The Holy Bible declares without equivocation, ‘for all have sinned….’ The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor- turned politician, agrees and applies that divinely-inspired dictum in his analysis of the most talked about issue in Nigeria today – corruption. In his assessment, all the arms of government, Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, have soiled their hands, one way or the other, in the honey pot and cannot, in all honesty, exculpate themselves from guilt. To that extent, he insists that no one, no arm of government, regardless of any pretensions to self-righteousness, will be spared in the ongoing effort of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to cleanse the Augean stables many have likened the Nigerian nation state to.
Before this heart-warming, if not disarming, display of rare executive humility by the Vice President, the tendency on the part of some officials of government, adorned in toga of infallibility, has been to see the rest of us outside the corridors of power as common criminals that must be hunted, haunted and hounded. That has remained the main criticism of the campaign against graft and malfeasance since the administration came into power on the mantra of zero tolerance for any form of misconduct. The executive arm has, so far, to the consternation of discerning Nigerians, rebuffed attempts to question allegations of impropriety against some its own.
But now that a member of the administration, so high up, thinks otherwise and has actually proclaimed, publicly, that there will be no sacred cows, we hope that the government and its agencies will be able to walk the talk and in the process give Nigerians real cause to expect that the war on graft will, after all, achieve the anticipated aim of bringing the guilty to justice in a manner that will be devoid of indiscriminate profiling.
The legislature has tasted what it is like to be on the wrong side of the law when its leadership was put in the dock for alleged infraction. It afforded the ordinary man in the street some consolation that, perhaps, a Daniel has come to judgement. That thinking was further reinforced when some judges, ‘high priests’ at the temple of justice, were recently told in an unmistakable manner that they, too, even in their exalted positions, presumed sacred, can be made to face the harsh provisions of the law if and when the situation arises.
The media, the fabled societal watchdog, have not quite extricated themselves from the fangs of the law. However, without gainsaying it, most of us are waiting for the day the executive branch, currently driving the process, will have the courage to introspect, ask itself pertinent questions and expose the bad eggs in its fold in the same dramatic way the other two arms have been treated. That, indeed, will be the day.
The recent position of Osinbajo on the issue has heightened this expectation and we imagine that such a day may come sooner than later. While we are waiting, it is imperative to point out that the war against corruption will only live up to its billing when anyone, everyone, in or out of public sphere, suspected of wrong-doing is made to clear that suspicion before the law regardless of his or her ranking in the society. It takes humility for government, its agencies and functionaries to accept that to err is human. It also takes even greater humility to say ‘I am sorry.’ It is such disposition that will enable the system to make enduring progress especially if the rules are made commensurably less discriminatory. In our view, that could possibly be the point the Vice President is trying to put across; that equality before the law is the way to go if the nation is to be built on the ethos of hard work and honesty; if the war on corruption must succeed, not just by word but also by action.
We commend him for this outspokenness and candour in the felt hope that his colleagues will not only listen, but also share his thoughts and key in to his understanding of the tenets of the anti-corruption campaign.
END
Be the first to comment