especially since the emergence of the All Progressives Congress. However, the APC has turned out to be a newspaper political party and nothing more. Its novelty has long died down and a new harsh and dismal political reality now confronts it.

As a result, the 2015 election is not likely to live up to its hype. As a matter of fact, all the evidence now indicates the election will be a cakewalk for the PDP. Goodluck Jonathan will not only be re-elected as president, he will be re-elected by a landslide.

PDP failure

Ordinarily, the forthcoming election should be a problematic one for Goodluck Jonathan. After 15 years, Nigerians are generally fed up with the PDP. 15 years is more than enough time to change drastically the electrical power situation in the country. But this has yet to happen to any appreciable degree.

One year is more than sufficient to make a big impact on the problem of corruption in Nigeria. Again, this has not happened in 15 years. The security situation in the country is now critical and is likely to get much worse before it gets better. 219 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls are still missing, with only dubious promissory notes offered by the president for their imminent rescue.

For these and other reasons, the 2015 presidential elections should be a difficult one for Goodluck Jonathan. When the Iranians held American diplomats hostage under the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, it led to the defeat of incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the United States presidential elections of 1980.

However, in the case of Nigeria, my contention is that the re-election of Jonathan in 2015 is going to be easy. Jonathan will defeat his APC challenger convincingly. He is also likely to obtain the requisite one third of the votes in virtually every state of the federation.

Shambolic opposition

The main reason for this conclusion is that Jonathan is facing a shambolic APC opposition that does not seem to have a clue about what it takes to run an effective national presidential campaign. This explains why, till date, Jonathan is still the only candidate running for the presidency. Although he has yet to declare his candidacy officially, even a three year-old Nigerian child knows he will be the PDP candidate.

However, his APC challenger remains unknown. It is incredible that barely six months to an election where the opposition hopes to unseat a president who has been in office for nearly six years, the APC bigwigs have yet to agree on who will be his challenger. Moreover, the INEC timetable favours the PDP as opposed to the APC. By decreeing that the party primaries for the presidential elections must wait until October 2014, and the campaigns must not start until November, INEC has created a situation where Jonathan has become virtually the only candidate. Just by being president, he is already campaigning and running for re-election.

This means there is now insufficient time to socialize Nigerians about the APC candidate. The only opposition candidates that need no national introduction are Buhari, Atiku and Tinubu. But the candidacies of these men are dead in the water. Buhari and Atiku have contested the presidency in the past and failed woefully. Should they try again, they will fail again.

Tinubu’s candidacy is a nonstarter, given Obasanjo’s recent eight-year representation of the South-West in Aso Rock. This leaves the APC with no candidates of note to field against Jonathan. The only realistic APC candidate at this eleventh hour can only be a national nonentity; and among the non-entities, I include men like Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano. An APC nonentity cannot prevail against Jonathan and the PDP juggernaut.

Shallow party-structure

The only party that can field a nonentity and still win the presidential election in Nigeria is the PDP. This is because it is the only longstanding national party in Nigeria and, unlike the APC; it has been in power for 15 years. That means the PDP has firm roots nationwide. But the APC only has roots in the South-West, and even there, this is beginning to unravel; as the recent elections in Ondo and Ekiti indicate.

Buhari is very popular in the North, but he is hopeless at building party-structures. Virtually every party Buhari built imploded. Buhari is a one-man party. This is not very useful in an election where Buhari himself is not a viable APC presidential candidate. The APC has excited itself as a result of the defection of some five PDP governors to its ranks. But this is also not very useful because these governors could not defect with their PDP party-structures.

The defector PDP governors have brought a great deal of publicity to the APC. But whatever assets they had to offer has long fizzled out. A testament to this is the ease with which Murtala Nyako was impeached as governor of Adamawa State. With all the noise Nyako was making, it was easy to forget that he had no roots on the ground. It was all smoke and mirrors that did not go beyond newspaper headlines.

No game-plan

Where then is the APC taking the fight to the formidable PDP? Literally nowhere at the moment! The APC peaked too early. As a matter of fact, it is the party now in retreat virtually everywhere. It lost to the PDP in Ondo and Ekiti, part of its South-West stronghold. Nyako of Adamawa has been impeached. Al-Makura of Nasarawa is on the ropes. Other APC governors are under threat of impeachment, but no such threat hangs over the head of any PDP governor.

The defection of the PDP governors to the APC has turned out to be a blessing in initial disguise. From the point of view of political strategy, it would have been better if they had remained in the PDP as APC wolves in PDP clothing. This might have been useful in undermining Jonathan’s candidacy. Indeed, they could have challenged him for the PDP ticket, not with any hope of winning, but just in order to dent his strength and create some havoc within the PDP.

