If the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency is to be taken seriously about its determination to engage corruption in a do-or-die warfare, then it would have to do more than the weekly assessments tendered by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. This point becomes more poignant as prominent Nigerians have started speaking up on how the hydra-headed monster has stunted growth and development for ages. It is a miracle of some sorts that a callously raped Nigeria still manages to wobble along; holding on to the hope that things could have been worse than they are presently. Ironically, the solution to the problem might just be found within the rank and file of the privileged few who had, at one time or the other, been fingered in humongous corruption cases. I must confess that Nigerians as well as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission owe these characters some kind of appreciation not just because they have offered to make public their profound knowledge of the effects of corrosive corruption, but for also suggesting what they perceive to be workable solutions in the drive to tame the menace.
Though the EFCC has continued to tighten the noose around the necks of some suspected treasury-looters that allegedly thronged the office of the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.) to draw billions of naira without any contractual agreement, it has not stopped quite a number of these persons from offering unsolicited advice. Among these persons, none has spent quality time in ‘dissecting’ this problem than the former governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa. In an interview conducted by my good friend, Ikenna Emewu and published in the Daily SUN of Monday, January 25 this year, Bafarawa spoke at length on the topic and found time to offer advice on the right path to building an incorruptible Nigeria of his dream. What amuses, one must confess, is not Bafarawa’s declarative statement that 90 per cent of Nigerians are corrupt. That could just be the painful reality. It’s just that corruption comes in many shades and forms. Yet, one’s curiosity was triggered by how Bafarawa struggled to turn a serious matter into a circus show where he positions himself as a hero among the villains that stole the country blind.
Where one had expected him to speak on his latest travails as one out of the 88 persons listed as beneficiaries of billions of naira doled out by Dasuki for non-existent contracts, Bafarawa was busy reminiscing about how he ran the affairs of governance in Sokoto State between 1999 and 2007. Where he was expected to debunk official rumours that his company got paid N4.8bn for packaging spiritual matters on behalf of former President Goodluck Jonathan, the serial presidential aspirant was waxing lyrical about how the dwindling fortunes in oil revenue has generally affected governance in most states to the point that President Buhari had to intervene with a bailout. Where he should have seized the opportunity to justify the humongous payment he got for nebulous ‘prayers’, Mr. Bafarawa was more at home castigating the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and even Jonathan for not doing much in the fight against corruption. For a two-page interview, it must be said that Bafarawa was long on hollow sermons and abysmally short on the tangibles.
Listen to him on why corruption thrives in Nigeria: “Today, corruption has become a general thing as you can see that 90 per cent of Nigerians are corrupt, because when you go to the grassroots level, corruption starts from there. The electorate will demand money before voting a candidate, no matter how good such is or the ideology she has. All that the voter wants is how much the candidate is ready to give. Then he who is going for the election will first look for money, whether he borrowed from the bank or his godfather will sponsor him is immaterial. That is the beginning of corruption, from the grassroots to the local government level, state level to national level. The electorate are corrupt; the politicians are either corrupt or forced to be corrupt because when they get to the office they are elected for, their first concern is how to pay the money back. They cannot get this money without the collaboration of the civil servants, because governors do not write the memo or raise the voucher. The civil servants will collaborate in bringing out the money and then you can see how corruption spreads all over”.
So, what then is the antidote to stopping this madness that bleeds the nation’s treasury? I may be wrong but I didn’t read any from Bafarawa in that long-winding interface with the reporter. Apart from his clarion call on the citizens to rally round Buhari in his seeming lone fight against the powerful forces that continue to milk us dry while offering sickening reasons like the ones tendered above, Bafarawa brought nothing to the solution desk. If one were to go by the prognosis of this self-styled professional politician, there would not be any need to query why mind-boggling malfeasance has become the order of the day, even in sacred places like the judiciary and the legislature.
We may as well give Chief Olusegun Obasanjo a knock on his bald head for daring to write the National Assembly to open its books for audit in the last 16 years. Didn’t Obasanjo know that these lawmakers invested huge sums of money on electioneering campaigns and are therefore justified to see the allocation of extra-budgetary funds to themselves as one of the ways to recoup such investment? Okay, maybe it’s an electoral offence to induce the electorate.
Were there not cases of Ghana-Must-Go being sent to the National Assembly during the Obasanjo era? But who really cares as long as the end justifies the means? In fact, if we can all live by this principle of electoral planting and reaping, there would be no need for a Dasukigate or any other gates. What is so difficult to understand in a simple analogy which suggests these politicians were being ‘forced’ to be corrupt by circumstances beyond their control? In any case, how do we expect them to pay back loans to the banks if they refuse to fiddle with the treasuries? And let no one ask Bafarawa what could have ‘forced’ the dark-goggled Gen. Sani Abacha to steal with such gusto that, some 20 years after his demise, Nigeria is still recovering billions of dollars looted by him. Well, we can always blame that on unknown forces and the gripping fear of poverty. What else could explain the endless looting ad infinitum in which recovered loot is looted and re-looted by different sets of VIPs?
By the way, it is not surprising that Bafarawa washed himself clean of the allegations levelled against him by the EFCC. He would proceed to advise Buhari to urgently create public awareness against corruption so that the common man, who elects people into political office, can “see the dangers of corruption” Hian! What baloney. And what happens to the over N1.4 trillion said to have been stolen in just seven years, including the Dasuki bazaar? What happens to the billions of slush funds lying in bank vaults scattered across the world? That must be inconsequential as long as some persons have stolen enough to the point of not only tying the hands of justice to the stakes but also keeping it hanging in perpetuity. One thing is sure though: As long as the rich and mighty walk roughshod on the justice system while the common thief pays the ultimate price for stealing the neighbour’s goat, Nigeria will not stop wallowing in pain and looking for solutions in the wrong corner of the corruption ring.
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