Wednesday, April 20, 2016

RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Danger of a Single Corruption Story

Moses invented "The Danger of a Single Corruption Story" and he is fraudulently transforming his invention into the belief of all Nigerians. At no time in the history of our nation has corruption ever been individualised as averred by Moses but he has deliberately chosen this style of argument to covertly express his dislike for the prosecution of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki for corruption and false declaration of assets. Hear Moses, "In the second republic the individual stand-in for corruption was Umaru Dikko. In the PDP era, it was James Ibori. In the unfolding APC period, that personification of Nigeria's corruption is Bukola Saraki." For reasons best known to Moses he did not tell us who personified corruption in the first republic even though there were corruptions then. Recollecting from the broadcast on Radio Kaduna at 12:30 afternoon by the leader of January 15, 1966 coup, Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzegwu, told the nation that the aims of his revolution was to deal with political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in the high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent. Among crimes he listed that would incur death penalty were embezzlement, bribery and corruption. Unfortunately for Nigeria, the corrupt and tribal military elements hijacked and usurped his revolution. In the second republic, Umaru Dikko was not the face of corruption but one of the corrupt elements under President Shehu Shagari. The only reason why Umaru Dikko's case became popular was because of Buhari's failed attempt to airfreight him from London to Nigeria in a box. Jim Nwodo was convicted for corruption, the former Governor of Cross Rivers State as well as Central Bank of Nigeria, Clement Isong was jailed under Buhari/Idiagbon regime for corruption.
 
In the PDP era it is untrue to state that James Onanefe Ibori personified corruption since Ibori was only one of about a hundred people, including former governors, that were arraigned by EFCC/ICCP between July - August 2007 for corruption.  Amongst them were, the Governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, who actually jumped bail in London in 2004 for money laundering, Saminu Turaki, governor of Jigawa State, Orji Uzor Kalu, Governor of Abia State, Attahiru Bafarawa, Governor of Sokoto State, Alao Akala, Governor of Oyo State, George Akume, Governor of Benue State etc. Ibori could not be said to be face of corruption during the PDP era since he was freed by Justice Marcel Awokunlehin of Asaba High Court in 2009 of all the 170 count charge levelled against him by EFCC. Since Nigeria's Maradona legal system permits corrupt officials to dribble with laws even when they are caught red-handed, all corruption cases from 2007 are still ongoing. Some cases of the corruption were not even investigated as the culprits secured permanent court injunctions prohibiting the prosecutorial authorities from investigating and interrogating  suspects. Ibori came to lime-light because he was arrested, tried and convicted in London for laundering millions of pounds he stole from Delta State's treasury when he was Governor between 1999 and 2007.
 
Bukola Saraki cannot personify corruption under the current APC regime since he is not the only one being tried in the court at present for corruption. What would Moses say of Dasuki, Badeh, Amosu, Metuh and others? Moses regaled readers thus, "Reading and listening to some of these folks one would think that Nigeria's corruption virus originated with Saraki and will end with his conviction. You'd think that Saraki's corruption and that the reclamation of Nigeria hangs on its outcome alone." He wrote further, "To hear some people talk about Bukola Saraki one would think the Senate President is the very embodiment of Nigeria's corruption problem and that his removal from office and/or conviction would magically banish graft and restore probity in the polity." Was Moses reading and listening to his own mind about Saraki's corruption trial and subsequent conviction and tacitly transplanting his personal deduction on "some of these folks?" Where did Moses "hear some people talk about Bukola Saraki?" Who were the "some people?" Is it not intellectually corrupt to suggest or propose, directly or indirectly that until all the corrupt elements both in PDP and APC are simultaneously tried the trial of Saraki is wrong? If Moses is concerned about the removal of Saraki as Senate President, why was he not concerned about how Bukola Saraki became the Senate President through a Parliamentary coup? Constitutionally anyone wishing to contest election into any elected office in Nigeria must belong to a political party which must sponsor him/her for the election. Thus, there are no independent candidates in Nigeria's elections. After elections, elected candidates must toe party line and no elected person should declare self independent of the political party on whose platform one was elected. Saraki committed parliamentary abomination when he took 8 members of the APC to join with 49 members of PDP to emerge as the President of the Senate against the wish of his party, APC. As if that was not enough, he conceded the post of the Deputy Senate President to the PDP opposition, Ike Ekweremandu. The majority which electorates gave to APC in the National Assembly at the last election has been transformed by Saraki to PDP majority which means that all laws needed to bring changes, especially in respect of corruption, will never see the light of the day.
 