However, by defecting, the rebel PDP governors ushered in peace to the PDP. Simultaneously, they exported their “wahala” to the APC where they are now at loggerheads with the old APC brigade in bitter internal struggles for supremacy. For a party that has yet to find its feet, this has been disastrous. Indeed, the defections are now going in the other direction, from APC to PDP; as happened recently in Zamfara. Even the defector PDP governors are likely to lose their seats in the near-future, because defection is proscribed in the Constitution and the PDP has taken the matter to court.

So what exactly is the APC game-plan? Nothing much! All we have at the moment is Lai Mohammed coming up incessantly with bombastic broadsides against Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in the newspapers. If they really believe this is the way to unseat a six-year-old president and dislodge a fifteen-year-old government, then the APC bigwigs need to enroll in NIPSS, Kuru for courses in “Nigerian Elections 101.”

Boko Haram factor

And then there is the Boko Haram insurgency and the albatross of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls. The strategy of the terrorists is that every explosion is supposed to discredit the Jonathan administration. In spite of its hatred for the entire Nigerian political establishment, there is no doubt that the Boko Haram would prefer a Northern Muslim president to Southern Christian Goodluck Jonathan.

For this very reason, a vote for APC is now more likely to be construed as a vote of surrender to the insurgency. While Nigerians are very concerned about the security situation in the country, they are even less likely to succumb to its incorrigible purpose. The indiscriminate bombing of innocent Nigerians for the sake of an agenda that is alien to Nigeria cannot but rally people nationwide behind President Goodluck Jonathan.

A few days ago, Vanguard published a Special Report captioned: “Six Months to Elections, Where Are the Presidential Aspirants?” The answer is that Goodluck Jonathan is currently the only presidential candidate in Nigeria. The others are nowhere to be found.

The APC is a useful counterpoise to the PDP in the Nigerian political equation. But it is only likely to pose a strong challenge to the ruling party in 2019, when there will be no incumbent president to contend with, and after it might have sorted out its internal contradictions and developed firm roots nationwide. But as it is today, the APC is not even likely to survive impending defeat in 2015.

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Nigerian Politicians are Thieves, But They are Not Corrupt

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Nigeria profile

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After lurching from one military coup to another, Nigeria now has an elected leadership. But the government faces the growing challenge of preventing Africa's most populous country from breaking apart along ethnic and religious lines.

Political liberalisation ushered in by the return to civilian rule in 1999 has allowed militants from religious and ethnic groups to pursue their demands through violence.

Thousands of people have died over the past few years in communal attacks led by the al-Qaeda ally Boko Haram. Separatist aspirations have also been growing, prompting reminders of the bitter civil war over the breakaway Biafran republic in the late 1960s.

Nigeria is a major producer of oil

Continue reading the main story

At a glance

• Politics: People's Democratic Party (PDP) has dominated since the return to civilian rule in 1999. The al-Qaeda-aligned Boko Haram armed movement is conducting an insurrection in the mainly Muslim north
• Economy: Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer; more than half of its people live in poverty
• International: Nigeria plays a prominent role in African affairs; has withdrawn troops from oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to settle border dispute with Cameroon

Country profiles compiled by BBC Monitoring

The imposition of Islamic law in several northern states has embedded divisions and caused thousands of Christians to flee.

The government is striving to boost the economy, which experienced an oil boom in the 1970s and is once again benefiting from high prices on the world market. But progress has been undermined by corruption and mismanagement.

The former British colony is one of the world's largest oil producers, but the industry has produced unwanted side effects.

The trade in stolen oil has fuelled violence and corruption in the Niger delta - the home of the industry. Few Nigerians, including those in oil-producing areas, have benefited from the oil wealth.

In 2004, Niger Delta activists demanding a greater share of oil income for locals began a campaign of violence against the oil infrastructure, threatening Nigeria's most important economic lifeline.

Nigeria is keen to attract foreign investment but is hindered in this quest by security concerns as well as by a shaky infrastructure troubled by power cuts.

Nigeria is one of Africa's biggest economies and includes the traditional as well the modern

More on This Story

Country profiles: AfricaOpen Foldout

Nigeria - Troubled Giant

Features

• Where’s the money?

  Nigerians left asking the same old question after latest scandal

  ---

• Viewpoints on 100 years

• Bad luck party?

• Booming illegal oil refineries

• Guide to Nigeria's trouble spots

• Who are Boko Haram?

• Killed for his beard?

• Mapping the divides

• Jos: Neighbours are enemies

Everyday life

• African viewpoint: Nigerian spirit triumphs

• Emirs: Power behind the throne

• Wasted youth

• What is Naija?

• On patrol with the police

Background

• Profile: Goodluck Jonathan

• Key facts, figures and dates

• High hopes of independence

• Nigeria at 50: Special report

Related Internet links

• Office of the President, Nigeria
• UN news about Nigeria
• Nigeria Tourism

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• BBC Media Action - Nigeria

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