There is no doubt that opponents of the on-going fierce anti-corruption stance and actions of the emergent President Muhammadu Buhari administration would readily commend for his perusal and contemplation the humorous but anonymous poem quoted above. Why must PMB, they have privately and publicly asked, be expending so much time, energy and resources towards the recovery of looted funds, that constitute no more than a microscopic ‘horseshoe nail’, in a vastly resource-endowed country like ours? As far as these critics are concerned, the PMB anti-corruption campaign is sheer rhetoric to divert attention from the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s alleged’s unpreparedness for serious governance. They call on PMB to focus on governance and his promised development agenda, rather than the current seeming hounding of former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) public office holders of the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration, by various anti-corruption agencies.
There is, of course a subtle and mischievous sleight of hand in this argument. It assumes that fighting the anti-corruption war and pursuing a credible and productive development agenda are mutually exclusive objectives. First of all, it was because of the sheer brigandage, impunity and outright venality particularly of the Jonathan years that we have found ourselves in the current ditch of unprecedented fiscal distress. For a PMB administration that inherited a near insolvent country with governments at all levels finding it difficult to meeting their obligations, including workers’ salaries, it would be grossly irresponsible to allow a few Nigerians to keep the billions and trillions of scarce resources stolen from the public purse, all in the name of some nebulous and meaningless peace agenda. Furthermore, the APC presented an expansive progressive manifest to the electorate. It needs all the funds it can get, especially the stolen funds, to meaningfully pursue its objectives.
Ironically, those who argue that the PMB administration is expending too much energy on looking into the financial malfeasance that assumed a contagious dimension during the Jonathan era, are also the ones who canvass that PMB’ anti-graft war be extended to the beginning of this dispensation in 1999. It is obvious that this is simply a ploy to cripple the anti-corruption war and render it useless and meaningless. For one, the phenomenal cost of such an exercise would have dysfunctional economic implications. Again, the pressure on our already overburdened judiciary would be practicably unbearable. In any case, the pro-Jonathan critics who canvass this position do not bother to explain why the anti-graft agencies practically went to sleep in the Jonathan years. The truth of the matter is that no administration will ever be humanly possible to completely wipe out corruption. But the menace can be drastically reduced from its present epidemic level, once we have administrations that allow the anti-corruption and other anti-crime agencies to function with a relative degree of autonomy from the other arms of government particularly the executive.
In many ways Buhari is an ideological and political enigma. He cannot in any way be described as a revolutionary. His past and present political exertions were geared towards strengthening the system rather than overthrow it as a revolutionary would aim at. It is obviously his historic mission to help transform the Nigerian socio-economic and institutional system; to spearhead change as a way of sanitising and stabilising it. Buhari has clearly not come to overthrow the system but to save it through stabilising change. Is this a case of the ideological conservative as involuntary advocate of radical change? Even though his political steps are still tentative, through his sheer body language, there is palpable change in the air. The kind of sheer impunity witnessed in the pre-Buhari era has seemingly dissolved into thin air. Organisations and institutions of state are run more transparently and responsibly. Revenue generating agencies are duly remitting due amounts to the Federation Account, unlike the recent past. We have been spared the insulting spectacles of imperial First Ladyism gone rampant. Federal Government accounts have been streamlined and harmonised for greater accountability and monitoring.
Like PMB, Governor Akin Ambode is an unlikely revolutionary who within a short time is bringing about radical changes in Lagos State-building on the solid work of his illustrious predecessors. Just as PMB is a product of the military as a professional soldier, Governor Ambode, a Charted Accountant is one of the most experienced civil servants in the country rising to the apex of his profession. Interestingly, both the military institution and the civil service have similar professional attributes of discipline, respect for authority, institutional rigidity, and hierarchical bureaucratic among others. Both men are thus unlikely revolutionaries who, nevertheless, are spearheading far reaching changes in their spheres of influence. In Lagos the Akin Ambode hurricane is gaining momentum by the day. He has merged ministries to reflect new areas of emphasis as well as reduce duplication and enhance efficiency. He has shaken up the civil service top leadership to renew organisational efficacy. He has been proactive in responding to emergencies in various parts of the state. Near revolutionary reforms are being implemented across diverse Ministries, Departments and Agencies, which this writer gathered are already having salutary fiscal and other effects in the state of Excellence.
Perhaps the most restless and excitable of the public officers elected on April 12, is the Kaduna State governor Mallam Nasir El- Rufai who remains as controversial as he was when he was Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. Yes, he has taken some commendable steps as governor. For instance, El -Rufai has employed one or two non-Kaduna State indigenes as his political aides. Again, he has been applauded for announcing that all Local Government funds will be fully released to them. But the governor must first of all take the trouble to ascertain that the grassroots units of government have the executive capacity to maximally and efficiently utilise the level of their current funding.
Just as he did as Minister when he forced okada riders off the streets and massively undertook a massive demolition of structures partly to create room for urban renewal in the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El- Rufai is at war against beggars in Kaduna State. He wants them off the streets. El-Rufai has certainly not learnt any meaningful lessons from his experience at the FCT. He is still the same old El-Rufai enamoured of neo-liberal socio-economic policies utterly indifferent to the plight of the vulnerable and poor in society. This is the verdict of renowned sociologist, Professor Patrick Wilmot, on the Kaduna State governor in his book ‘Nigeria: The Nightmare Scenario’. His words: “El-Rufai the minister of the capital territory was at ABU when I lectured there but certainly never listened to what I had to say. His and previous governments failed to provide poor citizens with public transport forcing them to risk their lives and health in Danfos and Okadas. Yet, without building trains, subways or trams he threatens to get rid of Okadas, provoking the people further to rebellion, and feeding inflation by raising the price of all forms of transport”.
NATION
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