From Obasanjo to Jonathan: How former presidents handled corruption within govts

MOSES ALAO takes a look at how successive governments between 1999 and 2015 prosecuted the anti-corruption war with regards to members of their governments, concluding that the success or failure of government depends largely on how inner circle officials are handled.

MORE than anything else, the return to civilian rule in 1999, which marked the beginning of the Fourth Republic in Nigeria, showed that there was an Augean Stable to be cleared with regards to accountability, transparency and openness in governance.

Following 20 years of unbroken military rule and the deep-seated corruption in government circles and dealings, it had become immediately clear that the newly-elected government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo would face an up-hill task in clearing the mess and restoring sanity to the system already battered by corruption, among other vices.

The former president had, in his inaugural speech, promised to tackle corruption head-on, but a majority of Nigerians in perpetual doubt and distrust about government. Obasanjo had said: “Corruption, the greatest single bane of our society today, will be tackled head-on at all levels. Corruption is incipient in all human societies and in most human activities. But it must not be condoned. This is why laws are made and enforced to check corruption, so that society would survive and develop in an orderly, reasonable and predictable way…The beneficiaries of corruption in all forms will fight back with all the foul means at their disposal. We shall be firm with them. There will be no sacred cows. Nobody, no matter who and where, will be allowed to get away with the breach of the law or the perpetration of corruption and evil,” Obasanjo said.

For many who listened to that inaugural speech, their spirits were lifted that at last, an administration had come that would wage an onslaught against what had become a political Leviathan, destroying the very core of the nation’s existence and well-being.

However, no sooner had President Obasanjo been sworn in than things began to crystallise that the corruption beast would not be an easy kill, as allegations of corrupt practices began to build up against some members of his cabinet. In order to tackle corruption as he promised during his inauguration, the former leader had, on 29 September, 2000 inaugurated the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) saddled with the responsibility of investigating corruption and prosecuting offenders.

But despite this move, the public levelled different allegations against some members of the Obasanjo cabinet during his first term in office, leading to a fresh round of distrust for his anti-corruption vow. For a government engaging in massive image laundering for the country after years of technically being a pariah state as a result of military rule, it became quite expedient for Obasanjo to “put his house in order” by checking the spate of corruption within his government. Thus, the president had to make a move against corruption in order to be seen as truly resolved to fight the monster among the comity of nations.

To do this, Obasanjo had begun the fight from within his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and indeed, against those considered to be his closest allies.

“Friends at war”

After an ineffectual first four years in the fight against corruption, the former president had begun the purgation of his cabinet immediately after his re-election by moving against cabinet ministers and other officials accused of corrupt practices, sending jitters down the spines of others, as some of those hitherto considered untouchable had begun to be exposed in the anti-corruption effort. The anti-corruption fire had immediately consumed former Ministers of Internal Affairs, late Chief Sunday Afolabi and Dr Mohammed Shata, as well as the Labour Minister, Alhaji Hussaini Akwanga, who were all alleged to have been involved in a $214 million National Identity Card bribe scandal. Though many people saw Afolabi as one of the closest friends of Obasanjo in his first term in office, the former president did not hesitate to look the other way when the former minister’s travail began with his arraignment on 29 December, 2003.

Earlier on 4 December, Obasanjo sacked Akwanga after ICPC named as one of the seven serving and former officials under investigation for allegedly taking bribes from a French firm, SAGEM, which was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to issue national Identity Cards to Nigerians: “It’s distressing to me that this type of scandal could occur in the life of this administration in spite of all the efforts we’ve been making to stamp out corruption in public service,” the president had reportedly said in a letter to Akwanga.

Other officials affected in that wave of anti-corruption war were top members of the PDP such as Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo.

The former president had also gone ahead to set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, a body that became an instant hit in Obasanjo’s celebrated war against corruption, going after individuals hitherto seen as “president’s men.” Though Nigerians differed on whether those who the EFCC went after then were not going through such ordeals because they had left the president’s camp, records still showed that the EFCC massively move against powerful individuals in the president’s party and in some cases even within his government.

Emboldened by the commendation his government had begun to get on its anti-corruption stance, the president chose a similar pattern of looking the other side when former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun, was accused of corruption in 2004. The police chief, who was considered as a key ally of the president following about two years of successfully working with him, soon had his day in court and was sentenced to prison for corruption offences.

