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| Kassim Afegbua |
One of the strongholds of the Buhari administration was anchored on the threshold of his anti-corruption crusade which also formed part of the reasons that made Nigerians to elect him as the President of the Federal Republic in the 2015 elections.
But 20 months down the line, it does appear that President Buhari is locked down by a number of factors. According to him, he met an almost empty treasury.
That has now become mere rhetoric. He inherited a system that was enmeshed in corruption and sharp practices.
The institutions were weak and nonperforming. The capacity to manage the fortunes of the country appeared compromised under the previous administration.
These are now mere semantics that offer us no way forward. After tasting President Buhari’s specimen for recovering the country from the grip of corruption in the last 20 months, one is beginning to see motion without movement.
The anti-corruption agencies are also locked down by the rhetoric of the past; media trials, inconclusive investigations, inconclusive prosecutions, mass hysteria, selective amnesia and leadership integrity question.
Both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) have not really taken the anti-corruption fight seriously.
The ICPC was established on September 29, 2000 while the EFCC came on stream in 2003 with an enabling Act of 2004.
Having both spent over 12 years, the institutional frameworks that should ordinarily provoke a serious anti-corruption crusade are either non-existent or weak.
First, ICPC cannot boast of having offices in the 36 states of the country; same for the EFCC. By now, one would expect the EFCC to run functional offices across the states to remove pressure from the headquarters which is usually buffeted with high profile cases.
Having concluded investigations, it will also enhance their operations if the states DPP are co-opted to try cases that are domiciled in those states.
That will hasten the administration of justice which has become unavoidably slow in Nigeria. This idea of rushing to Abuja and Lagos each time there are petitions against public officers easily frustrate the process of investigation because of the pressure that come to bear on the limited number of operatives. Added to this is the fact that a lot of the activities of the EFCC and ICPC are shrouded in secrecy.
This should not be. Disclosure is an inherent ingredient in anti-corruption crusade; that is why whistle-blowing has since been factored into the process.
Since the formation of both EFCC and ICPC, I have searched endlessly for their annual audited accounts which will explain away how much of taxpayers’ money is expended by the Commission, but I am made to understand that none of such document exists.
A typical anti-corruption commission ought to be a mirror of the ideal; what to expect from organisations and public institutions in the management of finances, and dispensation of discretionary powers.
The recruitment of the staff and operatives of the EFCC and ICPC is still riddled with the virus of godfatherism, favouritism, preferential treatment and corruption.
In this era of under-employment, unemployment, pervasive poverty and economic recession, the situation will easily attain a dithering height.
Highly placed people still give notes to their preferred candidates to be recruited into these anti-corruption agencies. Godfatherism still plays a role.
Favouritism is still in vogue; carry out a staff audit of both commissions, one will find out that the recruitment is not usually based on merit and competence.
Yet, as adults fully grown into the Nigerian society with all the peculiar socio-political milieu that nurtured their upbringing, we want them to live above board and become our anti-corruption czars.
How possible? This same reason explains away the dingdong affair between the Senate and the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu. In saner societies where integrity matters, a nominee like Magu, would have simply taken a bow, especially for a Commission that should stand clean and accountable. Once the integrity of the head of an anti-corruption agency is at issue, the honourable thing to do is to show him the exit door.
Leaving him to preside over such an important Commission with such huge responsibility is to stand credibility on its head.
Our sense of communalism is also an impediment to real anti-corruption crusade. I am yet to see a Nigerian anticorruption operative that would want to implicate his brother, friend, cousin, niece, nephew and uncle on corruption charges.
When you see the huge number of supporters that usually follow accused personalities to court, you will understand why anti-corruption fight is still a tall order.
Often times when they finish such jamboree, somebody is hiding at a corner to dispense peanuts as a mark of gratitude for such bawdry support and solidarity.
Poverty has eliminated our culture of shame. Integrity is no longer a fashionable principle. Beyond the façade of arrest and quizzing of accused persons, EFCC and ICPC seem at a loss in carrying out corrective therapies.
The other day, the social media was swashed with photographs of some accused persons in EFCC dungeon, all of them posing mockingly with uncommon gusto and camaraderie, united by corruption allegations and yet, showing no scintilla of remorse.
Prisons, detention camps and remand homes are supposed to impact corrective lessons on their occupants for the period they are held captive.
This incentive is to further guide them in their future public conduct to meet the expectations of laid down rules and regulations.
From what we have seen from some accused persons, rather than exhibit the culture of shame, they end up becoming notoriously popular and their viewpoints are sought every now and then to gauge public discourse.
What a pity. Corruption is an octopus that has become hydra-headed. It has its elements and undercurrents.
It is an addictive act that moves from one solution to another problem area. Even as avowed as the current administration is against corruption, it is also producing its own “models” of corrupt persons.
We have seen, heard and read of several scenarios that tended to put a scar on the initiatives of the present government against corruption.
The president has also passed a contradiction test in the ostentatious manner he gave out his daughter in marriage; the ceremonies, the flavour, the materialism, and the affluence. All these cannot pass the true test of anti-corruption crusade.
By now, one would have thought EFCC would have built ethics resource centres across the states, to impact the right knowledge, ethics, advocacy and etiquette on the aspiring public servant whether elected or appointed.
EFCC and ICPC ought to be the mirror of the ideal situation in terms of accountability, transparency and probity.
The latest idea of professionalizing whistle-blowing and making it attractive with a 5% incentive will not change anything if the right institutional frameworks are not put in place. So far, EFCC and ICPC are not suffering from lack of cases to handle.
What is at issue is the fact that prosecution has been slow and convictions near absent. In all the cases that EFCC and ICPC have been handling, how many people have truly served jail terms? Nigerians know those who have shortchanged the system.
EFCC and ICPC know them too. There are legions of petitions on EFCC and ICPC tables, but the process of administering justice is tellingly slow and frustrating.
So, the job of the whistle-blower is very simple, but getting the 5 per cent paid will be eternally difficult just like the administration of justice.
The way to go if truly we are serious about anti-corruption is for EFCC and ICPC to purge itself, overhaul its system, strengthen its framework and live
by example. This idea of lobbying to get appointed and confirmed as EFCC chairman is, on its own strength, corruption personified.
New Telegraph
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