RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Corruption Investigations

Is the United States corruption free today?  Is the United Kingdom corruption free today?  Did Obama  on assumption of office pre-occupy himself with all corrupt cases perpetrated by the members of the Bush administration ? e.g. Haliburton etc.  Did David Cameron start digging into all corruption practise of the long New Labor rule and back to the Thatcherite era (including facilitation of oil contracts for her son, Mark?)

Why does Buhari need to probe all governments since independence to put an end to corruption during the current dispensation?  Can he make a meaningful start in view of the stratospheric scale of corrupt practices? Yes he can; he was voted in precisely to do that!  Does he have to include anyone in his administration who has a case to answer following corruption vetting simply because they contributed to his electoral victory?  No he does not have to and can politely inform them that because of the emphasis of his administration their services are not needed.  Can they take him to court for that?  They are welcome to try!  Can they impeach him for that?

Well, the world waits... 

Olayinka Agbetuyi

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Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 10:38:19 -0700
From: corneliushamelberg@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Corruption Investigations

Re- " assuming that all Nigerians truly believe that corruption must go!To single one regime for corruption charges,out of all the regimes that have governed Nigeria, nearly all of which can be justifiably accused of corrupt governance is a parochial,narrow,petty and devious response to corruption"

With $600bn looted from 1960 to now it stands to reason – the constraints of time and space - that it would be quite a backlog of corruption cases to attend to. How far back can he go in attempting to successfully recover the bulk of the looted money and assets?

Only asking,

CH

We Sweden

On Thursday, 23 July 2015 23:40:23 UTC+2, ugwuanyi Lawrence wrote:

This piece is highly readable but in my estimation  it falls short of what should be a worthier attitude/response to corruption-assuming that all Nigerians truly believe that corruption must go!To single one regime for corruption charges,out of all the regimes that have governed Nigeria, nearly all of which can be justifiably accused of corrupt governance is a parochial,narrow,petty and devious response to corruption.

It narrows the idea and annoints it all the more.

It will strengthen the claim that corruption charges in Nigeria depends on who is involved, where he or she comes from and the peculiar interest of the anti-corruption agent or body.It is a mockery on the desired fight against corruption.Simple!

Evil is evil and has no gender or race or tribe.And corruption is evil because it amounts to wealth without work.

So can Nigerians(under what may be called a veil of innocence) demand a list of all citizens  who have wealth or money they were not in a position to acquire; and can it be held that these are corrupt wealth until the source of the wealth proves otherwise?

Can the president be bold to set a body that will achieve this list?

Establishing this list would,I think, be a fundamental beginning to such moral struggle.

Perhaps thereafter what to do with the list will be debated and a popular decision will be acheived!

Difficult and demanding as this may be,if Buhari would not have the courage to go this far(at least to tell us who exactly were/are the corrupt citizens of the Nigerian state),it is doubtful how far he could go with his anti-corruption dream,paasionate as he may be about it!

Corruption may just be perching at his backyard even as he is shooting at it in the village square!


Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi,Ph.D
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy & Religions
University of Abuja.







