A Rejoinder to SKC OGBONNIA by Nnamdi P Okeke
Dr SKC Ogbonnia's intervention released online a few days ago seems to be remarkable in only one respect: its inability to communicate anything beyond idle criticisms based on a cluster of deceitfully-selected and disjointed quotes. In trying to criticize the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy for stating the obvious about the need to institute practices and systems that will prevent corruption, Dr Ogbonnia left his readers certainly confused as to what message he really was trying to pass across.
According to him 'what Nigeria needs today is not only mere prevention but also leaders who have the character and courage to truly promote consequences for bad behavior so that people can have fear for wrongdoing. …". Obviously, Dr Ogbonnia clearly favors the dramatization of the fight against corruption over and above implementing systems and processes that close gaps that aid the perpetration of corrupt acts. He prefers leaders that inspire 'fear' by the sheer brutality of their appearance.
It is not difficult to see where Dr Ogbonnia's interest lies. He wants to return the country to the jackboot era, where people, described as "suspects" are paraded on national television, derided in the newspapers and radio programs, even when no court has pronounced them guilty of the alleged crimes. Our doctor wants us to return to the years of handing out incredible jail terms to anyone suspected of corruption. He will prefer to have politicians, public servants and senior officials of government hauled off in security vans to remote prison locations just because a newspaper story alleges them to be corrupt.
No, to Dr Ogbonnia and co, due process has no place in the fight against corruption. All that is required is the presence of a "strong leader" to determine who is corrupt and who is not. Once this strong leader emerges, corruption will quietly disappear from the country because he will be so strong to instil enough "fear" in the mind of the populace that no one will ever consider being involved in any kind of corrupt practice.
One may ask, does Dr Ogbonnia's proposition hold true when historical records are evaluated. In time past in this country, during the military regime, people arrested for armed robbery were marked for public executions. A public scene is made of the killing of these criminals who engage in robbery. The aim ostensibly was to discourage people from armed robbery, to "put fear" into the populace and dissuade Nigerians from stealing. But can anyone argue that armed robbery ceased to exist because of these instances of public executions? Can anyone bring any evidence to suggest that people became so fearful that they turned away from robbery?
We can go further to remind Nigerians that three young men- Bartholomew Owoh, Bernard Ogedengbe and Lawal Ojuolape were once executed for drug peddling by the type of leader Dr Ogbonnia unwittingly prescribes for Nigeria, one is however not aware that the "fear" generated by this execution eradicated the scourge of drug trafficking in Nigeria. If it did, NDLEA (Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency) officials would have since been out of jobs. At the time, even in scenes of those public executions, cars were still being snatched, pickpockets still thrived, the police then, as now also had the onerous task of running after criminals, citizens still had their moments of torments on account of these violent criminals operating on the roads, in the neighborhoods in urban and rural centers, public and private offices.
The message: Dr Ogbonnia's theory that having the fear of wrong doing unleashed on the polity by "leaders with courage" serves the antidote for corruption is shallow at best and misleading in true sense of the word.
Mining political capital by staging theatrical anti-corruption war does not do the polity any good. Such efforts serve to entertain the public and would certainly titillate the gullible but achieve nothing truly fundamental. People can respond momentarily to show of strength and effect slight changes in behavior but will not waste time in reverting to old habits sooner, rather than later. We once had a leader in the country whose famed no nonsense approached to issues forced a change of public behavior but hardly had he settled in office when the fervor began to wear down, gradually, civil servants returned to the culture of lateness, drudgery and absenteeism. Road indiscipline which disappeared with the coming of the reputedly strong man gradually began to crawl back as the regime wore on.
Nigerians can remember what happened in the recent past when judgment on corruption was passed by presidential proclamations over the airwaves. Development like this did serve to excite individuals in hunt for hysteria and mass frenzy. But not one sincere person in the country can say that the regime at the time truly fought corruption in true sense of it. Yes, we saw politicians being handcuffed and led into waiting prison vans but one cannot say how such "public shows" affected Nigeria's overall rating in the corruption index.
One thing however must be made certain. The present administration, without creating theatrical scenes is saving the country billions of naira that were hitherto lost to fraudulent practices. The Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPS) has weeded out an estimated 65,000 ghost workers from the civil service payroll of the federal government, saving the government over 200bn that would have been stolen by dishonest officials.
Can Dr Ogbonnia tell us how much savings were recorded at the time Nigerians were being daily entertained over the TV with superficial anti-corruption wars?
In the payment of pensions, the government has also introduced measures that employ technology to minimize the prevalence of corruption in the pension scheme. Over 15,000 'ghost pensioners' have been eliminated from the pension payroll saving the government 2.1bn by simply conducting a biometric verification of pensioners as a basis for migrating them to an electronic payroll. Can Ogbonnia question the efficiency of system that cost less than 1% of what has been saved? Can he compare this to the cost of litigation and say that it is cheaper?
Quietly, the government has enabled proactive reforms to weed out corruption from our public service scheme. It is not as dramatic as our friends in "foreign lands" would have wished but it has proven to be more enduring, effective and result-oriented. Governance is not theatre. It is a serious business that asks for diligence and intense focus on the part of the officials.
