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Obasanjo And Corruption In Nigeria By Dr Abayomi Ferreira On Monday 8 August 2005, I read on the Internet the text of your very frank address to a seminar of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. I read the speech over and over again and I personally feel very sorry for you, particularly on the unfortunate plight, which you face in your obviously eager and dedicated attempt to address and resolve the problem of corruption in Nigeria. Corruption and its practice have so much become a gargantuan part of Nigerian life that the Nigerians themselves have renamed it “the Nigerian factor”. This nomenclature became a part of the Nigerian public lexicon in the despicable era of military dictatorship. Over the years and during your current period in office as President, one can discern the authenticity and genuineness in your discomfort with the role of corrupt practices in Nigerian public life. The speech to the seminar of the EFCC emphasizes that worry that has been sustained in you and which you have repeatedly expressed since 1999 when you were sworn into office for your second coming. It is on that basis that I decided to write this letter to you to dissect to you the fundamental cause of the frustration that you masterly demonstrated in the address. Besides, the country belongs to all of us and millions of Nigerians who are not a part of government also spend time, effort and intellect to find solutions to the problems of our country. The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate the very substance that gives cause to the frustration that you and all of us face in the ‘fight’ against corruption in Nigeria. We go further to show some new and creative approach to tackle the problem of corruption in our country. I know you are very eager to solve the problem, but you need to look at a new approach. It is politically inexpedient for you and your party and you are not bound to agree with me, but you will have it on record that some of us, even though we are not bound by your party, but came out to express new and creative thoughts to this cankerworm and how to recover our country from the quagmire into which military politicians and their civilian collaborators have mindlessly and wickedly dumped our country. We need to briefly recant the history of corruption in contemporary life in Nigeria. It is a creation of the politicians. The fact that politicians created corruption and remain in its forefront is one of the reasons why it keeps spreading. The issue of corruption in Nigeria is almost as old as the modern era of party political practice in Nigeria. Almost from the very start of modern countrywide party political practice and I start from 1952, have the politicians been the purveyors of corrupt practices in the public life of Nigeria. The findings and report of the Foster-Sutton Commission of Inquiry in the pre-independence period shows the rabid existence of this despicable cankerworm in the public service of the country. Although, the inquiry was specific for the Eastern Region of Nigeria, it is well known that what was happening in Eastern Nigeria was truly representative of what was happening in all the other regional governments, the central government and the local governments of the entire country. This fact was repeatedly demonstrated in the findings and reports of other similar inquiries be they of local authorities and governments or indeed as patently also shown in the findings and report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry that looked into the activities of the Western Nigerian government on the authority of the Federal government in the early sixties, soon after independence. Subsequent military governments that investigated their predecessors in power made exactly similar findings. We also know as fact that the corrupt character of the polity eventually infected the civil service thereby destroying the quality reference marks of behaviour that the departed colonial power bestowed on the country. With the adverse intrusion of military politicians into the national system, the civil war and the Gowon regime gave the military establishment its dose of the malady. And it has spread even from there very deeply and quite widely. With subsequent military and Hitleric regimes succeeding one another, the cankerworm has infiltrated the judiciary. Of course, the police had been corrupt from the period of colonial domination because of the poor quality of the British officers who established and sustained the police from time. The era of military dictatorship aggravated the corrupt content of the Nigerian social fabric, each succeeding military regime performing dastardlier than its predecessor. Most of the officers who found their ways into the politics and offices of the serial dictatorships became patently corrupt. The fabulous personal wealth of these officers in fair comparison with their colleagues who remained at strictly military posts is a mine of materials for study. Of course, there also emerged many officers who were in proper military posts who stole the funds of their regiments and units to enrich themselves and their cronies. Now, it is the unfortunate combination of these Nigerians whose tribe has been steadily built up since 1950, military and their civilian collaborators as politicians that dominate very massively the political terrain of Nigeria today, and are occupying many positions in the federal, state and local governments of Nigeria. Obviously there is an irresolvable contradiction that has been created by this unfortunate historical conundrum. The structure of political practice that is promoted by the combined political thrusts of these two distinct but collaborating political practitioners is a direct consequence of their historical emergence and development. Your attempt to correct the situation, using these same human materials in the process is the very cause of the frustration that is evident in your speech. Very many of the politicians in power today rigged the elections to get into office; they bribed the voters; they faked and forged ballot papers; the first President of the present Senate did not win the election that eventually declared him as the winner into the third most exalted political office in the land, the third most powerful seat in the present government. How can these types of people lead the fight against corruption? Indeed, these observations are identical with your candid observations as stated in your speech that stimulated me to write this letter, except that each of us has couched the same facts and comments on the same problem in different lexicons. You cannot use the present politicians in the PDP, ANPP, and AD to fight corruption in Nigeria. Indeed, at informal discussions, the ordinary Nigerians do give you as a person some credit for your disposition and efforts. They also say that you have failed to tackle corruption and give the reason of your failure as “you’re being surrounded by corrupt people.” The Efforts You Are Using To Tackle Corruption In Nigeria Essentially, the steps which you have boldly and seriously taken, since you returned into office in 1999, to combat corruption can be summarized as follows:
Very many of the politicians in power today used corrupt approaches to get to the posts that they occupy. They bribed the voters, even in their own parties to win nominations and eventually get elected; they faked and forged ballot papers; they used officials to alter the voting figures of election outcomes; the very first President of the current Senate was not the winner of the election in the constituency where he ‘contested’ the election that took him to occupy that third most exalted and politically powerful office of the present government. There are still in office, governors whose total declared votes are more than the total number of names on the published voters’ register. My dear President, how can this quality of people genuinely and truly join hands with you to lead the fight against corruption in Nigeria? That indeed is your problem. Indeed, these observations are essentially identical with your observations as stated in your speech that engineered me to write this letter, except that each of us has couched his description of the same problem and issue in a different lexicon. We are actually describing the same situation. Side by side with (or indeed placed in front and facing) this posture of the ravenous politicians are a people, millions of whom are unemployed; those who are employed are not regularly paid even their paltry wages; their elderly ones on pension are not paid their pension; low ranking police officers on posting are not given administrative support, many of them passing the nights by sleeping in broken-down vehicles for months on end whilst the top brass in the same police organization pocket the funds that should be used to support the juniors administratively; pensioners are owed months of unpaid salaries whilst their colleagues who have found their way into political offices are purchasing expensive properties in and out of Nigeria. One of the major planks of your economic programme is the regular increases in the retail prices of petroleum products, which you direct at an improvished population, 100.8 million of whom belong to families that exist on less than 5000 naira per family per annum. The inevitable consequences of this major policy include steady reduction in the purchasing capabilities of such millions, rising unemployment from jobs lay-off, increase in crime rate whilst the other side of the coin displays rising profits for the multinational companies that import petroleum products into Nigeria and further economic consolidation of their Nigerian agents who are the same comprador who dominate the politics and governments of Nigeria. We can carry on ad infinitum, but I believe the point in question has been clearly made. What needs to be done to achieve acceptable results in your very noble objective must be absolutely new and creative. History of other lands have shown repeatedly that when the human material on the political terrain in a country becomes thoroughly decadent and degenerate, the only way for that country to experience a rebirth, a new beginning is to remove that degenerate bunch from the polity and allow new quality political practitioners to emerge and rescue the country Relevant examples in history include nazified Germany, Austria, Ghana and South Africa, although each had a specific experience and reason for the effective regeneration by replacement. Indeed, many Nigerians in informal discussions have repeatedly suggested the Ghanaian approach, but I believe that each country will have to design its own approach to solve the problem of corruption. What Nigeria requires is a responsible political leadership to put the country aright, not only to develop economically but also to be free from corruption in public places. What Should Be Done The answer lies in the building of new political movements that have no historical, ideological, philosophical and programmatic linkages or relationship with the decadent bunch that parade the political terrain today. The seeds of that type of political parties are already sown in Nigeria. But you need to allow them to germinate and grow. Indeed, in spite of the many flaws and fundamental shortcomings of the 1999 Constitution, its Section 228 provides for those seeds to germinate and grow. The political parties in power and you have consistently ignored that essential though apparently little provision of the Constitution. The Democratic Alternative, National Conscience Party, Peoples’ Redemption Party, National Advance Party and the Movement for Democracy and Justice contain the needed seeds for breeding the new type of political practitioners that Nigeria needs. If only Section 228 of the Present Constitution is faithfully implemented, those parties will function and produce selfless and patriotic human materials for the governance of Nigeria. There will be no corruption in government because the ideology, philosophy and programmes of the DA and the others I have named are fully dedicated to the rapid economic and social development of Nigeria. Not only that, but the DA and the other named parties have the type of character and structure that will not permit corrupt practices by their men and women in government. Some of the necessary features of the new political movements that will effectively tackle the problems of corruption and related issues including development in Nigeria must include intraparty democracy and deliberate membership education to counter the current culture and state of rottenness and decadence in the Nigerian polity. The party must make positive efforts to breed good human materials to be put forward at elections and to go into government to faithfully fulfill the agreed party programme and not seek office to pursue self-enrichment which happens to be the agreed programme of those in the PDP, ANPP and AD. What we are saying is that we should use the Constitutional provision to allow new parties to freely contend with the decadent parties and allow the people to make a genuine choice. Political parties are not private institutions, but legal and public entities that can only exist by the provisions of the Constitution which you swore to uphold. These new political parties are stifled from growing because the Constitutional support that is guaranteed by the constitution is denied them. Simultaneously, the government parties, PDP, ANPP and AD have and utilize direct access to public funds that they use to run their political organizations. The only part of Section 228 that has been implemented was badly applied. The activities of a political party go far beyond taking part in elections. I have done a paper on the aspect I am getting into now. I will attach a copy for you, particularly when the politicians in the Senate and INEC to whom I sent copies have not been interested enough to acknowledge my communication with them. Finally, I reiterate that you are entrapped in a historical dilemma. There is a solution to the problem of corruption, but you are trapped in the problem. The political practitioners whom you have in the ruling parties are sharing the wealth of the Nigerian peoples who are trapped in poverty rather than develop the national resources to retrieve our people from poverty.
Dr Abayomi Ferreira 38 Cranmore Road Bromley Kent United Kingdom
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