"We are supposed to believe that Saraki is the only face of corruption in the APC, the lone compromised mole preventing Buhari from articulating a coherent narrative of transparency, the internal APC saboteur of the President's battle against corruption," Moses wrote. The question here again is, who are Moses referring to as we are supposed to believe that Saraki is the only face of corruption in the APC? Who gave Moses the impression that Saraki is the only face of corruption in the APC? At moment the courts are overloaded with cases of corruption and with the pace at which the trials are going, it may take ten years to conclude all cases. Buhari had asked the national Assembly to pass a law setting up tribunals to try corruption cases but the national assembly is yet to respond to the President's request. However, the Senate had hurriedly passed a motion to amend CCB and CCT Acts, under which Saraki is now being tried, with the aim of witling down the power of the administrative court to try corrupt officials. When Abdullahi Yahaya - APC, Kebbi North - warned that processing the amendments in the midst of Saraki's trial would reflect negatively on the image of the Senate, a Saraki ally, Biodun Olujimin - PDP, Ekiti South - answered thus, "If you don't assist your neighbour when his house is burning, it will extend to yours." Moses' sense of rage, like most Nigerians, should be directed at looters who dribble with laws to retain their loots. As for Buhari he cannot change anything in Nigeria as long as he wants the looters to regard him as a democrat and respecter of the rule of law as defined by the looters.
S. Kadiri  
 
 
 
     
 

From: aaeoee@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:40:41 -0400
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Danger of a Single Corruption Story
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Moses,

Of course, I know Tinubu is far, very far from being a saint and I can't guarantee he, like any politician, would come out of a clinical financial investigation untainted. If Tinubu is found wanting today or tomorrow, good luck to him. However, the mere fact that you dislike someone should not be a license to gleefully and wittingly misrepresent facts pertaining to that person. The need to balance your glaringly stereotypical single story, to contextualize part of your assertions motivates my intervention in this case and in many cases including that of Fowler, El Rufai etc. Needless to say, if you write a fairly balanced story on any person, you would have provided no justification for me to chip in anything other than to chorus your views.

Anyway, I still share part of your views namely that Saraki's trial is motivated primarily by politics and that he should carry his cross since we can't justify criminality on the alter of politics or political correctness. With almost ninety (90!) lawyers, I think he is fighting gallantly, decently is entirely another thing though. Good luck to him and many others including Dasuki, Methuh, Muhammed Bello, Patrick Apkobolokemi, Orubebe, Oronsaye etc plus even many more that will be added to the list.

Thanks,
Bayo.

On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:

Moses:


Well, we have both had our say(s).....yours is not the single story of anti-anti-corruption...! :-)


Bolaji Aluko


On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Moses Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
No, Bolaji, you got it wrong. I have been railing against the status quo since I started doing online public intellectual work in 1999 or thereabouts. From Obasanjo's administration to this administration. I have always been dissatisfied with the status quo and have called for something radically different, from calling repeatedly for restructuring and true fiscal federalism to calling for a radically new, depoliticized and non-selective approach to fighting corruption. The status quo is what we have now: going after errant, disfavored, and expendable members of the political elite in a token, pretentious, and counterproductive gesture of anti-corruption and then selling it to gullible, frustrated Nigerians as a genuine effort against corruption. You find nothing wrong with this status quo, which instead of reducing our corruption problem has enabled it to balloon out of control. You have been defending this failed, counterproductive "anti-corruption" status quo in your writings instead of joining me in calling for a holistic anti-corruption effort. You don't see anything wrong with celebrating and even appointing into government those who, like Saraki, have credible corruption allegations hanging on them. You don't see anything wrong with many former governors of both parties who are now legislating for you and me and enjoying their loot while their EFCC cases are allowed to die, while we Nigerians don't even mention them anymore, and while we obsess myopically about Saraki and how he is purportedly the one standing in the way of fighting corruption. And finally, please go and read my piece. I specifically condemned the if-you don't-them-all-don't-try-anyone argument. I called it a terrible logic. Quite frankly, this is the usual, tired red herring because I don't know many Nigerians who even argue that. I argued that in fact Saraki's travail should not only end in his being relieved of the senate presidency, the likely outcome that the APC really wants, but also in jail time.

