--No one, including Gen. Buhari, can deal effectively and fully with corruption in Nigeria without first engaging all relevant stakeholders in Nigeria in robust institutional reforms. ..//.. Prosecution, even using draconian methods, of individuals suspected of engaging in corrupt activities, would not deter people from engaging and gainfully participating in insidious institution called corruption-John Mbaku.
Democratically speaking, the relevant stakeholders in Nigeria are the electorates who on March 28, 2015, voted for APC and Buhari to become President of Nigeria. The APC and Buhari went into that election with their manifestoes of change and to combat corruption and majority of Nigerian electorates approved their election manifestoes by voting them into power at the centre. Unfortunately, legislative rodents have seized the national assembly from the majority party, APC, which the Nigerian electorates voted into power. It is time for the real stakeholders, the Nigerian electorates, to mobilise and smoke out the legislative rodents from the national assembly in order to regain their mandates back to the APC. If Nigerians leave the country at the mercy of those who ravage and pillage our collective patrimony our existence as a people is imperilled. In fact, the very fabric that holds us together stands the risk of being rendered asunder.
Having covertly declared treasury looters as Nigeria's stakeholders that should be appeased to temper stealing with mercy, John Maku averred that "prosecution, even using draconian methods would not deter people," who constitute themselves to stakeholders of Nigeria, from merciless corruption practice. One of the elementary law of physics is that action and reaction must be equal and opposite. Therefore, if we are confronted with 'draconian methods of corruption' the reaction to that should be 'draconian methods of anti-corruption.' Let me explain. In Nigeria, many people die at the operation theatre because doctors commence operations with electric lights and had to depend on candle lights shortly after commencing operation. Reason for that is due to the fact that the sum of 46 billion dollars spent on generating electricity in the last sixteen years had corruptly been stolen with draconian methods. Uncountable Nigerians are dying daily for drinking dirty water because money appropriated for producing potable water has been stolen with draconian methods by stakeholders. Nigerian roads have become grave yards, both for human and vehicular objects, because billions of naira appropriated for repairs and upgrade of the roads have corruptly been stolen with draconian methods by the self-named stakeholders. In the midst of war against Boko Haram, the sum of six billion dollars set aside to procure arms for our soldiers to fight the insurgents were shared among the self-acclaimed stakeholders. By diverting the huge sum of money for arms procurement to the private accounts of the self-styled stakeholders, about twenty-five thousand ill-equipped Nigerian soldiers and unarmed civilians (men, women and children) were made to die in the hands of insurgents. Over two million internally displaced persons are living miserably in refugee camps in Nigeria. The effects of economic sabotage (otherwise called corruption) on Nigerians should determine the type of punishment to be given to economic saboteurs as it is done in China, South-Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan.
Intellectuals controlled by their egos and not their brains would like to reduce the scourge of multiple corruptions in Nigeria to a single story. I beg to disagree. In the five years of President Jonathan in power it has been calculated that Nigeria earned 489 billion dollars from crude oil exports which with annual inflation of 2.5% would be 594billion dollars whereas the combined earnings under Abacha, Abdulsalami, Obasanjo and Yar'Adua ( about 16 years) was 470 billion dollars and when adjusted for inflation, it would be $488.8 billion. In a storm where several trees, in ones path, fall on one another, the wisest thing to do is to start clearing the log of woods from the top. On that logic, Buhari is wise in starting to clear the log of corruptions in Nigeria from Jonathan era and those asking him to begin the clearance of the logs of corruptions from pre-Jonathan era are not serious. Section 15, sub-section 5 of the 1999 constitution as amended says, "The State shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power." That power of the state so referred to resides in Buhari's hands. He should role up his sleeves and use his presidential power to liberate Nigerians from corrupt stakeholders. Buhari should learn from 28th US President, Woodrow Wilson, when he said, No man can sit down and withhold his hands from warfare against wrong and get peace from acquiescence." Buhari should not wait to detonate corruption explosive device (CED) on corrupt stakeholders otherwise he would be consumed while pussy-footing with them.
