Friday Musings with Ayo Olukotun ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236
More depressing than the Transparency International’s recent low score of Nigeria on corruption is the unfortunate lambasting of the organisation by the Presidency. It is to be regretted that even before officials had settled down to study details of the 2017 survey, a public statement was issued by presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, querying the methodology of TI, denouncing its findings and speculating that President Muhammadu Buhari’s opponents had influenced the organisation!
Describing TI’s findings as “fictional and unfortunate”, Shehu went on to say that “the whole episode may be no more than a political distraction, given the strong views expressed by some of TI’s patrons in Nigeria on the Buhari administration”. There must be better ways of defending an administration, even in a season of political competition than this low-handed slur of a credible international organisation. Coming as it does from a former top-notch journalist and a former president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, it is absolutely inexcusable.
Two days ago, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo tried to mitigate the damage by stating that government was already engaging TI with a view to learning on how to improve on its acts. But the damage to our image as a nation that only applauds favourable international rankings has been done.
Broadly speaking, Nigeria is a country of bad losers. When elections go our way, they are the freest and fairest ever conducted by humanity; when we lose, we rain invectives on the electoral commission and drum up conspiracy theories. It is a pity that we have now transferred this unhealthy syndrome into the international arena, which is why a government which a few months ago rolled out the drums to celebrate Nigeria’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report could so churlishly spit fire when TI gave it a ranking lower than the previous year. This suggests that had this year’s ranking been favourable, the organisation, whose annual report dates back to 1995, would have been praised to high heavens.
It is interesting to recall that on another occasion, government took exception to an international organisation, Human Rights Watch, which criticised it for human rights abuses, especially with respect to the posture of law enforcement institutions. There was also the case of the National Judicial Council rejecting outright the findings of the National Corruption Survey, which fingered the judiciary as Nigeria’s most corrupt institution, exceeded only by the Nigeria Police. Hopefully, we will outgrow this mentality of applauding organisations which endorse us or rank us favourably, while berating those which score us poorly.
Examining the substance of TI’s findings, which showed Nigeria dropping by 12 points from its 2016 ranking, there is nothing about that which has not been foreshadowed by other international ranking bodies, as well as by the vigorous public debates on the ebbing of the anti-corruption struggle. Indeed, Osibanjo went on record as saying a few months ago that there was the need for a reset in the government’s flagship programme. That statement was made in the wake of judicial reversals suffered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the dilation in bringing to book prominent members of the administration publicly accused of corruption, as well as telling silences of government officials, including the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, about reverberating revelations of corrupt dealings at high levels of government.
There is no doubt that the anti-corruption policy of this administration is both required and urgent, given the escalating level of public sector corruption, threatening to choke governance in the twilight of President Goodluck Jonathan. So, Nigerians welcomed the programme and bought into it; it was only when alarming contradictions in the prosecution of the programme surfaced, with Buhari claiming to have “cleared” some of his appointees accused of corruption that Nigerians began to lose faith in the credibility of the programme. Even if TI had only measured the perception of the Nigerian citizenry in 2017, with so many scandals erupting and scarcely any high profile conviction secured, it would have obtained the same results or worse than the one it came up with on February 22.
Another buttressing publication similar to TI, suggesting the erosion of reformist brio, is the 2017 Mo Ibrahim Report released a few months ago, rating Nigeria in the league of the worst governed countries in Africa. It put Nigeria as 35th out of 54 African countries and handed it a score lower than the African average governance score. Given that, TI’s verdict could not have been as wide of the mark as government spokesmen have suggested. Pertinent too is the alert on Wednesday issued by the International Monetary Fund that Nigeria’s tentative exit from economic recession has been attended by worsening poverty among the majority of the populace (See, The PUNCH, Thursday, March 1, 2018). In other words, public sector refortms have yet to bring Nigerians out of the woods, while the anti-corruption programme, from available evidence, has slid off the rails.
Unfortunately, as the IMF noted, Nigeria is on the threshold of a political season with its trademark ballooning of public expenditure, with possible repercussions on the economy and the anti-corruption programme. For example, anti-corruption may be forced to the backburner, as politicians make deals and those of them accused of corruption buy their way out of retribution by learning to shout the name of the presidential candidate of the ruling party. Some of these have already taken place, but the onset of electioneering could well accelerate such tendencies and the turning of a blind eye to corruption.
Indeed, as matters go in these parts, loyalists in government may well be assigned or assign themselves to undertake controlled raids of the treasury in order to raise funds for political campaigns. That is another way of saying that the chances of upping our ranking in next year’s corruption perceptions index are not very high.
All hope is not lost, however. The extent that Buhari’s place in Nigerian history will be determined by the prosecution of the anti-corruption policy, to that extent, should he be admonished to rise above the fray and give the policy a much desired lease of life. It is not too late in the day for him to implement the frequently stated suggestion for a renewal of his cabinet. This kind of finishing strong would entail assembling a change team to replace jaded appointees who have their hands soiled in dirt. There is the need also to revisit court cases concerning corrupt politicians which were earlier thrown out because of insufficient and fragmentary substantiating evidence. This is an area requiring evident mark-up. It should be noted too that corruption is, at bottom, a governance problem, fuelled by uncertainties and severe lags in infrastructure. Efforts to address the governance lacuna will go a long way to reducing the temptation for corruption on the part of public officials. It is no accident that the best ranked countries on TI’s annual reports are the Scandinavian countries of Northern Europe, where governance is both effective and efficient, and where the gap between the rich and the poor is not as outrageous and spectral as we have in Nigeria.
We can take a leaf from these countries.
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