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 19, 2016, at 12:09 AM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:



Bayo Amos:

May your tribe increase!

Moses episodically writes agitprop masquerading as populist objectivity, but it is invariably an opaque veneer of support for the status quo, and the odd notion of if-you-cannot-do-everything-then-do-nothing.

And since 1999, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been this political ogre who, if he is not jailed, then no political person should be jailed in Nigeria.

Haba!



Bolaji Aluko




On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 12:44 AM, Bayo Amos <aaeoee@gmail.com> wrote:
Yours is actually a single story devoid of needed nuances to make it balanced. 

"Never mind that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was charged with exactly the same offense as Saraki in a similarly politically charged atmosphere and that over 70 lawyers invaded the courtroom to defend him and eventually succeeded in intimidating the judge into acquitting him."

1. The highlighted is just NOT true. Bola Tinubu was not accused of FALSE DECLARATION of assets. He was accused of OPERATING a foreign account which is forbidden by the constitution. You can be operating a foreign account  without actually defrauding your state. Meanwhile, you don't have to operate foreign account to even defraud your state. Please read the following:

The segment of the JTF's report involving Tinubu was as follows:
(15) BOLA TINUBU - GOVERNOR LAGOS STATE
Substance of Charges
(1) Operating and maintaining foreign accounts in his named and or his Company, compass Finance and Investment Ltd. with following particulars:
I.    NAME OF BANK: FIRST HERITAGE BANK, COUNTRY CLUB HILLS, ILLINOIS
ACCOUNT NAME: BOLA TINUBU
ACCOUNT NO:  263226700
II.    NAME OF BANK: CITIBANK N.A., NEW YORK 
ACCOUNT NAME: BOLA TINUBU & COMPASS FINANCE AND INVESTMENT         COMPANY LTD 
ACCOUNT NOS: 39483134, 39483396, 4650279566, 00400220, 39936404, 39936383
III.     NAME OF BANK:  HSBC 177 Great Portland Street London WIW 6QJ ACCOUNT NAME: TINUBU ZAINAB ABISOLA (MISS) 
ACCOUNT NOS: 1720447101
IV.     NAME OF BANK: HSBC 177 Great Portland Street London WIW 6QJ 
             ACCOUNT   NAME: (MRS) TINUBU OLUREMI SHADE
V.    NAME OF BANK:  HSBC 177 Great Portland Street London WIW 6QJ.
            ACCOUNT NAME:  OLUREMI SHADE TINUBU
            ACCOUNT NOS:  41421522 
            SORT CODES:     40-03-15.


2. Before he was charged at CCT, he was widely reported to be under investigation, a sort of perennial investigation. A situation that made him call on the FG to initiate prosecution if indeed there was a solid case against him. Please read the following:

I'm not interested in what they are saying, but you cannot perpetually hang the hammer of investigation over my head. It's not fair. It all started from (Nuhu) Ribadu era, from the year 2002 when they attempted to stop me from re-contesting for a second term. They didn't succeed. Then, in the following years, they have been talking of Bola Tinubu being under investigation. Each time I aggressively pursue a goal that is anti-establishment position, you find an act of investigation by EFCC or the authority hanging over my head. That continued from 2002 up to year 2007.
 

They used immunity excuse and made all sorts of allegations which I challenged. Ribadu's claim to the media was that my corruption had international dimension. What is international dimension was not stated there. I went to EFCC. There was no immunity any longer. I provided answers to the questions. ***What is very annoying is that if they have evidence to prosecute me, this is an era of rule of law, just go to court and prosecute me. Don't hang the hammer of investigation perpetually on my head. If you have concrete facts, let's go to court. Let me move on with my life****
 

I have families. I have friends. I have business associates and my right to personal liberty is guaranteed under the constitution. As a result of this blackmail method of one being investigated, my family, my children, a lot of people have been calling me since yesterday. I have never done anything to stop them from investigating me. I have never disturbed their investigation.