S.Kadiri
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 06:48:31 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Danger of a Single Corruption Story
From: jmbaku@weber.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSorry, but we are all missing the big picture. No one, including Gen. Buhari, can deal effectively and fully with corruption in Nigeria without first engaging all relevant stakeholders in Nigeria in robust institutional reforms. I know I have been saying this for a long time, even before the esteemed General came into office, but it is a painful truth that anyone genuinely interested in reducing government impunity in Nigeria and moving the country ahead must take into consideration and do so seriously. Without institutional arrangements that adequately constrain those who serve in government, corruption and other forms of impunity will remain pervasive, regardless of who the leader of the country is. Prosecution, even using draconian methods, of individuals suspected of engaging in corrupt activities, would not deter people from engaging and gainfully participating in this insidious institution called corruption.On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 4:59 AM, 'M Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:Thank you, Moses.
Prof Malami BubaDepartment of English Language & LinguisticsSokoto State UniversityPMB 2134, Birnin-Kebbi Rd,Sokoto, NIGERIAIt's interesting, Buba Malami, that you chose to focus on two individuals whom you are defending rather than on the larger point I was making about the monumental corruption that occurred in PTF under Buhari's leadership. Why did Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a board member, resign from PTF? There were hardly any PTF major infrastructural projects for which el-Rufai's firm did not get the surveying contract. Tell me, who did he ever bid against? The man is very clever but decency is not his forte. He is one of the most corrupt and richest Nigerians alive, but he is very good at pretending to be decent and of modest means. I actually think he deserves an Oscar for his acting skills in that regard. During the last gubernatorial election, even his ardent supporters were saying that he was spending money as though he was the CBN-- their exact words. I will not repeat what I have written in two previous published articles on el-Rufai with very damning evidence and analysis of his corruption. Please google them. They've been in the public domain for at least seven years. He knows that the myth of him being decent is just that and that some of us see through it. I only respect him for his intelligence and competence, two things that are lacking in most of our politicians, but he is like all of the others when it comes to corruption. Salihijo of Afriprojects Consortium was the biggest PTF rogue. Sam Nda Isaiah also made his money from there, but he was probably the only non-Fulani member of the Buhari PTF millionaire boys. As you know, PTF was basically a Fulani organization, and even as a Fulani organization it was dominated by the Adamawa Fulani through the influence of Buhari's wife. On Kabiru Yusuf, I know a lot about him and his organization and so I will meet you halfway and say that yes, he is a consummate, admirable entrepreneur who build a media conglomerate with a modest capital base and a few shareholders from whom he raised capital. But not only did some of those people make their money from PTF, Kabiru himself did no-bid consultancy work for PTF. I would give it to you that of the four I mentioned ( and there are many more, including one of my lecturers who became a multimillionaire overnight after Buhari, his in-law, invited him to PTF), Kabiru Yusuf is the most decent and most principled.I did not mention these men to malign them as I have long made peace with the fact that most people who contract for government or work in public service in Nigeria have been compromised one way or the other--I am not naive or too idealistic). I mentioned PTF corruption to underscore the point that the personal integrity of PMB is not a bulwark against corruption or a guarantor of anticorruption success. you can mock my point about speaking Hausa and growing up in the north all you want but my simple point was that as someone who knows Northern politics and writes on it, I hear things from authoritative sources about the shenanigans of the Northern political class, which includes Buhari. The narrative of his personal integrity, while essentially correct, is mitigated by many realities that those not very familiar with the region's politics may not be aware of. I will not betray confidences, but I get a lot of confidential info through multiple credible sources, much of it unsolicited. Some of these sources reach all the way to Buhari. As they say, there is only one or two degrees of separation between people.Thanks for your engagement.
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 20, 2016, at 6:22 PM, 'M Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:Dear Moses,This may also sound hyperbolic, but I see no danger in the single corruption story. The danger lies in misrepresenting realpolitik. Of course, politics is involved in Bukola Saraki's predicament . He is a politician after all! High stake politicians like Saraki know the consequences of ignoring the party whip, and must now feel the full weight of his disobedience. Former governors like Saraki are also notorious for changing lanes, and I won't be surprised at all if he drags his co-travellers into a more convenient political arrangement - yet again!!
