Mid-term report: Corruption still thrives

[Mirror]

OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU writes on how the Goodluck Jonathan administration has battled corruption in the last two years. The report also looks at the several celebrated corruption cases involving key members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and or members of their families.

President Goodluck Jonathan last week, on Democracy Day celebration on May 29, presented his performance in office in the last two years and asked the opposition to assess him based on his scorecard. But if there is any area where the President would score a resounding zero in his performance index in the last two years of his being in the saddle, it would be in the efforts of his government to fight corruption, the cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation.

In his November 2012 media chat, President Jonathan declared that no government in Nigeria has confronted corruption the way his government has done.

The president was responding to a question on whether he was convinced that his government was doing enough to combat corruption given the low number of trials and convictions since he was elected. Jonathan responded: "I can assure Nigerians and the global community that this government is fighting corruption frontally and the results are obvious, it is just that sometimes some people confuse Nigerians."

He went down memory lane to say that his government had battled corruption associated with politics and election and fertiliser distribution, adding: "I believe that the efforts this government has made in terms of fighting corruption, I don't think that any other government has done that. I am not saying that we don't have corruption any longer in the system because there is no nation that is free from corruption; you just make sure that some people don't do what they like.

So, I believe that we have done well in fighting corruption, although in terms of perception, most people believe that corruption is responsible for all of our problems. Corruption is there, no doubt about that, but we will continue to fight it. This government has sanitised the corruption associated with elections and fertiliser distribution; we are now in the oil sector."

But the report of the global watchdog on corruption, Transparency International, TI, few days after the presidential media chat which placed Nigeria in 139th position out of 176 countries indexed, thus making the country the 35th most corrupt nation in the world, rubbished Jonathan's claim.

TI's corruption index for 2012 gave Nigeria a total score of 27 out of a possible 100 and though she moved up four places from its 2011 ranking of 143rd out of 183 countries ranked, did little or no improvement on the image of the country in terms of the fight against graft. In 2010, the country was ranked 134 out of 178 countries, 130 out of 180 nations in 2009, 121 out of 180 in 2008, 147 out of 180 countries in 2007 and was 153 out of 180 that were surveyed in 2006.

The latest ranking, which was a deviation from what it used to be (0 – 10), placed Nigeria in 14th place in the West African sub-region. The ranking which scores countries in terms of cleanliness in the perception of corruption in their public sectors showed that countries like Togo, Mali, Niger and Benin fared better than Nigeria, having improved in their fight against graft.

Reacting to the ranking, the Jonathanled administration said that the 2012 ranking showed that Nigeria was improving and that the administration was addressing the question of corruption with the desired attention.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe said: "When compared to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index of 2011, it shows clearly that Nigeria is gradually but steadily coming out of the cycle of most corrupt countries.

"Though the rating is not good enough, it is an indication that something tangible is taking place. When a student is rated 143 in 2011 and in 2012, the student improves from 143 to 139, it means that the student is gradually improving in his or her academic performance, but still needs to do some serious academic work to catch up with those that top the class. "Even at that, the report of the Transparency International perceptions index on corruption is only a perception; it does not reflect the realities on ground."

The National Publicity Secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, buttressing the government's stand, said: "No government in the history of Nigeria has attempted the bold initiatives that our party has taken to fight corruption.

The PDP -led Federal Government created the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC)." But despite all the grandstanding of the Jonathan administration and its agents and the ruling PDP, many stakeholders have argued that the country was not doing enough to combat the menace of corruption, which many have come to see as the bane of development in Nigeria.

Earlier in May last year, TI, concerned by the rate of corruption in Nigeria wrote a letter to President Jonathan, expressing worry over the scope and speed of corruption in the country, saying that it was beyond what it (TI) had ever dealt with.

The letter, written by Fitch and Association on behalf of TI, disclosed that the rate of scam ongoing in Nigeria was quite disheartening. The letter read in part: "The problem, Your Excellency, has to do with the rate and scale of scams and corruption probes coming out of Nigeria in 2012.

"The scope and speed of corruption in your country this year is beyond anything our client has ever dealt with. When the pension scam broke out, the three specialists working on Nigeria complained about overwork and threatened a law suit against Transparency International because they had to work 23 hours a day from Monday to Sunday just to cope with the figures coming out of that scam."