We've seen several cases of even political murders where they said there was no need for further investigation, so many of those cases. Now, how long will you take and when will I be able to have my right back? Because two years after I left office, if you have not come up with concrete evidence that will let you prosecute me, please, keep quiet and let me move on with my life.

 
3.When Tinubu was eventually charged at CCT for operating these accounts in 2011, he didn't make EFFORTS to evade trial. Hear him:

In a response, Tinubu noted that "after years of threats, political mudslinging and media trial on the impending allegations, a formal invitation to commence trial has finally come," and that he welcomed it in conformity with his respect for the rule of law calling on the judiciary to ensure that justice is done, he cautioned that at the CCB, "those who allege must prove."
 

4. How did it go? Please read:

The last appears not to have been heard on the operation of foreign accounts charges levelled against Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu while in office as Lagos State governor by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) as Tinubu is threatening to seek redress. The charges were last week dismissed by the Code of Conduct Tribunal on the grounds that the charges lacked substance. Tinubu, formally reacting to the acquittal, yesterday, said he would "seek further redress because of the injury caused by my reputation and inflicted on my businesses and family".
 
In a statement by the national leader of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), he maintained that his anger lingered over the non-full disclosure of the alleged bank accounts and other details relating to the charges by the government in an effort to portray and falsely classify him as a money launderer and looter of public funds. "Where and when are the transactions in these accounts operated?  What are the balances in each of these accounts? What is the ageing analysis of those balances and their sources if any?, Tinubu queried. "The government prosecutors and some of their political leaders in their media campaign listed these accounts and made spurious allegations making it seem as if I looted public funds and stashed it away in these accounts. Yet they have failed to provide evidence to prove these weighty, yet unfounded allegations, which shows clearly at the tribunal that this was a political persecution from the very beginning", he said.
 

'Political vendetta'
He went on: "The government and its lawyers in their handling of this case have revealed a crass lack of knowledge of financial rules at home and abroad thus, embarrassing me as a citizen, their own government and the country". The ACN leader stated that wasting millions of public funds to prosecute a political vendetta is unjustifiable and failing to apply both the principle and doctrine of materiality; cost and benefit analysis in investigation and prosecution of the case questionable. "I feel ashamed that the government is using a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and a costly team of attorneys to prosecute this case, thereby demonstrating lack of policy direction to develop and train hundreds of lawyers in the Ministry of Justice and office of the public prosecutor. I dare ask, what is the aim of outsourcing a case like this to outside lawyers with huge professional bills?. "The government equally failed to employ the FOI to disclose to Nigerians how much are in these accounts and how much the government was expending to prosecute
"I am still in consultation with my attorneys on the next plan of action. The long time of media trial and political persecution have had toll on my businesses, my political reputation and constituted an infringement of my rights and that of my family as Nigerian citizens".
 
It is only a wicked system that will list minors and portray them as looters for having in their accounts amounts in the hundreds meant for their upkeep and school runs".


5. Saraki's trial speaks for itself, the revelations, frivolous suits, etc. It is only a disingenuous fellow that would say Bola Tinubu was charged with exactly the same offense as Saraki. It's not even close. 

Why do we find it difficult to simply tell the accused, Saraki in this case, to defend himself? Why? You don't have to distort documented events just to pen your prejudice as history. It's not right. 

Thanks,
Bayo.

 

On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:


Moses Ochonu:

You have this tendency to set up a straw man, and then go ahead to beat up the straw man, and even burn the straw to ashes.

Pray, tell me:  who has set up Saraki as the "Single corruption story" in Nigeria?  Who has?  

Even your own write-up below in which you mention Umaru Dikko and Ibori - and you fail to mention Tafa Balogun and Alamieyeseigha - but REALLY aim to have BAT included before you convinced the Saraki saga is not a witch-hunt - is a repudiation of a portion of your thesis.  Each of these persons appear to be NEGATIVE-EXEMPLARS (there may be a better word for this) of Nigerian corruption in their own times, but certainly they were NOT the only one during their own times, and no Nigerian believes - and went to be believing - that once they were put away, corruption would cease in Nigeria.

