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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:51:14 +0000 (GMT)
To: ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com<ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
ReplyTo: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: UNITED STATES COUNTRY REPORT'S INDICTMENT OF NIGERIA
UNITED STATES COUNTRY REPORT'S INDICTMENT OF NIGERIA
Ayo Olukotun
The United States State Department published recently its 2013 Country Report on the state of human rights and governance around the globe. Of interest to Nigerians is the section which makes clear that the Nigerian government frustrates its own declared anti-graft war through for example agency investigation which "targeted individuals who had fallen out with the government while those who were in favour continued their activities with impunity." The narrative mentions several frustrating setbacks in the anti-graft war occasioned by political meddling in high profile cases.
In this season of politics there may be little or no time to discuss this influential chronicle; nonetheless it should be noted that the statement will inform United States government policy towards Nigeria as well as shape the foreign assistance policies of several countries around the globe. To be sure, there is not much in that report that has not featured in the Nigerian media and public discussions. What is new however, is that the prevalent criticisms of the Jonathan administration's lukewarm attitude to fighting corruption has been granted the prestige of an important global document; again not for the first time. For it will be recalled that the 2013 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index showed Nigeria as having backslidden from a position of 124 out of 177 countries in 2012 to 144 out of 177 countries in 2013.
In other words, international opinion is gathering that public sector corruption in Nigeria has gone from bad to worse. Beyond that is the point about the Jonathan administration putting obstacles for political reasons in the way of the anti-corruption struggle. As earlier mentioned, many domestic critics including the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal have made the same point. In the case of domestic critics, they can be accused of doctoring information and analysis to fit a preconceived political agenda; the same charge cannot be validly upheld in respect of the United States government or Transparency International.
It ought to be stated that having an anti-corruption agency in place tells us nothing about the status of corruption in any country since most countries do and in any case having one has more or less become a criterion for attracting aids and loans from international organisations. And so, we must go beyond the mere existence of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission to inquire about their health status as well as success or otherwise in rolling back corruption in high profile cases in particular.
There is little doubt as the Report suggests that in cases such as those involving former governor of Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva, apprehension and prosecution may have been directly related to his having fallen out of favour with the president while in some other cases such as the state pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, described as a serial money launderer, politics and relationship with the president appeared to have trumped justice and the anti-corruption struggle. In the same vein, Tambuwal in his widely reported criticism of the president's body language alluded to the 'tactical dumping' of probes on the oil subsidy and the scams in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
One might even bring the report up to date by adding the discriminatory manner in which allegations of corruption made against former aviation minister, Stella Oduah and those made against suspended Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi were handled. In the case of Oduah, the administration resisted even defied public outcry that she should be encouraged to resign while she was being investigated; even her eventual sack from the cabinet was done under the rubric of a cabinet reshuffle. In Sanusi's case, however, government maintained that Sanusi could not remain on his seat while he is being investigated thus raising the syndrome of double standards; notwithstanding the fact that Sanusi himself ought to have voluntarily resigned the moment he found himself at serious odds with the government that appointed him.
What appears to be emerging therefore is a pattern in which as the US Report observes friends of or insiders in the administration are let off the hook while its opponents are visited with the wrath of the anti-corruption agencies. To be fair, political interference in the anti-corruption struggle did not begin with Jonathan but with former president Olusegun Obasanjo who in spite of having an activist head of the EFCC in the person of Nuhu Ribadu still employed the agency to selectively target political opponents in the run up to his abortive bid for a third term presidency. Even so, Obasanjo by and large and in spite of contradictions appeared to have understood better the international disadvantages and image deficits of running a system which puts the anti-corruption struggle on the back burner.
As some observers have remarked, Jonathan excels on the campaign trail as illustrated in current deft manoeuvres to build an inclusive platform through the National Conference, fence mending within the PDP as well as a slow motion cabinet reshuffle which holds out the prospect of more politicians having a piece of the action. However, it is one thing to win an election even a keenly contested one, it is quite another to make a clear mark on governance issues. Jonathan should worry that rather than roll back corruption as he promised at the outset of his administration, international and national opinion are coming to the conclusion that he lacks the political will to fight corruption which has been described as Nigeria's most disastrous political and economic liability.
It is however, perhaps, not too late to make a fresh start considering the fact that any serious transformation agenda ought to include a meaningful fight against entrenched corruption in our political system. Countries like Singapore which made a transition from being one of the world's most corrupt countries to one of the least corrupt and crime-ridden countries on the globe show us that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Singapore recorded this governance turnaround mainly because of the determination and stand up stamina of its successive prime ministers, the independence and wide powers of the anti-corruption agency and as well as its policy of increasing the salaries of civil servants and politicians in order to remove one of the major incentives for corruption which is the poor pay of public officers.
In Nigeria, corruption has continued to flourish despite the comparatively high pay of politicians precisely because there has been no emphatic policy or gesture which will make corruption a high risk affair. It has also not helped matters that the anti-corruption agencies have been complaining that they are starved of funds and can only do so much with the shoestring budgets on which they survive. If Nigeria must get it right and reverse its worsening image of an outrageously corrupt country where anything goes its political elite led by the president must begin in earnest those reforms that will enhance our drive towards that destination.
That is not enough. Civil society must be fully mobilized to continuously engage the state in diverse ways until the crying shame of being perceived as one of the world's most corrupt countries is reversed.
Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236
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