Mr. President, corruption is Nigeria’s No.1 Public Enemy. Your value proposition as President of Nigeria is your avowed war against corruption, which is heroic and noble. Never in the history of Nigeria has a presidential candidate made the war against corruption such a major plank of his manifesto and never in the history of Nigeria has a president or head of government shown such an unflinching resolve to fight corruption in the public domain.
But you should have no illusion that this is going to be an easy or a short war. It is going to be tough and long. Certainly, there will be some quick wins, but on the whole, there will be many battles to fight on many fronts. This is because corruption has become so entrenched and endemic in Nigeria.
First, corruption should be properly defined not merely as financial crime, especially in the public sector, but more broadly as the abuse or misuse of public office. Then, we should also examine the various types or dimensions of corruption, especially in the public domain.
There are various types of corruption, including endemic or systemic corruption, which has eaten deeply into our political, economic and social fabric; political corruption, which involves transactions between public and private sector actors; high level corruption, involving top policy makers where the policy-making process is perverted; bureaucratic or petty corruption which happens daily where public officers render service to the public. Then in Nigeria’s peculiar case, there is the phenomenon of unconscionable and mind-boggling stealing or embezzling of huge amounts of public funds, sometimes in billions of naira or even dollars due to lack of financial controls.
Secondly, we should admit that we are all guilty of corruption! Yes, we are all guilty, either by embezzling, misappropriating, diverting or misallocating public funds, giving or taking of bribes, aiding or abetting the taking of bribe, wittingly or unwittingly encouraging corruption, applauding or glamorising corruption or corrupt behaviour, giving awards and titles to corrupt public officers, appointed or elected; hobnobbing with or seeking favours from political office holders, who are patently corrupt, especially so with some of our clerics; benefitting from the proceeds of corruption, condoning or tolerating corrupt public officers or corrupt behaviour, capitulating to corruption or being in a state or helplessness, when we can join together to take a public stand as entities in the public or private sectors or civil society, etc. For example, if organised labour, including the academic unions, had declared an indefinite national strike over corruption over the years, great progress would have made by now in the fight against corruption.
Thirdly, we all need to engage, therefore, in a sincere act of individual, family, corporate, sub-national and national repentance. We should declare a solemn assembly in our various places of worship and confess that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have failed God and failed our nation, Nigeria.
Having done the foregoing, there will then be the need for a well thought out national strategy to fight corruption. Your recent appointment of a seven-man Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption headed by Professor Itse Sagay is a step in the right direction. However, I am of the opinion that the committee, comprised of six professors drawn from the disciplines of law, criminology and sociology – and a civil society activist – is not broad-based enough. The committee is almost entirely an ivory tower affair, whereas corruption takes place mostly in the real world of government business and among politically exposed persons and private sector contracting parties and business people, with the illicit transactions being one way or the other transmitted through the financial system.
I therefore suggest that the membership of the committee be broadened to include a reputable retired but not tired senior civil servant familiar with government contracting and public procurement procedures, who probably served in the Bureau of Public Procurement; a reputable retired but not tired senior civil servant who worked in the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation; a banker familiar with handling public sector accounts and transactions; a private sector accountant or financial expert from a reputable audit firm familiar with the forensic audit procedures for public sector organisations and public contracting and procurement processes; and at least one more civil society representative who works directly on anti-corruption issues and interfaces regularly with international organisations like Transparency International or the United Nations Office on Drugs Control (UNODC).
For the fight against corruption to succeed, there will be the need for a broad-based coalition involving stakeholders in all sectors, especially civil society organisations, organized labour, students, faith-based organisations, professional bodies/self-regulatory organisations, and with international perspectives drawn from international organisations and multilateral institutions who are only too willing to help, etc.
Political parties also have a very important role to play by officially buying into the anti-corruption war. They should do so by developing and publishing an anti-corruption strategy, comprised of anti-corruption vision and mission statements, core values, codes of ethical behaviour for their leaders, officers, secretariat staff and members and an implementation plan.
It is also important that corruption should be fought not only at the Federal level but at all tiers of government, including state and local governments; not only at the executive branch of government, but also at the legislative arm and the judiciary of all tiers of government. The degree of corruption at the state and local government levels is just as heart-rending as at the federal level.
Leadership visibility should be shown not only by the President and his deputy, but also by all members of the federal cabinet; and by the governors and their deputies and their commissioners in the fight against corruption.
To give the fight against corruption the bite it deserves, there should be one consolidated agency and not two or more as we currently have. Let us face the reality. We really do not need either Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Crimes Commission (ICPC) to fight corruption. Most countries and jurisdictions where corruption is at the lowest ebb do not have such agencies.
We do not need unwieldy and parallel bureaucracies in the fight against corruption. Each time multiplicity of organs are created to get a job done, little gets done and at a prohibitive cost. Despite the existence of these organisations, corruption has grown and blossomed unabated. It is obvious to the discerning mind that these agencies probably were established with the primary motive of creating the impression that so much is being done in the fight against corruption, which is a subtle demonstration of lack of political will in the fight against corruption. We actually have enough laws in our statute books to effectively fight corruption; and the Police can do a good job at it if properly primed and empowered.
We need one major organisation that will be the visible focal point in the fight against corruption and one preeminent anti-corruption czar, who needs not be a career policeman. He could be a high profile criminologist or a fearless and uncompromising lawyer in private practice. All the excess staff from the existing two agencies could be deployed as Anti-Corruption Compliance Officers to the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on a full-time basis or redeployed to other agencies where their specialisations can be put to more productive use. What we need in the fight against corruption is minimum government but maximum governance.
Nigeria also needs to take advantage of all the international treaties and protocols it has ratified or acceded to, which can help in the fight against corruption, including the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Country Office in Nigeria is very busy in many areas, including issues relating to various cross-border crimes, institution-building activities and the fight against corruption.
This is what the UNODC has to say about the war against corruption in Nigeria: “In Nigeria, corruption has been among the major development challenges of the country. The Nigerian Government has established the war against corruption among the eight pillars upon which to build its Vision 20:2020. The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which was ratified by the Federal Government on 14 December 2004, provides a unique tool for developing a comprehensive response to this global problem.”
Nigeria is also one of the African countries that were among the first to voluntarily accede to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) on governance, the flagship programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The APRM has four areas of focus in governance. These are Democracy and Good Political Governance, Economic Governance and Management, Corporate Governance and Socio-Economic Development. Nigeria successfully undertook the APRM review in 2008, in which I served as a consultant. There was a repeat in 2015. Though we have recorded significant progress in political governance, specifically the conduct of elections, very little progress has been made in economic governance and management and corporate governance, specifically in the fight against corruption. The APRM framework on anti-corruption and good governance is very robust. I recommend that the Professor Itse Sagay Committee takes a look at it.
In conclusion, Mr. President, let me repeat my advice at the beginning of this piece. Have no illusion. The war against corruption cannot be totally won within four to eight years, but a great deal can be achieved with political will, which you seem to have in abundance. So, I suggest you determine a set of milestones you can effectively achieve. However, if you are looking for a silver bullet in the war against corruption, I will suggest two.
Amend the constitution, for it is the mother of all corruption in the present dispensation, or better still, do an entirely new truly democratic constitution; and secondly, privatize everything that can be privatised. Emphasis should be on minimum government and maximum governance. In addition, if you can move Nigeria significantly upward in the Transparency Perception Index of Transparency International and the Ease of Doing Business Index of the World Bank, you would have succeeded. -Mr. Igbinoba is a Lagos-based economist and business consultant.
This Opinion article was originally published on Thisday.
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