You have heard, no doubt, of the brazenness that former Governor Attahiru Bafawara of Sokoto State displayed when confronted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over his alleged receipt of some money from the $2.1 billion Dasuki arms largesse. Money meant to prosecute the war against the Boko Haram insurgents was diverted to funding a Presidential re-election campaign.
Bafawara pretty much declared that only those who are caught in the act are the thieves. What he meant was that corruption had been strolling on easy street for a long time and Nigerians just seemed to be slow on the uptake.
If you don’t get the impression that Bafarawa thinks that corruption is democratised in Nigeria, you can get the confirmation in the words of Senate President Bukola Saraki, who wisely excluded former President Olusegun Obasanjo from that phylum. Obasanjo had taken a swipe at the National Assembly and the state governors for corruption.
Saraki reportedly said: “We (including Baba Obasanjo?), have all been here since 1999, up to the recent past when things were not done right. We are all part of it. I was there, you were here; every other political office holder was there as well.”So let no kettle be calling the pot black. Pogo, the comic strip character, says, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
As the 2016 budget was being prepared, a faceless “budget mafia” in the Federal Civil Service, proposed a N3 trillion overhead that was trimmed down to a mere N163 billion. Whereas personnel cost for 2015 was N1.8 trillion, this relentless clique successfully beguiled an inattentive Presidency to slip in N2.1 trillion personnel cost into the 2016 budget.
If not for being a conscientious dissenter against capital punishment, one would have suggested that members of the “budget mafia” should face a court-martial and end up at the stakes, as a radical measure to excise the corruption toxin from the civil service system.
The Ministry of Budget and National Planning has explained that the “error” in the budget is as a result of the technical incompetence of budget officers in handling the novel zero based budget procedures. Everyone, including those lying, knows that it was a deliberate act to steal. What is complex in ZBB? Those who did the force balancing, working from answer back to the question, can’t be novices.
It is a good thing that the former Director-General of Budgeting, Mr. Yahaya Gusau, was asked to go. The ministers, too, should honourably walk the plank. The “wrong packing” happened under their watch. You sometimes wish that some people brought character with them into public office. But, that is not always the case.
In a preface to the 2009 edition of the Federal Government Financial Instructions, former Minister of Finance, Mansur Muhtar, said: “On the part of ministers, it is mandatory that they ensure that any decision taken by them are correct, unexceptionable…. They should insist that any recommendation (including input into the budget, one might suppose), put before them is supported by the relevant provision of an extant Act or (the) Regulations.”
He continues: “Public Officers (should) acquaint themselves with the regulations… dealing with public finance for proper guidance. It didn’t look like these ministers took this counsel.
The Federal Financial Instructions 103 says “The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has assigned to the Minister of Finance the responsibility for all financial business of the federation.”
Vetting the figures of the budget should have been part of that responsibility.
Corruption is permanently on the public service boulevard. If you think that Nigeria is ever going to be free of corruption, you must be one of those who think Shangri-La, an imaginary earthly paradise, is real.
Who will police the conscience of corrupt public officials? The conscience provosts will have to search their own consciences first.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, recently claimed that $2 trillion, at least, was recovered and confiscated by the EFCC in the last 12 years. More is still being expected from the Abacha loot stashed away in the vaults of some banks in Europe. This corruption monster, viler than a Leviathan, was allegedly reported by Dr. Pius Okigbo to have stolen about $12.5 billion between 1988 and 1994.
But, corruption steals more than public funds. It resides in ruling political parties, whose chieftains brazenly take away the right of a James Faleke and award it to a Yahaya Bello. The Yoruba would say, “Nwongbe omo Oba fun Osun.” That explains the tragedy that places intellectual and moral Lilliputians in the commanding heights of political power in Nigeria.
Disregard former President Goodluck Jonathan’s opinion on the subject and see how Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary describes corruption: “Impairment of integrity, inducement to (do) wrong by improper or unlawful means.” A checklist for the man on the street would include bribe, dishonest, perverted, debased, depraved, tainted, stained or containing error. All amount to no good.
Dr. Tunji Braithwaite alleges that both Obasanjo and military President Ibrahim Babangida made corruption attractive. No answer to that. Also, Obasanjo agrees that corruption is a major problem confronting Nigeria. He is sure that there will be a major improvement in Nigeria if President Muhammadu Buhari can overcome corruption. Buhari, too, says that if Nigeria did not kill corruption, corruption would kill Nigeria. His second go at corruption is therefore WAI 2.0, it seems.
The euphemism, “settlement,” appears to have upstaged “kola,” for a bribe. When a police officer asks for your “patrikola”, conjoining “particular” to “kola,” he wants for you to embed some crisp currency notes in the sheaf of papers containing your driving and vehicle licences, as well as insurance, MOT, roadworthiness and hackney certificates.
President Buhari even casts aspersions on the integrity of the judiciary and its ability to dispense justice in the corruption cases that his government has brought, or will bring, before it. The judiciary, in turn, points to the anti-graft agencies as the sloppy ones who fail to present iron clad cases. There you are. The horse manure goes round. It would seem like less than half of one per cent of the EFCC prosecutions gets a conviction.
Decent Nigerians must not join in the disgraceful low comedy of Bafarawa and his ilk who think that corruption is a common heritage, a play thing, and no big deal. Decent Nigerians must speak out against the assault against moral and reject the odium of the tar-brush skunk corruption.
The group known as the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders may have to vacate protests against the hike in electricity tariffs for now and mobilise vigorous campaigns to thoroughly embarrass and make Bafarawa and his co-travellers take back their putrid jokes and apologise to Nigerians.
The Federal Government must also do some remedial “panel beating” of the law enforcement agents, review their conditions of service, provide them with equipment and recognise those who perform above board.
But, more to the point, decent and incorruptible public servants, serving and retired, cast in the mould of venerable Simeon Adebo, AbdulAzeez Atta, Jerome Udoji and Gamaliel Onosode, must stand out and shame the shameless!(What else?) His Excellency Emeka Anyaoku, Ambassador Maitama Sule, Ambassador Christopher Kolade, Alhaji Ahmed Joda and Mr. Akintola Williams, this is your call. Speak out now.
PUNCH
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