As for Kabiru Yusuf, I knew him as an excellent university teacher and a very hardworking entrepreneur, who started the Daily Trust with a few thousand naira. Certainly, not one of those Northern Buhari Billionaire boys that those of you who speak Hausa knew in the PTF era. Haba!El-Rufai, as you know, has won many defamation lawsuits, so beware of accusing him of making money through 'bogus and no-bid consultancy gigs'. He is probably one of the most decent practitioners of the dirty game of politics.MalamiProf Malami BubaDepartment of English Language & LinguisticsSokoto State UniversityPMB 2134, Birnin-Kebbi Rd,Sokoto, NIGERIABolaji Aluko,I know I have struck a nerve! The tone and length of your response tells me so. Sorry to disappoint you by not repeating the anti-Saraki talking points of the Tinubu/APC/Buharist camp. Unlike you, I will not side with any of the camps in this intra-party wahala. Search is already a gonna, as we say in Nigeria, but do you and other APC people really believe that his leaving the senate presidency will solve corruption or even change the current anti-corruption dynamic? How is one one man so powerful as to hold the key to Mr. Buhari's success in the anti-corruption domain?I have a tendency to erect straw men? Lol. I confess to using hyperbole, a well known literary device to make some points. You don't actually believe that I am saying that some Nigerians believed that putting Ibori in jail would erase corruption from Nigeria, do you? And you, my brother, have a tendency to imagine enemies everywhere for your beloved Buhari, to interpret every commentary on current Nigerian politics that does not offer fawning, uncritical praise of Buhari and your APC as an unfair criticism of the president. I really don't understand where this impulsive need to find enemies and criticism of Buhari of Buhari in every intervention is coming from. I don't get the overzealous, unwarranted defense of Buhari against real and imagined criticism that one is now accustomed to reading from you. You seem really seduced by the APC's propaganda and have developed a sniper mentality of going after everyone you remotely perceive as criticizing Buhari. That is unfortunate for a public commentator like yourself. I did not even mention Buhari in my write up. You ignored much of what I wrote and introduced extraneous non-sequiturs. Speaking of setting up straw men!I cannot respond to the many off-topic irrelevances you introduced, but let me say a few things:1. You can continue in your unquestioning adulation of Buhari. If you like call him the awaited messiah. But don't expect me to join in this kind of fantastical optimism. When it comes to Nigeria, skepticism is warranted by both experience and history. The skeptic is never disappointed and can only be pleasantly surprised.2. As to your claim that Buhari is different, he has not yet shown that he is different. He has done relatively well on the Boko Haram front. But the nation has regressed in the power and fuel sectors and currently groans under worsening utility and fuel supply. He and his team are groping, seemingly unable to figure things out. He has time and can turn things around, but I would wait till then to describe him as different. To say he is different based on what we have seen so far is to be dishonest or to repeat APC's partisan propaganda.3. Buhari is not personally corrupt and that is a big deal, something that I have written about several times. He deserves commendation on his personal integrity, especially given the many "juicy" positions he has held in government. But personal integrity ALONE is not enough. First, Nigeria is plagued by many worsening problems that need to be solved. Personal integrity is not going to solve these problems. Competence and smart statecraft will.Second, that he is not personally corrupt does not mean that he did not or will not preside over a corrupt administration. The jury is still out but I can guarantee you that when he leaves office there will be revelations about corruption in his government. By all accounts, he never made money from PTF, something that Obasanjo confirmed, but the man superintended a rotten, utterly corrupt PTF. Those of us who study Northern Nigeria, who studied and lived there, and speak Hausa know what happened in PTF. It produced many young Northern billionaires/multimillionaires, who became known as the Buhari boys. They made their monies through bogus and no-bid consultancy gigs and inflated contracts--the late Salihijo, Nasiru el-Rufai, Sam Nda Isaiah, Kabiru Yusuf (owner of Daily Trust) etc. All of this occurred under Buhari's watch. Obasanjo himself confirmed that his probe of PTF uncovered monumental fraud and that he called Buhari directly and asked him if he benefitted from it or knew about it and that Buhari said no, which was good enough for him.My point here is that not being personally corrupt is not enough to prevent corruption in the government. Bihari's personal integrity couldn't prevent corruption in PTF, a government agency. How can it be enough to prevent corruption in the entire FG? Shagari was not personally corrupt. He too had/has personal integrity as no corruption was traced to him. But he presided