--- On Mon, 7/20/15, Jibrin Ibrahim <jib...@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Jibrin Ibrahim <jib...@gmail.com>
> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Corruption Investigations
> To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Monday, July 20, 2015, 12:08 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Investigations
> of Mega
> Looting Must Continue, But Must be Lawful
>
>  
>
> Jibrin
> Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust,
> 20th
> July 2015
>
>  
>
> The
> Head of State declared that the government was "to all
> intents
> and purposes bankrupt." The person in question was
> Mohammadu Buhari and
> the time was October 1984. The statement was a justification
> for the draconian
> actions his regime was taking against the political class he
> succeeded which he
> declared to be composed of economic criminals and saboteurs.
> He detained 475
> politicians and businessmen and set up five military
> tribunals to judge them
> for corruption. The military, according to Max Siollun were
> the prosecutor,
> judge and jury. The legal principle was that the onus was on
> the accused to
> prove their innocence. Within months, the crème de la
> crème of the Second
> Republic – Melford Okilo, Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar, Bola
> Ige, Aper Aku, Jim
> Nwobodo etc. were jailed for 21 years each. The military
> were not excluded, Col
> Obasa for example was jailed for 22 years when it was
> discovered that he had
> 305 Naira in his bank account when he became NYSC director
> in 1979 and the said
> account had grown to seven million Naira in December 1983.
> Suddenly, public
> opinion turned against Buhari, he was moving too fast and
> too far. Of course
> the public opinion was driven by a beleaguered press
> suffering from the effects
> of draconian laws that curbed the media and sent many
> journalists to jail.
>
>  
>
> It
> would be recalled that the regime has enacted the infamous
> Decree No.
> 4 aimed at stopping he media from "maligning" public
> offices irrespective of
> the veracity of the stories reported. Two journalists of The
> Guardian, Nduka
> Irabor and Tunde Thompson had been jailed and the media and
> the human rights
> community were in justified rage against Buhari's human
> rights abuses. For many
> Nigerians however, jailing the corrupt politicians was the
> right thing to do.
> Indeed, there can be no doubt that much of the popularity
> that eventually
> propelled Buhari to power this year is not unconnected with
> popular memories
> linking him to the capacity to deal with corrupt
> politicians. The more people
> realised the depth of the corruption of the Jonathan
> Administration, the more
> they felt they needed Buhari.
>
>  
>
> In
> his book Peace and Violence in Nigeria, Professor Tekena
> Tamuno
> reminds us that when Buhari came to power in January 1984,
> he was regularly
> attacked for being "as slow as a tortoise". Newspaper
> pundits compared his slow
> pace to the extremely fast pace with which General Murtala
> Mohammed hit the
> ground running when he took over power from General Yakubu
> Gowon. It turned out
> that Buhari was not slow; he was planning a blitzkrieg
> against the corrupt
> political class that had bankrupted Nigeria.
>
>  
>
> Fast
> forward thirty years, Mohammadu Buhari is back in power and
> his
> immediate assessment is that Nigeria is bankrupt and the
> Jonathan
> Administration of mega looters has direct responsibility for
> the terrible state
> of affairs. Since assuming power, he has been listening a
> lot, reading a lot
> and engaged in little action. Nigerians are beginning to
> shout that he is too
> slow. We should be careful what we pray for; a very fast
> moving Buhari taking
> precipitate unlawful action against corruption might not be
> what we need.
>
>  
>
> I
> believe that it is not an easy situation for President
> Buhari. Nigeria
> has not seen the level of reckless mega corruption that has
> been displayed by
> the Jonathan Administration. They stole our national
> resources with such
> reckless abandon that suggested they believed they would be
> thrown out of
> office at the elections. Yet, the evidence before us is that
> they believed they
> would win the elections through free or foul means and yet
> they stole as if
> there would be no political tomorrow. Having essentially
> started by stealing
> what was in the budget, they graduated to stealing the
> national income before
> it even went to the national purse. I would not be surprised
> if President
> Buhari would be wishing that he could set up military
> tribunals and send all of
> them to jail. However he knows, and he had said it himself,
> that the world has since
> changed. There can be no retroactive laws as he had in 1984.
> There can be no
> trial by military tribunals. The legal principle is all are
> innocent until
> proved guilty and the rule of law is the guiding principle.
> It is therefore not
> surprising that he has been in such deep thought, study and
> reflection.
>
>  
>
> Finally,
> action appeared to have studied last week. The all-powerful
> former
> National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki had his houses
> raided just two days
> after leaving office. He was interrogated through the night;
> monies and arms
> were reported to have been seized from his domicile. As Col
> Dasuki himself
> said, the high handedness was uncalled for, he should have
> been invited for
> questioning and he would have respected the invitation. I
> was troubled by the
> press release issued by the Department of State Services
> (DSS) justifying their
> high-handed action. They claim to have "credible
> intelligence linking the immediate past NSA, Mohammed Sambo
> DASUKI (Col Rtd) with
> alleged plans to commit treasonable felony against the
> Nigerian State". The
> evidence they pointed to include the discovery of twelve new
> vehicles and seven
> assault rifles in his house. I have no security training so
> I do not know how
> treasonable felony is executed. All the same, I would be
> extremely surprised at
> the feasibility of Col Sambo Dasuki zooming off in a new SUV
> carrying riffles
> to overthrow the regime. We learn from the DSS report that
> he was still
> enjoying armed guards from the army so the existence of the
> arms might be easily
> explained.
>
>  
>
> Moving
> forward, it is very important that investigations into the
> corrupt deals of the
> Jonathan Administration follow the rule of law. The
> investigations must however
> be done and done thoroughly. Given the extent of the
> economic crimes and sabotage
> done by the Jonathan Administration, the investigations must
> go back to the
> beginning of the regime. The monies looted from our treasury
> must be recovered
> and used for national development. At this point, President
> Buhari must explain
> his anti-corruption strategy to Nigerians and there should
> be a debate about
> it. What role, for example, would the anti-corruption
> agencies paly and how
> would they be revamped? The possible modes for recovering
> looted funds should
> also be debated. President Buhari would also require a
> competent and principled
> Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation
> to anchor the work,
> which brings s, back to the vexed issue of political
> appointments. President
> Buhari is a recognized anti-corruption crusader but he
> cannot do the work
> alone. He needs a team to guide him away from easy routes
> that could be
> booby-trapped and not bear the fruit we are all
> expecting.
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Jibrin Ibrahim PhD
> Senior
> Fellow
> Centre for
> Democracy and Development
> 16 A7 Street,
> CITEC Mbora Estate,
> Jabi/Airport Road
> By-pass,
> P.O.Box14345, Wuse
> Abuja, Nigeria
> Tel - +234 8053913837
> Twitter- @jibrinibrahim17
> Facebook- jibrin.ibrahim
>
>
>
>
>
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