But there is something DIFFERENT about the Buhari Administration and its anti-corruption stance that we must encourage and take heart about rather than taking pot shots at it because of other possibly larger (and suppressed) political frustrations:

(1)  Buhari himself is quite un-impeachable in terms of corruption.  

That counts for much, because in Nigeria (as in most other places in the world) blackmail is the first and biggest "silencer" when it comes to taking action against corruption.  Those who are corrupt in general fight back and want to show you up as a collaborator, which completely weakens your case.   His character is such that he is prepared to sacrifice any impeachable person who serves under him - and they know it -  and so that makes his anti-corruption work even more difficult.  I put Saraki as one of that company, with a particular quirk unlike Dikko, Ibori or Alamieyeseigha:  Saraki has bestrodden (?) Nigeria from his youth, as a business tycoon of a wealthy family, to executive state capacity, to floor Senator-hood - so far, following the footsteps of his father himself -  and now to Senate President - and Number 3 man in Nigeria.  To that extent, the corruption "halo" around him is "singular."

(2)  Buhari's presidential administration took over from GEJ's administration which was hobbled by thirty active months of presidential-election politicking, and which left in such tattered and hurried rag-tag array that it did not have enough time to hide its financial excesses.  There are financial bodies buried all over the place, with their legs sticking out, un-deniable.

That was why GEJ was confusing the words "prosecuting" and "persecution".  In fact, I hesitate to state that the second-term politics of GEJ began the very first day he became substantive president following UMYA's death,  with calculations by various minority groups (whose only hope was for a minority to remain President for as long as constitutionally allowed; I suspect that you belong to one of those minority groups, which color your positions), majority groups who felt that power should shift back to them - as promised - and  individuals of various character and characteristics in ruling and opposition parties whose selfish calculations were geared towards staying on the side of who they felt would succeed GEJ - whether himself or anyone else.   Transformation Agenda of Nigeria (TAN) was the early embodiment of such a GEJ succession campaign, while the Governors that were decamping - with Amaechi and Saraki the arrowheads - were the arrowhead of those looking for an alternative candidate from within their midst.   

I interacted closely a number of times with GEJ during my own "presidency" of the new university in his home-town, and I told those who would listen that to my mind his body language was NOT to run for a second term.  However he was bullied into it by his minority compatriots (Edwin Clarke, Asari Dokubo, etc.)  who considered it treachery if he did not offer himself up, and blundered into thinking that it could bully and threaten the rest of the mono-cultural country with an oil commodity that later became both cheap and even un-needed (in the main), and individuals who saw NO ONE PERSON in the horizon - certainly not Buhari at first - of sufficient stature to threaten a sitting President.

After three times of trying, most politicians did not believe and could not conceive that there could be a coalescence around Buhari to be the credible candidate of a credible opposition party - which was what happened in a miraculous manner under the APC.  The rest is surprising history, leaving quite a lot of politicians - including Saraki - still dazed and in a quandary for what they had wrought, and now belatedly seeking ways to put back toothpaste into its tube.


(3)  More than any other President before him  - but maybe not Umaru Yar'Adua, whose tenure was unfortunately cut shut - Buhari correctly does not believe Nigeria is fine SIMPLY because he is at the helm of presidential affairs.  

Shagari was happy to preside over Nigeria, exceeding his own stated ambitions.  Obasanjo felt that Nigeria as it is would be fine for ever if he was elected as many times as possible until he was tired of being President - and if Nigeria allowed him to choose his successors for ever.   GEJ was too surprised to find himself at the helm of affairs to fully grow to take a position.  But once-and-successive-candidate-and-present-President Buhari is fully aware that there is something SYSTEMICALLY wrong with Nigeria, and that is why I believe that he is taking his time to do certain things - political, economic, social, financial, legislative, judicial - time so long that many are impatient with him.  