over a second republic filthy government.Buhari's personal integrity is important for symbolic purposes, but it is not enough. And even that narrative of personal integrity has limits. For instance, a man who boasts of personal integrity accepted campaign finances acquired through graft by the likes of Tinubu, Amaechi, Saraki, and el-Rufai. Does that not contradict his vaunted personal integrity? Amaechi is now his minister. He hobnobs with Tinubu and Obasanjo, two icons of corruption in Nigeria who will never be prosecuted for their corruption as long as Buhari remains president because he is notorious for placing loyalty over his much-professed personal integrity. Had Saraki not sought the Senate Presidency, he too would be walking free, free to enjoy his loot like Tinubu, Amaechi, Fashola, and others.Speaking of Buhari's personal loyalty and how that clouds Buhari's commitment to integrity, try and find out how Buhari regularly messed himself up by remaining loyal to his allies in the defunct CPC even after their corruption had been exposed, even after evidence of their misdeed was shown to him. It is the same suspension of personal integrity that made Buhari to utter the now infamous words that Abacha never stole a penny even when it was well known (and now we have the repatriated Abacha loot as evidence) that the late dictator was a rogue.If you are willing to remain loyal to corrupt folks and to take their corrupt money to finance your campaign, it mitigates your integrity and disarms you a bit. That widely known fact is already creating problems for Buhari on the anti-corruption front. In fact Saraki may spill about all the monies (Kwara State and SGB monies) he put into the campaigns.4. Look, Bolaji, you know as well as I do that Saraki's travails stem from his rebellion against the APC hierarchy. It is not about a commitment to probity. Much as you tried to disavow it, it came through in your post, perhaps a Freudian slip. Some APC/Buhari supporters have now become honest about the exercise. On social media and other forums, they are now saying that indeed Saraki needs to be punished for disrespecting Tinubu, Buhari, and the APC leadership and for displaying vaulting ambition. It is a political trial, but as I said, I have no sympathy for Saraki. He deserves this and more. In fact, I personally think that this is Karma for the people he indirectly killed and rendered destitute by stealing their savings from the defunct SGB and for the damage he did to Kwara.5. Finally, you said I was setting up a straw man. Not really. I am on Facebook. I monitor other Nigerian forums. Many APC/Tinubu/Buhari fanatics have bought completely into the party talking point and have been parroting the nonsense that Saraki is the one sabotaging Buhari's war on corruption, that he is damaging the president's war on corruption, that he is a mole working against Buhari, that without him, Buhari's government would be more successful in fighting corruption, and that his removal would unleash Buhari's war on corruption and usher in success. Indeed, Saraki has been portrayed as the single biggest obstacle to fighting corruption in Nigeria. Do you believe that crap? Did Saraki cause the budget padding scandal that saw the presidency itself defending scandalous provisions like hundreds of millions of naira for the Aso Rock zoo, billions for expanding Aso Rock clinic, and the vice president's residence getting more money for books than all the polytechnics put together, among other shameful provisions? Was Saraki responsible for all that? Will these and other shenanigans end when Saraki leaves the senate presidency?I know you tend to impulsively support and defend Buhari/APC/Tinubu and have an obligation to fight those who they fight-- people like Saraki. But have you asked what would happen after Saraki? You might even end up with the biggest thief in central Nigeria, my former state governor, George Akume, who is a darling of Tinubu, APC, et al. It would be back to square one, just like before. We have had these national individual corruption sensations. It gives us a momentary high, but the problem of corruption remains and increases because it transcends the individuals we construct as the embodiment of corruption in Nigeria.I leave you with the comments made on my piece on Facebook by Tope Fasua, a young commentator on national affairs:"a very insightful article. but not meant for naijans. they need someone to lynch from time to time, while the rot continues. so, let them lynch."I agree entirely with Tope Fasua. We will be back here again unless we develop a holistic, politics-blind strategy on corruption, which sees corruption as a group and institutional malaise, not one practiced only by errant, out-of-favor politicians.On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 11:06 AM, 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 AlukoOn 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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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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--JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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