The war on corruption: One year after

In truth, President Buhari promised two main things during the campaigns for the 2015 elections: to fight corruption and insecurity in the country. He was so incensed with the level of corruption in Nigeria that he declared during his inauguration that if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.

But on the first anniversary of the President’s administration, it will be fitting to assess the so much trumpeted fight against corruption and how it is contributing to ridding the Nigerian society of corruption. Predictably, the fight against corruption is gathering storm and making considerable impact.  But a closer look at the way the war is being prosecuted shows that it is more about threats and brawns and less about intelligence, diligent prosecution and effective preventive strategy.

Of course, in the first weeks of the administration, the right noises were made and the message reverberated even outside the country. There was a general feeling that there was a new Sheriff in town and the President’s ‘body language’ as it was called then prompted the anti-corruption agencies – the Economic and Financials Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to wake up from their deep and long slumber. What followed was a series of rash and indiscriminate arrests, media trials and supposed confessional statements obtained mostly under duress and splashed generously on the pages of newspapers but with few and largely unsuccessful arraignments, prosecutions and convictions. It is instructive to note that right up till this moment and with all the efforts and media campaigns and trials of supposed corrupt officials, none has yet been successfully convicted in the law courts.

Clearly, the president’s resolve to firmly tackle the vice of corruption and impunity in the country is firm and unshakeable. But it is also apparent that the country may eventually come to grieve over the way the war is being prosecuted. The country may wake up four years after to discover that no real dent has been made on the scourge of corruption.

With regards to prosecution and conviction, the most effective way to secure conviction of corrupt individuals is through diligent and thorough investigation and prosecution, coupled with the presence of an efficient, reliable and a firm court system that is not susceptible to manipulation. However, in Nigeria, shoddy investigation, lazy prosecution and a disorganised and compromised judiciary have combined to make nonsense of the justice system. No wonder then that while someone like James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State, was discharged and acquitted on an almost 160 count of corruption and mismanagement of public funds in Nigeria, he pleaded guilty to avoid trial on similar offences in the United Kingdom. But he also had the best of lawyers in the United Kingdom just as he had in Nigeria.

The president must realise that only an efficient and non-corrupt court system coupled with a competent and efficient public prosecution system can guarantee the conviction of corrupt individuals. Thus far, there has not been any effort or attempt to thoroughly reform the country’s judiciary and justice delivery system.

Secondly, just as the President is busy plugging loopholes and chasing after corrupt officials, he is equally opening up new and lucrative areas of corruption, which is threatening to reverse all the gains being made from the anticorruption war. By maintaining an archaic and unreasonable foreign exchange rate control in the name of “not killing the naira,” the government has not only opened up new corruption avenues through the arbitrage opportunities such controls engender, but it is also subsidising the lifestyles of rich and middle class Nigerians to the detriment of the poor majority of Nigerians who have no business with the dollars. Yet, the President solemnly promised to defend the poor and even refused to remove the subsidy on petrol because, according to him, it will particularly hurt the poor.

Thirdly, with the economy in doldrums, inflation and unemployment skyrocketing, people losing their jobs and businesses in droves and the average Nigerian struggling to survive due to the deteriorating economic situation, any fight against corruption is really only theoretical and not practical. A successful war on corruption cannot be fought in a depressing economy and with a vastly poor and dispirited people.

Finally, we feel the most potent weapon for fighting corruption, but which is hardly ever employed in weak states, is the building of strong institutions of restraints. Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah made the point on October 1st at the Platform at the Covenant Christian Centre that even if the worst (and most corrupt) Nigerian President ever were to be made the President of the United States and he succeeds in governing for 20 years, he may be unable to steal $50, 000 during the period. Conversely, if the most upright American President were to be made president in Nigeria, even if for a year, he may be tempted by the avenues of corruption and may get his hands soiled by corruption. The point he was making was the absence of institutions of restraints to prevent and restrain officials from engaging in corruption.

It may be easier to create agencies to fight corruption. It may be easier to launch a media campaign against perceived corrupt officials or even make scapegoat of some, but such actions never get a country anywhere. They are just mere tokenisms that fizzle out with time. What helps a society to effectively tackle and prevent corruption is the presence of strong institutions of restraints. The sooner Nigeria starts building such institutions, the better for us.