As the second term years of Obasanjo wore on, he became more brazen in ensuring that “justice began from the house of God,” as more ministers and officials faced the music for their alleged involvement in corrupt practices.

Former Minister of Education, Professor Fabian Osuji, also got on the wrong side of the law with the former president following his allegedly bribing of the National Assembly members with N55 million to ensure the passage of his ministry’s budget.

Others, who tasted of Obasanjo’s “anti-corruption whip” within his government, were former Minister of Housing, Mrs Mobolaji Osomo, among others, who were sacked over different allegations of corruption.

Speaking several years after Obasanjo left power, a former chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, maintained that the people the commission brought to justice were the closest to the president. “The people we brought to justice were the closest people to him (Obasanjo), they were PDP men; but others will turn it upside down and lie. It’s really sad, and a lot of them got away with it,” Ribadu told a national daily.

The Yar’Adua years

Following the emergence of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua as president in the April 21, 2007 presidential election, quite a lot of Nigerians had expected the new president to either chart a new course in the fight against corruption or at least, sustain the tempo with which his predecessor addressed the menace.

Though Yar’Adua cut the figure of a temperate president compared to Obasanjo, political pundits had advised the late president to ensure that his house was in order in terms of the uprightness of his appointees and subordinates, drawing example from how Obasanjo’s “inner caucus” nearly derailed his anti-corruption war. Beleaguered by his health challenge, the late president was, however, not quite able to deliver on this mandate in line with his own promise to set personal example as president.

He had, in his inaugural speech, urged Nigerians to “work together to restore our time-honored values of honesty, decency, generosity, modesty, selflessness, transparency, and accountability.”

However, less than a year into the administration, words began to circulate that some of Yar’Adua’s ministers had also begun to soil their hands, with Nigerians even mentioning the names of the affected ministers and their lists of sins. The former president, in March 2008, moved for the kill against corruption in his cabinet, when he sacked the Minister of Health and the Minister of State for Health, Professor Adenike Grange and Gabriel Aduku over allegations of corruption bordering on the spending of N300 million said to be an unspent remainder of the ministry’s budget.

Though unconfirmed reports fingered some other ministers as corrupt, Yar’Adua could not fully address the issue until his health challenge led to his eventual death on May 5, 2010.

Jonathan’s ministers ‘brought him bad luck’

The immediate past president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, could safely be regarded as the president who had the most to do in terms of checkmating his appointees in terms of corruption. Sadly, he could not be said to have done enough in this regard, a development which most political observers believe contributed greatly to the negative label successfully pinned on his government by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

Largely regarded as a man who did not like to ruffle feathers, Jonathan had begun his government on a sound footing by moving against some of the ministers accused of one corrupt practices or the other in the Yar’Adua cabinet he inherited as acting president and later the substantive president. But this soon appeared to be a mere window-dressing, as some his own trusted allies appointed as ministers following his election in 2011, soon became bogged down with corruption allegations.

His Minister for Niger Delta and close ally, Elder Godsday Orubebe and the former Minister of Aviation, among several others, were dropped following several corruption allegations, which had begun to cast blight on the resolve of the former president to fight corruption.

But while he allegedly carried out cabinet shake-ups, dropping some ministers as a result of their alleged connections with corrupt practices, his greatest albatross, analysts maintain, was his weakness in standing up to corruption within his government, with informed observers noting that had Jonathan been able to wield the big stick against the former Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, following the allegations of improprieties against them, the public perception about his government could have been different, which could have made him secure a second term in office.

A former member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Afees Jimoh, while speaking with Sunday Tribune maintained that some of the former president’s appointees brought him bad luck, adding that had the president been decisive enough by dropping some of those who worked with him earlier, the bad publicity and negative tag pinned on the PDP and the Presidency by the APC would not have stuck.

“I think we have all learnt our lessons, and I hope the incumbent president also learns from that. Instead of being the one to defend the ministers that they are not corrupt, he should allow for thorough investigations into any allegation about any of his appointees. The success or failure of the government will depend largely on how the members of the government comport themselves,” Afees said.