Just at about the same time President Jonathan was beating his chest about his exploits in fighting corruption, an international audit and financial advisory firm, KPMG, in its second Africa Fraud Barometer, AFB, listed Nigeria among the most corrupt in Africa.

The KPMG initiative, which was launched in 2012, was aimed at measuring the fraud rate in the continent and at the same time exposes the risks associated with fraud for companies in their day-today operations.

The AFB noted that most types of fraud in Nigeria are: bribes in private and public sectors, misappropriation and contract inflation, with most public office holders and senior management in both the private and public sectors committing most corrupt practices.

The report also called to question the Nigerian legal system. KPMG's Head of Risk Consulting in Nigeria said: "There have been a lot of cases involving the banking and the Oil and Gas sectors or government that lead to prosecution.

The current noticeable trend is that many cases either end with a plea bargain or are simply closed without any conviction. The general belief in Nigeria is that the legal system is not effective enough."

A week before the KPMG report, a Gallup poll rated Nigeria second most corrupt nation in Africa, after Kenya. But despite sundry condemnation of the TI corruption index and other international polls that rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, events in the recent time in the country have actually confirmed the rating and put to the lie the claims of President Jonathan that his administration fights corruption the most.

A few incidents point to this fact. First, the fuel subsidy probe by the House of Representatives' ad-hoc committee, following the sudden increase in the pump price of petrol on January 1, 2012 has exposed the brains behind the subsidy scam to include leading members and offsprings of the top chieftains of the ruling PDP.

Prominent among them are the sons of former National Chairman of the party, Ahmadu Ali and the incumbent occupier of that office, Bamanga Tukur and the son of another chieftain and financier of the PDP, Arisekola Alao. Till date, despite being charged to court since last year, the cases have been suffering all kind of ridiculous adjournments, with no appreciable progress made while the culprits continue to gallivant from one corner of the corridors of power to the other.

Another case that put to the lie President Jonathan's claim was the bribery saga between oil magnate and businessman, Femi Otedola and the chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on the Fuel Subsidy Regime, Lawan Farouk, wherein Otedola claimed that Lawan demanded for, and he (Otedola) gave a $620,000 bribe to have the name of his oil company, Zenon Oil Limited, expunged from the list of indicted oil companies in the report of the committee.

Only recently was Lawan arraigned and remanded in prison custody while Otedola continues to be a free man. Under the law, both the giver and the taker of bribe are presumed guilty, but in the instant case, only the receiver is being prosecuted while the giver continues to junket all over the world even with the President. In other saner climes, until proven innocent, the likes of Otedola ought to have resigned his membership of the Economic Management Team.

Analysts cited the case of the Director of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, David Petraeus, who resigned simply because of extra-marital affairs with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. They argued that such has never and would probably never happen in Nigeria.

That the present administration reeks in corruption and corrupt tendencies was aptly and succinctly captured by the influential and respected British weekly, The Economist, in an article on Nigeria, on page 18 of its May 28 to June 3, 2012 edition, observed that "Nigerian leaders are so greedy that they have subverted the entire machinery of the state to serve their needs." The Economist probably has some case studies to look at before arriving at that damaging conclusion. A few examples would suffice.

The Halliburton bribery scandal

Till date, no Nigerian government official, including top aides of former presidents, accused of receiving bribe in that widely published scandal and so indicted alongside foreign nationals has been punished, due to deliberate lethargy on the part of the government. These 'privileged' Nigerians have continued to strut the national landscape, enjoying their loot, while their foreign accomplices, both individuals and corporate, have been tried and punished by their various home countries for their roles in the scam.

Power privatisation process

More poignant, in recent times was the sale of the power generating companies in the country to companies allegedly tied to former military leaders, including Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalami Abubakar and several serving political office holders across the country. Perhaps, nothing else more than this points to local and global belief that Nigeria was a haven for institutionalised corruption, than this.

$12m oil windfall

This was an issue that has refused to be buried, despite all efforts by both past and present governments to sweep it under the carpet. It is the rule today that rather make past leaders accountable for how this stupendous amount of money was expended, and ask these past leaders to account for their unprecedented wealth, the government of the day has chosen not only to continue to defend them in the law courts, but has also continued to celebrate them.

