The worry about the avalanche of calls for forgiveness by departing political office holders is that none of them has been able to put a finger on what wrong decisions they must have made.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” — John 1:9
“Allah pardon you! Why did you excuse them until it was clear to you which of them were telling the truth and until you knew the liars?” – Surat At-Tawba, 43
“But if anyone repents after his wrongdoing and puts things right, Allah will turn towards him” – Surat Al-Maida, 39
If a politically literate person were visiting Nigeria for the first time in the last three or more weeks, he or she would have thought that the country was under a Truth and Reconciliation decree. In truth, what has been happening since General Buhari (now President Buhari won the 2015 presidential election) is that many of the country’s political office holders from the president down to governors have been asking for forgiveness from fellow Nigerians for whatever they did or did not do while in office. And the calls for forgiveness were made without anyone plucking the courage to identify anything that each of them believed he had done wrong.
Despite periodic show of bravado by PDP leaders who called on President Buhari to focus on implementing his election manifesto, the trail of demand for forgiveness was blazed by the outgoing President himself. He and his wife pleaded with Nigerians to pardon them for whatever they must have done in the discharge of their official duties to offend anyone. As if it was not good enough that President Jonathan had graciously accepted electoral defeat and, in the process, according to General Buhari changed the course of Nigeria’s history, President Jonathan expressed fear of being ‘persecuted’ along with his aides and pleaded that should anyone desire to probe his administration, that person should not forget such other leaders as Yakubu Gowon, Shehu Shagari, Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, AbdusalamAbubakar, and Olusegun Obasanjo. This was an indirect way of saying that if all these former leaders had been forgiven so far for whatever they did or failed to do, his plea for forgiveness has no reason to fall on deaf ears. He pleaded that he not be scapegoated at the risk of opening a Pandora’s box that is better kept closed. (This was weeks before the allegation by EFCC that billions of dollars meant for fighting Boko Haram had disappeared into the pockets of individuals and companies not connected to arms production and sale).
Even the outgoing Vice President,Namadi Sambo, did not want to be left out of the ceremony of asking for forgiveness from citizens. He and his wife spoke passionately about how they believed that they must have offended some people in the way they performed their duties. (This was long before the allegation that N20 million monthly stipend was paid to his office from the fund for military equipment to fight Boko Haram).Similarly at the state level, many governors did not want to be left out of the ritual of calling for forgiveness. For example, the outgoing governor of Benue State was the most vocal of such governors. In his own case, Gabriel Suswam was specific about those whose forgiveness he would need. The lapse he boldly acknowledged was his inability to pay the state’s civil servants their salaries for months. And his reason for this was the nation-wide economic challenges facing Nigeria as a whole after the plunge in oil price. Despite this challenge, he was able to donate some vehicles to his successor, to ease transportation during the period of transition. Some would wonder why Suswam would need to apologise for problems beyond his control.(Suswam’s profuse apology came before his invitation to appear before the nosy EFCC). But Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State was the most specific about who should forgive him. He called on the accountant-general of his state not to abandon him on the eve of his departure from office and not to fail to tell him whatever lapse he (Uduaghan) might have made, a subtle way to ask for forgiveness.
In the context of Nigeria, calls by outgoing political office holders for forgiveness and understanding at the end of their tenure are not totally unexpected. It should be expected that those looking forward to come back to power and plum of office in 2019 would need to be in good terms with most of their supporters on their way to what they see only as leave of absence from political office. Correspondingly, those who do not share the optimism of their party leaders about 2019 may need to talk right while they wait for soft landing or mercy from the regime that had promised before election to set Nigeria right.
In the last few days in particular, a new love for plea bargaining has entered the country’s public conversation. After the revelations about what is now named in the media as Dasukigate, traditional and social media have been clogged by calls for plea bargaining, corruption amnesty, and truth and reconciliation, where such intervention is expected to replace traditional investigation, prosecution, and punishment of individuals accused of wrongdoing. It has also been reported that there are moves by ethnic and regional leaders to plead with President Buhari to use the route of corruption amnesty, instead of insisting on the crime and punishment approach.
When this article first appeared in this column two weeks after the inauguration of President Buhari, the writer urged President Buhari to have a multipronged approach to the fight against corruption. Corruption amnesty that allows for plea bargaining was one of the major approaches suggested, in addition to the traditional crime and punishment approach, and a restructuring that could make corruption less easy and attractive than it has been in our free-for-all governance system. Instructively, President Buhari himself announced recently that his government has been recovering stolen money from political office holders and public servants, adding that he would, at a more auspicious time, release detailed information about those who returned their loot and how much they had returned. Those calling now for plea bargaining or corruption amnesty with respect to allegation of diversion of money meant for procurement of military equipment to personal gifts need not worry about those who have already pleaded not guilty. Amnesty is in logical terms not for those who are not guilty; it is for those who accept responsibility for what they have done wrong and then plead for special mercy.
Ethnic or regional leaders should thus allow President Buhari to follow the two options he has chosen for fighting corruption: investigation/prosecution and corruption amnesty. In the context of today’s Nigeria, nobody should be obsessed that his kinsman or woman has been accused of corruption. The average Nigerian knows that this is a social cancer that cuts across ethnic and religious lines. To turn allegation of corruption into a regional or political issue is to trivialise the role of corruption in the destruction of nation-enhancing values pivotal to underdevelopment of the polity, economy, and society.
NATION
END
Be the first to comment