Buhari’s police action and the anti-corruption war

I recent months, Nigeria’s anti-corruption war under President Muhammadu Buhari has come under national and international klieg lights. From the two fronts, the war received fatal blows to the face in the past weeks; and they were not unexpected. First, humanist, peacemaker and Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, presented Nigeria’s corruption scorecard, quoting Afrobarometer report 2018. That was while delivering a lecture at the unveiling of the new-look Tribune newspapers in Lagos on January 29.

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A day after Kukah’s submissions, Transparency International (TI), in its 2018 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), indicated that Nigeria is not winning the war against corruption, regardless of the vaunted claims by the government.

Thus, despite corruption being the most mouthed item in the last three years and more, TI and Afrobarometer have said that it’s more of rigmarole.

In 2016, Nigeria went down 12 places on the CPI, compared to where it was in 2014.  In 2018, it went up four places, but that was because four other countries did very badly. Nigeria cannot really celebrate the four place leap, because its score of 27 points in 2017 remained the same in 2018.

TI said that Nigeria’s slow pace in  coming out of the corruption cul-de-sac, despite  a number of steps, including the establishment of the presidential advisory committee against corruption (which has made itself a government mouthpiece), improvement of the anti-corruption legal and policy framework through public procurement and asset declaration, and the development of national anti-corruption strategy has been linked to over-bloated contract costs, abuse of security votes and the reluctance of the government to try certain persons who stand accused of corruption-related charges.

Bishop Kukah’s submissions were as detailed and damning as well. He quoted the Afrobarometer report which x-rayed pervasive corruption in different aspects of lives of Nigerians and concluded that whereas the anti-corruption anthems have been loud in recent years, the realities have shown the gradual spread of the corruption cancer to all segments of national life.

The bishop quoted the Ghana based-Afrobarometer as saying: “For example, the Nigeria Police is generally perceived as the most corrupt institution by 65 per cent of the population. Next is the National Assembly (60 per cent), local government councils (55 per cent), government officials (54per cent), state Assemblies (54 per cent), state governors (53 per cent), judges (51 per cent), president and his officials (43 per cent), traditional rulers (54 per cent), religious leaders (36 per cent). Clearly, corruption is so pervasive that it has permeated every stratum of society.”

Such statistics don’t look like the scorecard of a three-year battle against corruption in any clime, but that is the reality of the Nigerian system.

So what’s really up? A lot of meanings have been read to the unfolding scenario. Some supporters of the government read Western imperialism. But critics would say the administration has not really engaged in corruption war. To that class, the situation of Nigeria in the last three years is likened to that of a thief, who, after seizing the property in the yard, stays by the door, shouting ‘thief!’ To others, the government has mostly been pursuing opposition figures tagged ‘corrupt.’ While some of such persons stay in their parties and face prosecution, the not-so-strong-willed simply rush to procure registration cards of the ruling party and are unveiled at public ceremonies.

I would not say that the administration has not been fighting a form of corruption war. But at the rate it’s going, the result may continue to remain far between.

The difference is in the strategy. There is a world of difference between police-action-based corruption war and intelligence-based corruption fight.

Some Nigerians would want the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen and Senate President Bukola Saraki, who were accused of non-declaration of assets at the Code of Conduct Tribunal to resign, once allegations were leveled against them. They would mention other climes where public officers throw in the towel at the slight mention of such negative reports. But the difference is that in the other climes, investigations are firmly concluded before the public gets a hint of any allegation. The investigating agencies do it in such a way that the person involved would have no place to hide, once he or she stands accused.

But here, accusations are targeted at scoring political points and once done, no one remembers the alleged sins.

In 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the nation about a bribe-for-budget scandal in the National Assembly. The target was Senate President Adolphus Wabara. He resigned so he could face trial. Fourteen years after, the nation has not been told the details of the offences and the accusations against each actor.

Though the man resigned, scurried to the courts, and sought to extricate himself from the crime, the matter has been in and out of courts ever since.

Rather than adopt the ‘wuruwuru-to-the-answer style,’ of seizing some large sums and asking the person to justify the source, what happened to discreet intelligence gathering by the EFCC? Why do we have policemen as perpetual team members of the EFCC, rather than a stop-gap measure? Why is the EFCC concerned about media prosecution, rather than the substance of allegations it would push out?

As far as we can’t provide concrete answers to those questions, the scorecard of a regime-propelled (rather than system-marshaled) corruption war would continue to remain dismal.