Trial of former governors

Since 2007 till date, over 32 former governors have completed their second term tenures and many of them charged to court for corrupt practices while in office include Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State, Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State, Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, Saminu Turaki of Jigawa State and Joshua Dariye and Michael Botmang of Plateau State.

Others include: Reverend Jolly Nyame of Taraba State, Abubakar Audu of Kogi State, Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa State and Boni Haruna of Adamawa State, among others. Other public office holders accused of corrupt practices while in office, whose cases had been charged to court, but yet to be prosecuted include former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole and his deputy, Usman Nafada, members of the House of Representatives, Ndidi Elumelu and Herman Hembe among others.

None of these mentioned former governors and other public office holders have been successfully prosecuted. It is even more instructive that many of them are gearing up to return to public office in 2015. It is also instructive that since Jonathan assumed the mantle of leadership 0n May 6, 2010, not a single former governor who had cases pending in court or with any of the anti-graft agencies has been conclusively prosecuted.

And the icing on the cake was the recent judgement of a Federal High Court in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which sentenced Yusuf Maina, a director in the Police Pensions Board, accused of stealing over N22 billion, to a two-year jail term or an option of fine of N750,000.

More poignant was the fact that in this same country and under a regime that claims to be fighting corruption the most, another man, who allegedly stole a goat, valued at less than N3,000 was given a seven-year jail term.

More disturbing is the granting of state pardon to those convicted for corruption. Former governor of Bayelsa State, DSP Alamieyeseigha is one of the beneficiaries of President Jonathan's gesture. Alamieyeseigha was convicted for corrupt practices, but the government decided to grant him state pardon. To the National Publicity Secretary of the CPC, Rotimi Fasakin, the corrupt tendencies in the country can be traced to the "man at the apogee of leadership."

He said that if the leader is not aversed to corruption, then corruption will continue to thrive as we have seen in the country. He told National Mirror that: "Corruption is synonymous with the way the man at the apogee of leadership operates.

If the man at the apogee of leadership has a predilection to serious corruptive tendencies, of course, you will see within that administration, huge corruption oozing out of the administration, which is what we are seeing now in the country. We have seen in the last two and a half years, a very corrupt oil industry. Nigeria's oil industry has become a cesspool of repugnant, intolerable corruptive tendencies, that is what the oil industry in Nigeria has become. It totally emanates from the man at the apogee of leadership.

"What has he done about it? Has he done anything about the minister in charge, who seems untouchable? If the minister has not been removed, it means the president is conniving with her. When you talk about corruption, this administration breathes, eats, lives and survives on corruption."

Also, the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Osita Okechukwu, believes that "more than anything else, corruption is the bane of underdevelopment and poor performance of the PDP."

Assessing Jonathan's two-year in the saddle, the CNPP, through Okechukwu gave the President a very low score in his fight against corruption, saying: "Consequently, any regime that lacks the political will to wage strident war against the endemic and pervasive corruption in the land; cannot achieve any meaningful result.

"And for as long as President Jonathan or any other president that comes in 2015, condones corruption and continues with the inchoate and failed economic policy that government has no business in business, so long will it be a mirage to provide electricity, medicare, first class education or create jobs."

On ways out of the quagmire that corruption has thrown the country into, political analysts and stakeholders in the Nigerian Project believe that President Jonathan is not doing enough in the battle against corruption. To Fasakin, "the man at the apogee of political leadership of a nation is very germane to setting the right standard and putting the nation on the path of straightness.

Anything short of this is secondary. "We need a leader that will truly fight a war against corruption and corruptive tendencies, because corruption has eaten deep into the fabric of the entire nation. Nigerians know how to abide and key in to whatever a good leader tells them to do. Okechukwu believes that "the only way out of the corruption matrix" in Nigeria is regime change.

He added that "Nigeria cannot advance under one party state." As the blame game continues, it is the general consensus among Nigerians that the earlier the present administration frontally confronts the monster of corruption which almost everyone agreed is the bane of development and growth in this country, the better for every Nigerian.

National Mirror