Will Corruption Decide 2019 Elections‎?

Monday Discourse

‎After coming into power with a promise to be tough on sleaze, the All Progressives Congress is again trying to make corruption the issue in the 2019 elections. Tobi Soniyi wonders if the strategy will work this time

In 2015 many voted for Muhammadu Buhari because he ‎promised to run a clean government.
Then the Peoples Democratic Party was seen as a party that condoned corruption.
However, almost three years as president, Nigerians are beginning to doubt the president’s commitment to fight corruption. Graft remains pervasive among institutions of government. From police to immigration and to customs, it is business as usual.
This explains why it was only the government and its apologists that were surprised by the abysmal performance of the country in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index

According to the Transparency International, the perception of corruption in Nigeria worsened between 2016 and 2017.
TI’s Corruption Perception Index ranked Nigeria 148 out of 180 countries assessed in 2017 on the perception of corruption.

The index showed that out of 100 points signalling maximum transparency and no corruption, Nigeria scored 27 points.
The results show a slight deterioration in perception of corruption in public administration in Nigeria compared to 2016.
In 2016, Nigeria scored 28 points and ranked 136th in the ranking of countries.
With the one-point reduction in the score, Nigeria slipped in the country-ranking by 12 positions, from 136 in 2016 to 148 in 2017.

Despite the government’s unimpressive record in the fight against corruption, it has lately been hitting the PDP with a barrage of accusation of corruption and trying to portray itself as better in terms of corruption. Unfortunately, the PDP appears to have fallen for the trap.
‎
It all started when the National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Uche Secondus issued an apology to the public on behalf of his party.
‎Speaking at a national discourse on ‘Contemporary Governance in Nigeria’, Secondus said : “I hereby, as the National Chairman, do admit that the PDP made a lot of mistakes; we are humans, not spirits and the ability to admit is key in moving forward. “We admit that we have made several mistakes; we have passed through all our challenges and have acquired the experience no other party can boast of. “We were sanctioned by Nigerians at the polls in 2015; let me use this opportunity to apologise for our past mistakes.
“It is the honest thing to do, a legacy to transfer to our children; we cannot continue like that.
“When we make mistakes, we should come out boldly to the people and apologise.

“It is important to do so because we have learnt from our mistakes unlike the All Progressive Congress (APC) that will make mistakes and lie to cover it.
“We apologise to Nigerians that we have made mistakes, we have learnt our lessons and we are ready to begin on a new agenda; experience is the best teacher, no other party has it.”
After the PDP issued the apology, the federal government, specifically the Minister for Information, Lai Mohammed attacked the PDP saying that apology was not enough and that the party should return all the money it stole.

‎Mohammed said: ”The PDP presided over an unprecedented looting of the public treasury, perhaps the worst of its kind in Nigeria or anywhere else in
the world. Therefore, the best evidence of penitence for such a party is not just to own up and apologize, but to also return the looted funds. Anything short of that is mere deceit.

”Returning looted funds will provide more money for these programmes and make life more meaningful for Nigerians. There is no better apology than that.”

Thereafter, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo made damaging allegations against the government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP. He said the former president shared N150‎ withdrew from the treasury three weeks before the 2015 general elections.

However, Jonathan’s former aide, Reno Omokri said the allegation was ‎untrue. He then challenged the vice president to make public any any evidence in his possession to prove allegations of embezzlement by Jonathan.

Omokri said, “On this most recent allegation by Vice President Osinbajo, let me state categorically that former President Jonathan did not share 150 billion two weeks to the 2015 election.
“If professor Osinbajo has proof that former President Jonathan did so, then we challenge him to publish his proof. He is a professor of law and ought to know that he who alleges must prove.”
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbodiyan, also accused Osinbajo of not being bold enough to mention names of those he claimed stole public funds.
Ologbondiyan said the vice president was only fond of bandying figures he could not trace to a personality in the PDP.

In response to the challenge, the Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed released the names of six individuals whom he said participated in the looting of the nation’s treasury.
Later, government released additional 21 names of people it alleged looted the treasury.
The minister said:‎‎ “The PDP has challenged us to name the looters under its watch.
“They said they did not loot the treasury
“Well, I am sure they know that the treasury was looted dry under their watch.
“Yet they decided to grandstand. This shows the hollowness of their apology to Nigerians.
“We insist that Nigeria was looted blind under the watch of the PDP, and that the starting point in tendering an apology is for them to return the loot.
“It’s like a robber admitting to stealing your car and apologizing, but then saying he will keep the car anyway. It doesn’t work that way.”
The PDP fired back. Former president Jonathan also fired back. His aide Omokri said he took the pains to produce a ‘teaser’ looters list of APC members who were collectively alleged to have looted over $2 billion and challenged President Buhari and the Information Minister to explain why these men did not feature on their list.

The former presidential aide also sought to know why these alleged looters have continued to remain in the APC government where they wield immense powers and influence, even over the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that is meant to prosecute them.

Issues Arising from the Release of Looters List
Since many of those on the list are already going through trial in different courts, the federal government should have allowed the courts to do their work. Is the government, which is the prosecutor, trying to influence the course of justice by creating bias in the mind of the judges?
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Ferdinand Orbih has rightly observed that the release of names of alleged looters, who are still on trial at different courts was totally irresponsible.

According to him, such people who are still undergoing trial over corruption allegations are presumed innocent until the cases against them are proven as enshrined in the constitution.

He said: “For the federal government to label as looters, persons who are undergoing trial over corruption allegations is totally irresponsible.

“Such persons are presumed innocent until proven otherwise, by the Constitution, which the president swore to uphold.”

According to him, it does appear that the federal government does not understand what the rule of law entails or the dynamics of due process.

