“The fight against corruption mobilizes all of us because we want to do away with evil and injustice. But we should remember that casting the bad into the sea does not imply the sudden appearance on our shores of the good that we need.”
-Prof. Ricardo Hausmann, Faculty Chair of Leading Economic Growth .
I will never forget that sunny afternoon at the Polo Ground Ibadan sometime in 1984 as we all massed to watch the public execution of three armed robbers who were condemned to deatth.
It was a period when the Buhari-Idiagbon regime was in a frenzy to clean up Nigeria of all the vices plaguing it.
The executioners appeared on the scene and within minutes despatched the armed robbers with hot lead shot into their chests with uncanny accuracy.As we made to leave the execution ground,there was a shout of “oooleee”.Within a jiffy the security men in view had arrested one of those who just watched the Polo Ground execution picking money from the pocket of a fellow spectator.
The incident flashed to my mind last week as I watched in the news the protest marches by a faction of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which emerged from the corruption of the electoral process of the labour body calling for death penalty as the cure for corruption in Nigeria.
That the protest marches had a tinge of official endorsement was seen in the elaborate receptions accorded the marchers by the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) who is having a running battle with the Senate over allegations of looting of recovered loots and the Secretary to the Federal Government.It was only at the National Assembly Assembly that they had some initial raw deal (understandably so) before House spokesman Sani Zoro appeared to address them.
On the surface of it.the protest march was a big endorsement of the anti-corruption campaign that is currently going on in the country. But those who understand the depth of the Nigerian corruption and its tap root would see the whole show as no more than of nuisance value.
Corruption as hydra-headed monster
We are all agreed that corruption has become a hydra-headed monster in Nigeria limiting all the growth potentials but it is elementary knowledge that no doctor can cure any disease he has not diagnosed.
The Wabara faction of the NLC could have been listening too much to the chief propagandist of the media fight against corruption,Adams Oshiomole to pay heed to fundamental currents in the polity which should inform that dealing with corruption in Nigeria today requires more than dancing to the gallery and orchestrated circus shows.
A few incidents in our present reality are enough to show that Nigeria is built on the foundation of corruption and it is the very oxygen it breathes.
The Saturday Independent of 5th September,2015 had a screaming headline on how scammers have hijacked the on-going anti-corruption war. According to the report:
“The anti-corruption crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari may have become the subject of a new wave of scam targeted at high-ranking civil servants, especially those supervising various directorates in the federal ministries.
Scammers hijack anti-corruption war
Investigations by Daily Independent have revealed that the perpetrators, with the help of their collaborators in the ministries are capitalising on the vulnerability of some officials and other unsuspecting persons outside the system due to Nigeria›s poor record keeping culture to rip them off.
It has also been gathered that they now go about sneaking out records of transactions from official files in government departments and using such to concoct petitions, which they confront them with it.
Sources close to Saturday Independent have also revealed that, apart from those who do this for instant gratification, another set of people engaged in this activity are those working for officials who are scheming to be posted to lucrative ministries.”
One of the measures being canvassed in the fight against corruption is the proposed looters courts. Perceptive people have opined that this may turn out another goldmine like the election petitions tribunals which have added to the list of our billionaires.The Nigerian Tribune of August 23,2015 icon firmed their fears with the report that most of the nominee-judges woefully failed the integrity test.According to the newspaper””MAJORITY of the judges nominated for probable appointment as heads of the proposed anti-corruption specialized courts failed the integrity test being conducted by security agencies, Nigerian Tribune learnt on Sunday evening.
One hundred judges selected from courts across the country by the leadership of the judiciary were reportedly placed before security agencies for a deeper look into their stewardship, before the final pick for the sensitive assignment.
Feigned insolvency
An involved security source told the Nigerian Tribune that the assignment was yet to be concluded, because majority of those picked for screening failed the integrity test.”
I have a friend who had always argued that Nigerian political elites would invoke natural disasters on their people if it was within their powers to make money and Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State just reinforced that going by the report by PREMIUM TIMES that he obtained N11b bailout under false pretense .According to the online medium”The governor of President Muhammadu Buhari’s home State, Katsina, Aminu Masari, lied to the president to get more than N11 billion bailout supposedly to pay workers’ salary arrears, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report today.
Feigning insolvency, Katsina State applied as one of the 27 states in need of bailout from the Federal Government to pay workers owed salaries for months.
In a letter to the speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, titled: “Bailout on Outstanding Salary for Workers of the State and Local Governments” with number S/SGKT/154/3 dated August 26, 2015, Mr. Masari said when he took office on May 29, his government inherited two months outstanding salary of workers of the state and local government from the previous Ibrahim Shema administration.
“I would like to request for the Honourable House’s consent for the State government to collaborate with the Central Bank of Nigeria for a Bail Out of outstanding workers’ salary in the State and Local governments,” Mr. Masari wrote.
“Mr Speaker may wish to know that at the time of the take-off of this administration, the State and Local Governments in the State owed workers two months’ salary to the tune of N11,086,632,741.32 broken down as follows: Katsina State: N3,646,943,099.80; 34 local government councils: N7,439,689,641.32; Total: N11,086,632,741,.32.
“It is in the view of the need for the State Government and Local Governments to meet their obligation in the payment of outstanding workers’ salary, considering the lean resources inherited from the former administration, that it has become necessary for the State Government to apply for the bail out on behalf of the State and Local Governments.” he added.
However, PREMIUM TIMES’ investigation revealed that the state had no business being among the group of insolvent states in need of federal bailout to pay workers salary arrears.
Katsina State civil servants as well as workers in the state’s 34 local governments received their full salaries and allowances up to May when Mr. Masari became governor.
Masari vs Katsina Civil servants
In fact, the governor’s chief press secretary, Abdul Labaran, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that workers were not owed and that their salaries had been completely paid up to August.
“Katsina State government doesn’t owe anybody any salary,” Mr. Labaran said over the phone after a long pause.”
He also answered in the affirmative when asked if he meant that the state government had paid workers in the state up to August. “That is correct,” he said.
“The hopelessness of our current situation was dramatised in Lagos on 14th May when Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka at the presentation of two books on Rotimi Amaechi of “I don’t like money” fame canonized two architects of hope“The political atmosphere, whatever you call it, be it change or hope, whatever name, I recognise two individuals in this particular process that led the chart for change.
“These two individuals are Bola Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi; I call them the architects of the process of change”
If the contents of a documentary on Amaechi by Rivers Integrity Group which reduces the “Lion of Bourdillon” to a child’s play comes to the view of the highly cerebral Prof today he probably would wish he was more careful in his choice of words.
This article was originally published on VanguardNG