Also according to him:' it has been easy for Iweala to also assume a unique audacity to make any claim on the Nigerian leadership, however feigned.' One, the Minister has not assumed any 'unique audacity'. She has always been unique by birth, intellect and posture. It is this uniqueness that has distinguished her, it is this uniqueness that took her to the World Bank. It is also this uniqueness that got her called severally to come and lead the efforts at revitalizing the Nigerian economy. Ogbonnia should recognize that the minister is a natural 'outstander', and should stop being 'perplexed'. Two, the minister has never promoted 'institutions' as the 'sole antidote' to Nigeria's corruption. Where he got that from is what I fail to see. He should tell where he got that impression from. This fundamental error destroys the essence of his entire write up which is meant strictly to denigrate for selfish purposes.
It is really sad that Ogbonnia would tie or trace the genesis of all statements made by Nigerians or Africans to the statement that Barack Obama made in Ghana in July 2009. So according to him, until Barack Obama made that statement, no one in Africa, no one in Nigeria knew anything about the imperative of building strong institutions. How dumb does Ogbonnia take Africans to be? What value does he really place on the African intellect? So because, Obama made that statement, no one else can mention that word in any context without being judged as cueing off from Obama. This is simply shallow deductive reasoning and Ogbonnia should cover his face in shame.
Back to the real point, the minister has never promoted 'strong institutions as the SOLE antidote to the Nigeria's endemic corruption.' as alleged by Ogbonnia. The Minister while speaking recently at the Catholic Caritas Foundation on the topic: 'Preventing Leakages in the Nigerian Economy' the Minister had lamented the systemic vulnerabilities which exist in government that encourage corruption. She was making a very passionate argument that as good as it is to attack the symptoms and manifestations of corruption, a more sustainable campaign can only be achieved at the level of dealing with the root issues by closing those gaps. She said "Fundamentally, we have to ask ourselves, why this (corruption) has continued to be a problem; I am convinced that it is because we constantly look at the symptoms and not the cause of the disease. The cause of the disease is we don't have in place the institutions, the systems and the processes to block and prevent it in the first place." This is the full quote of what the Minister said that the Ogbonnia's of this world will not want Nigerians to hear. She was staying on point in view of the topic of her presentation which was preventing leakages.
As straightforward and logical as these sentences would appear to a logical and open minded person, the scouts for dirt like Ogbonnia have latched onto the last sentence to say that Okonjo Iweala is indicting the corruption agencies e.g. EFCC and ICPC, that it is an acknowledgement by the minister that the Jonathan administration is not taking the war against corruption seriously and all manner of insinuations. The deceit in the critiques of this statement is their singular emphasis on the word 'institutions'. I have not read any critique that places a similar premium on systems and processes. The deceit can also be seen in their inability to put the entire sentence in context. The deceit also is that they fail to know that the word 'institution' has several meanings whose meaning is best understood when put in context. And in this case, the use of the word 'institutions' in this context by the minister is not a reference to physical institution like EFCC or ICPC but to 'established practice, custom' as defined by the Encarta Dictionary.
Ogbonnia should therefore tell us if the implementation of the electronic payroll system for the civil service which has eliminated 65,000 ghost workers and saved the country over 140bn is not a better strategy of fighting corruption than leaving the system porous and dragging over 100 staff to court for violations?
Let Ogbonnia go on to tell his reader if it is better to arrest 100 erring fertilizer distributors and spend years in court over infractions than to implement an e-wallet fertilizer distribution system that will eliminate the possibility of those infractions and save the government billions at negligible cost?
Let Ogbonnia also tell his audience, if it is better to keep a manual register of pensioners and prosecute officers that introduce ghost workers into the payroll than to implement a biometric system that screens out 15,000 ghost workers from the pension payroll and make it virtually impossible to introduce ghost workers into the payroll forever. Which one of these efforts is the most effective and guaranteed to produce results and fight corruption in the long term? Of course, prevention. This has always been the argument of the Minister without denying the need for punishment of offenders.
For Ogbonnia to mention the natural attributes of the minister and insinuate that the minister deliberately uses them as weapons is just plain laughable. The Minister is never one to throw around her background and cuts the picture of simplicity and humility for those that know her. She never throws around her credentials which Ogbonnia considers 'intimidating'. If Ogbonnia is intimidated by the credentials of Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, then that is his problem and not that of the minister's.
Ogbonnia is clearly incensed at the importance and influence that Okonjo-Iweala commands in country and within international circles. The Minister is where she is today out of pure handwork, tenacity and the sheer brilliance that she has consistently brought to bear on her work. The attention she naturally attracts is only reflective of the brilliance of a true African Amazon who in spite of a long spell abroad has deliberately stayed true to her origins as is reflected in her purely African fashion sense.
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is no doubt playing a very strategic role in this government. As the Minister of Finance and the coordinating Minister of the economy, she is by virtue of that exalted position no ordinary Nigerian. It is therefore understandable that anything she says is newsy with the potential to spark intensive debates. What I find nauseating is the consistent attempt by some ill motivated commentators like Ogbonnia, who are quick to distort facts and misrepresent what she says with the sole purpose of inciting the populace against her and the government. They lurk around events, run google searches on her name with minds already taken hostage by prejudice, daily scouting for what they can use to denigrate her and once they do, they pounce on it like ravenous lions. Her crime is very simple: the President is supporting her to make the difference their principals do not want Nigerians to know about. The strategy is also very simple: attack her reputation, paint her black and do not let Nigerians see her for whom she truly is. But like I always say, you cannot cover the moon with your palms. You can deceive yourself that the moon is not there, because everyone else can see it.
Okeke is a public affairs analyst based in Lagos
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