Events in the past few weeks have left no
one in doubt that the Buhari administration has set the stage for the
prosecution of its promised war against corruption. First, in an
apparent move to plug loopholes facilitating leakages and mismanagement
of public funds, the President recently directed all ministries,
departments and agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government to maintain
Treasury Single Account (TSA) in the Central Bank of Nigeria for all
public revenue.
The move, which the Presidency stated,
was to ensure probity, transparency and accountability in the management
of public funds, has been widely applauded. Closely following that
directive was the announcement by the President that the trial of people
involved in the stealing of public funds will begin soon, in a matter
of weeks. And then also came the constitution of an Anti-Corruption
Advisory Committee to help plan strategies for a new offensive in the
anti-graft war.
Nigerians are elated by this development.
It shows that Buhari is committed beyond the rhetoric of his world
declaration, during his trip to the United States of America, that he
was determined to “Kill Corruption Before Corruption Kills Nigeria”.
However, many are wondering if government had properly thought out how
to make this new initiative work and how to surmount the major
challenges that had stifled the war in the past, so that the new
offensive will not run out of steam soon.
These and other relevant issues are part
of what the wise men of the anti-graft advisory committee are supposed
to help government fashion out. But as they embark on that assignment,
it is important to remind them and all other stakeholders that the war
or campaign against corruption is not new, it is not just beginning. It
has been raging for some time, some challenges had been identified, some
lessons should have been learnt from those experiences and all these
must inform current plans for the new offensive.
The
intervention of the two main anti-corruption agencies in the country –
the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) – over
ten years ago offered great hope. But today Nigerians are still talking
about corruption as if the evil it represents had just been discovered.
What happened? How have the anti-graft agencies fared? Have they failed
the nation? Many Nigerians who have been monitoring the anti-graft war
would concede that the anti-graft agencies can hardly be blamed. The
truth is that they were operating in a very difficult environment that
was more or less anti-thetical to the cause of the war.
A key element of the inclement
environment was the lack of commitment by the political authorities.
This was evident in the failure or negligence to provide adequate
funding for the operations of the anti-graft agencies. It is well known
that paucity of funds had been a major constraint to the agencies
especially in the past few years. Another important factor is the
slowness of the judicial process of prosecution. This has been
attributed to congestion of cases in the courts and the abuse of
judicial processes through frivolous injunctions in a seeming conspiracy
between the bar and the bench. As a result, a lot of cases being
prosecuted by the agencies had been dragging for years and this has
eroded public confidence in prosecution as a weapon of deterrence.
The most debilitating blow to the
anti-corruption fight was the insincerity of the political authorities
or rather, their alleged complicity in corrupt activities. For example,
the ideal thing to do on the various celebrated cases of alleged
corruption involving very senior government officials some years ago
would have been for the administration to hand over those cases to the
anti-graft agencies. That was not done. Even the National Assembly which
stepped in was rebuffed. In the same vein, most of the recent stunning
revelations of corrupt practices involving billions of dollars point in
the direction of acts of impunity by top public officials and their
associates.
This phenomenon could be described as
state sponsored or state approved corruption. What could the agencies
have done in such circumstances? The anti-graft war in Nigeria will
succeed when government begins to demonstrate sincerity of purpose and
commitment, leading by example and fostering enabling conditions for
anti-graft agencies to assert their independence and operate without
hindrance. President Buhari’s recent actions have just shown a marked
difference from the ignoble past. Now everybody knows that government
would not take lightly any act of corruption or impunity, no matter who
is involved.
Having demonstrated the political will to
root out corruption, the President should now proceed to address the
other major constraints of the anti-graft agencies. He needs to give
them the necessary capital and human resource empowerment to build
capacity in terms of personnel strength, training, outsourcing of
renowned experts in relevant fields on sensitive and technical cases
under investigation and prosecution as well as logistics for various
operations and activities covered by their respective mandates.
Talking of empowerment, the President did
say he was thinking of merging the ICPC and the EFCC into one big body
and empowering the new organisation with sufficient financial muscle to
face the challenges of the war. However, the idea needs careful
examination; it could be counter-productive at this point in time.
Merging the two agencies now will definitely create a period of inertia
during the transition process as the administrative frame work and
operational logistics of the successor organisation are being worked
out. This will be a set back to the tempo of activities the President
has already raised of which Nigerians are expecting quick results.
A merger may not be the best option in
the quest to step up the anti-graft war at this time. In any case, the
two agencies have separate mandates and apart from the aforementioned
constraints they have, which are not of their own making, there is
nothing to indicate that they, as currently constituted, cannot fight
corruption successfully if properly kitted. It would be recalled that a
prominent member of the new Presidential Advisory Committee on
Corruption once opposed the merger proposal for the same reasons in an
interview some years ago, when it was being debated.
President Buhari has begun the new
offensive against corruption very well. It might be more operationally
effective for him to retain the two agencies, empower them, effect
necessary reforms in the judiciary and other relevant areas to create
the right atmosphere and then watch them pursue the war with renewed
vigour; rather than create a new structure which will take time to find
its feet.
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