In fact, all the disclosures that have been coming out under him - particularly financial, judicial and legislative - have been so astounding that I am sure that Buhari is completely perplexed as to how our country came to such an impasse.  Dasuki, Oronsaye, Saraki, NIMASA, etc. - you name them.  Tarfa, the judges, you name them.  How Saraki, Dogara, Ekwerenmadu etc. deviously came to power in NASS without respect to party guidance or supremacy - you name them.  The ongoing 2016 Budget fiasco featuring both bureaucratic and legislative pork  - you name them.

So ours is a really sick nation, and the only doctor in the House - at least the elected one - is Buhari, with his team of scrubbed-down lieutenants....

Lord have mercy upon us, but we have a responsibility to pray for their success and work in any supportive way we can, rather than being obstructionist, far away or near, with pen, electrons or otherwise.

And there you have it.



Bolaji Aluko

 



On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 2:41 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

The Danger of a Single Corruption Story

 

By Moses E. Ochonu

 

 

There is a danger in equating corruption in Nigeria with the infractions of a single corrupt individual. At different moments of our national life, we tend to narrowly and naively unload our anti-corruption angst on one individual politician. We then pummel this individual like a piñata while seemingly forgetting that Nigeria's political corruption is a group act, an orgy of theft involving whole groups of politicians and bureaucrats.

 

We inculpate some politicians while inadvertently exculpating others. We do so to assuage our emotional exhaustion at corruption's stubborn persistence, and its devastating consequences.

 

In the second republic the individual stand-in for corruption was Umaru Dikko. In the PDP era, it was James Ibori. In the unfolding APC period, that personification of Nigeria's corruption is Bukola Saraki.

 

To hear some people talk about Bukola Saraki one would think that the Senate President is the very embodiment of Nigeria's corruption problem and that his removal from office and/or conviction would magically banish graft and restore probity in the polity.

 

Reading and listening to some of these folks one would think that Nigeria's corruption virus originated with Saraki and would end with his conviction. You'd think that Saraki's ongoing trial was some seminal event in a revolution against corruption and that the reclamation of Nigeria hangs on its outcome alone.

 

Never mind that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was charged with exactly the same offense as Saraki in a similarly politically charged atmosphere and that over 70 lawyers invaded the courtroom to defend him and eventually succeeded in intimidating the judge into acquitting him. Mr. Saraki is rightly berated for trying to wriggle out of an actual trial, for seeking to have the charges corruptly dismissed. But it's now a distant, rarely revisited memory that Tinubu, the architect and champion of change if you believe the hype, had used a mix of legal maneuvers, bully tactics, and other shady shenanigans to evade justice on multiple occasions when the late social crusader, Gani Fawehinmi, sought to subject him to an open court process. He, too, was afraid of a trial. Today, he issues periodic sermons about how corruption has hobbled Nigeria and needs to be defeated. Depressingly, many Nigerians cheer these sanctimonious pronouncements.

We are supposed to believe that Saraki is the only face of corruption in the APC, the lone compromised mole preventing President Buhari from articulating a coherent narrative of transparency, the internal APC saboteur of the president's battle against corruption.

 

Never mind that Tinubu allegedly did worse to/in Lagos State as governor than Saraki did in/to Kwara. Never mind that Saraki's reign of larceny was contained in one state while Tinubu has, as of this year, privatized and appropriated the resources and patrimony of five Southwestern states for at least five years (nine years in some cases).

 

Never mind that Saraki's current judicial predicament stems not from any genuine interest in frontally taking on corruption in the ruling party but from his stubborn rebellion against the wishes of the ruling party's power brokers.

 

Let's be clear; I stayed in Ilorin for about a month last July. I have a lot of friends from Kwara State. I know and saw what Saraki did in/to Kwara State — what he continues to do to Kwara state through his handpicked successor and protege. It is not pretty. And, although his current travails emanate from his stewardship (or lack thereof) as governor, the man's thievery actually has a longer life span, dating back to his looting of depositors' funds from the defunct Societe Generale Bank, a financial institution controlled by his family.

 

So the man deserves and should get his comeuppance, which unfortunately in this case is only going to be the loss of his position as senate president and not the deserved time in jail. I'd wager my meager savings on this outcome. As soon as he resigns or is forced out, his CCT trial will slowly wind down and fizzle out. That is a sad, familiar pattern. But I digress.