“The case against Nenadi Usman is still pending in court. The federal government that has labelled her as a looter of public funds is yet to prove the allegations against her in court.

“The government by taking this matter to the court of public opinion is making a strong statement either that it has no confidence in the process it initiated in court, or it is calculated to arm-twist the judiciary to convict at all costs.

“Either way, the publication by the government portends grave danger to democracy and the rule of law. Surely, there will be a legal response to this executive gross misbehaviour,” said Orbih.

A former aviation minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who was listed among the looters rejected the allegation.
A lawyer, Fani-Kayode stated clearly the implication of labelling people on trial as looters.
He said: “It is a crude and sordid attempt to intimidate the judges and influence the outcome of the cases which are before them and also to compel them to give the judgement that the government wants. This is not only unacceptable but it is also shameful.

“It is a clear violation of the concept of separation of powers which gives the judiciary alone the power to determine the guilt or otherwise of an accused person.

“It is trite law that only a court of law can declare a man guilty or declare him a thief or a looter and not Buhari and his government.

“How can anyone get a fair trial in a country when the government has already pronounced them guilty before the world?

“You cannot be the investigator, accuser, prosecutor and judge in your own case. This is a basic principle of criminal and constitutional law which appears to have been lost on President Buhari and his cohorts.”

For a government that is desperately looking for a way to secure the conviction of those it arraigned for corruption, going to the press with the names of such people is a wrong step. For one, the government has just given them another basis to object to the trial. By challenging the government’s action, the trial will be delayed and any hope that the courts will conclude the trial on time is dashed.

Legal issues aside. The federal government should have allowed the party that brought it to power to do the dirty job. The APC should have been the one playing politics with the fight against corruption and not the federal government.

In his article, ‘To kill 29 birds with two stones’ Editor-in-Chief of The Interview, Azubike Ishiekwene puts the issues in perspective when he said: “The APC has no one but itself to blame for the back-and-forth with the PDP over the “lists of looters” it released last week.
“After the bazaar of the Jonathan era, that there’s any argument at all about who was named or omitted in the lists of who-stole-what, is a sign of how badly President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has performed; it’s a sign of deep, self-inflicted injury. And to imagine that the government of Buhari had to release the list drip-drip at gunpoint!”
He noted that the courts had in the past ordered the government to release the list but government failed to comply.

He said: “In July last year, Justice Hadiza Rabiu Shagari, ruled, in a suit by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), that Buhari’s government should tell Nigerians the circumstances under which looted funds had been recovered since it assumed office, from whom, and exactly how much had been recovered. Nothing happened.
“On another occasion, a court had also ruled that the government should publish the list of treasury looters since 1999 and disclose to the public the amounts recovered.
“If the government had immediately complied with the rulings of the court or agreed to the common sense advice to publish periodic records of the status of the account and the account names, it won’t be fighting back at a time of low public confidence. But it simply ignored advice and decided to hug the list on the excuse that full disclosure was not in the public interest.”

Like PDP, Like APC
Apart from recovery of funds by the EFCC, there is no other indication to prove that this government is different from the one it is seeking to crucify. Anyone who is in doubt should walk into a police station or immigration office and observe what is going on there.
The damming report jointly released last year by the National Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime clinically chronicled the corrupt acts going on in the county. This government that swept to power with a promise to fight corruption had no answer to the issues raised by the report.
Then came the Transparency International’s perception index. It confirmed what Nigerians already knew.
In Nigeria, going by the records, the biggest corruption takes place at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Anyone desirous of stopping corruption must start by reforming the NNPC. This, our president has fallen short of doing.
Again, listen to Ishekwene, “In 2015, Buhari said he had ordered “a complete audit” of NNPC among other revenue generating agencies, “for better service delivery to the nation.
“Except if rodents have eaten the audit report, I’m not aware that the words have left the page since the President made them three years ago.
“If anything, the NNPC under Buhari has not only become more opaque, claiming immunity from the FOI law. It is under executive instruction to retain an unknown and unknowable percentage of its revenue in an account known only to a few, including the Chief of Staff.
“That is not fighting corruption and even a list twice as long as Lai’s Roll Call does not justify running the NNPC in a manner less transparent than it was run under Jonathan. And yet the names of those doing the damage will never appear on any long or short list – at least not under Buhari.”

Not done, he said: “How a government whose single greatest promise was to fight corruption has been enmeshed in a fruitless argument over whether or not it is more corrupt than its predecessor is one of the most embarrassing legacies of the Buhari administration.”

Despite the attempt by the present administration to decimate the Jonathan’s administration, Nigerians are more receptive to forgiving him. Afterall, Jonathan’s government did not claim, or even pretend, that it was fighting corruption. Neither were the people this hungry.

According to Ishekwene, the former president was clear that there was a difference between stealing and corruption and that sticker was conspicuously displayed at the executive floors of the NNPC Towers, Abuja, where the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, shared the PIN numbers of the country’s treasury with members of the ruling party.

Time to Look Inward
If this administration is serious about the fight against corruption, it should stop running after PDP. First, the government can start by clearing the mess on its table. And there are a lot of them. Government’s handling of the money recovered from Ikoyi is less than satisfactory. The former Secretary to the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal is having fun. A government that detests corruption would not be looking at the other side while people like Lawal and Ambassador Ayo Oke remain ‘unprosecutable’.
It is difficult to convince the people that you are fighting corruption, when those who should be facing charges such as the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Professor Yusuf Usman are allowed to remain in office.
Secondly, the federal government should review the joint report of the National Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as well as that of the Transparency International. It is not too late to admit the fact that we have not done very well. It is also time to stop blaming others. The argument that people are hungry today because of the misrule of past government is beginning to sound hollow. Some of the policies put in place by this government are as to blame as well.