 

My point here is that Saraki deserves all he is getting and more but that we need to put things in perspective. There are many former governors in the senate who did worse to their states but who are today the darlings of the APC leadership. My former state governor, George Akume is one of them. He cleaned out Benue State and has installed his two successors, including the disastrous Gabriel Suswam and his borrow-and-spend successor, Samuel Ortom.

 

Yet Akume, with the enthusiastic blessing of APC elders, including Tinubu, aspired to the position of Senate Leader before his and others' ambitions were scuttled by Saraki's leadership coup. Not only has Akume's corruption case with the EFCC remained in limbo, dead for all intents and purposes for about eight years, today he is one of the revered APC godfathers in my area and in all of Nigeria. Unlike Saraki, his relationship with Tinubu and the party elders is peachy, and that confers immunity.

 

This is not to suggest that Saraki should be ignored or released from his ongoing trial unless other corrupt people join him in the dock. That would be a terrible logic. Rather, I am gesturing toward a certain strain of hypocrisy, a blind spot that allows us to glibly condemn Saraki's vices while remaining silent about similar and worse crimes committed by a large coterie of former and serving public officials. There is some cognitive dissonance at play here.

 

Saraki is an easy, filthy, universally reviled target. He is expendable. It is easy for the APC to use him "to shine." It is easy to sacrifice a rebellious and corrupt member of the family while protecting and making way for corrupt but compliant members.

 

The APC leadership has been talking in recent days about sacrificing Saraki and about their preparedness to lose the senate leadership to the opposition PDP in order to make a statement about their commitment to change. What a load of bullocks! Saraki defied the elders and he is a threat to their interests because he knows where the proverbial bodies are buried. Getting rid of him is a perverse partisan priority, not a nationalistic sacrifice for change.

 

My larger is this: we tend to be seduced into a faux populist hysteria by the power games of the political elite instead of keeping our focus on the systemic nature of our corruption problem. When the politicians ostracize a tainted, disavowed member of their fraternity, they project all of Nigeria's corruption problems onto that individual.

 

On our part, we sheepishly and unthinkingly follow them to pour all our anti-corruption outrage into this individual. We then pretend that this person alone is corrupt among the political class or that he is the most corrupt member of that collective. We do it over and over again.

 

There was a time when this individuated symbol of Nigerian corruption was James Ibori. We created the fiction that Nigeria's corruption malaise inheres only in the corrupt former governor. He became the avatar of corruption in Nigeria, and his name became interchangeable with graft. That obsession lasted for about five years.

 

Ibori was eventually nabbed by the British judicial system and put away. One expected corruption to end with the removal of the godfather of corruption. Logically, if our narrative was correct, Ibori's demise should have signaled the demise of our corruption monster. Instead corruption ballooned in his absence, reaching its stratospheric peak during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Corruption in the post-Ibori era threatened to beatify the former Delta State governor.

Then and now, the obsession with single corruption stories, with individual representative figures of corruption has the effect of shielding other equally corrupt and more corrupt members of the political class from scrutiny and recompense. The larger cult of corrupt officials obtains exculpation by cunningly redirecting our outrage from the entire corrupt political elite to a momentarily disfavored politician. We then soon discover that corruption does not begin and end with this individual. But we don't learn from this realization. We keep repeating the same error.

 

Saraki's "anointing" as a symbol of all that is wrong with Nigeria is shielding many of the corrupt people in the APC, including Tinubu, from justice. What's more, it is allowing them to position themselves hypocritically as champions of transparency and probity.

 

Earlier, our obsession with Ibori had the effect of displacing responsibility and culpability from the father of corruption in modern Nigeria, former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

 

We must be wary of single corruption stories that unwittingly give a pass to corrupt people and allow them to further afflict us with insultingly hypocritical and self-serving preachments about fighting corruption.

 

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie alerted us to the dangers of perpetuating single stories about Africa. As in that case, single, individuated corruption stories distort and oversimplify our national narrative on corruption. They also undermine the quest for a non-politicized, blind regime of accountability.

 


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