One minute silence from Mr. President

  

TUNJI AJIBADE

Nigerians can only hope at the moment. Hope that efforts to curb corruption will not end up in nothing. For it is heading in that direction as things stand now. Going by the latest comments from the head of this house, President Goodluck Jonathan, that is. “We talk about corruption as if it is the cause of our problems. No, yes, we have corruption in this country. The government has also been fighting corruption.” That was President Jonathan talking the other day. He had added that corruption is not the cause of the problem in the aviation sector, as well as the bad state of most Nigerian roads. Oh, not even Nigeria’s main problem, he said. It was his reaction to observations made at an event totally unrelated to corruption matters. No, yes. This is one reason a Nigerian may sometimes wish that his president observes moments of silence, on certain matters, under certain circumstances. This comment shows one thing, however: It shows that the head of this house called Nigeria is on a different page, different from his citizens who are confronted by high incidence of corruption wherever they turn.

Now, once in a while, a writer may wish to let his leader be, and concern himself with other issues of public interest. When the writer hears a comment such as the above, and his first reaction is to emit Haa! Then, his restraints become elastic. Here are reasons: Foreigners who monitor what Nigerians loot and bring to their countries insist corruption is a major problem here. That’s one. In the 2012 Corruption Perception Index of the Transparency International, Nigeria scored 27 out of a total of 100 marks, which placed the country in the 139th position out of 176 countries. As for budget openness, TI assessed it to be nil or scanty, meaning that Nigerians don’t know much about how their governments go about expending funds once lawmakers give their approval. Note that the budget determines what flows where in any year, and you will see the relevance of openness in expending fund. There have been cases of funds allocated for road construction. The roads are either not constructed but huge mobilisation fees are paid, or they are poorly executed. But while officials here routinely dismiss TI’s annual reports, a few interesting things make it a body any serious government should pay attention.

TI conducts surveys, and interviews foreigners in Nigeria, seeking their views on how regularly they come up against incidence of corruption in the course of establishing, or running a business. Some of the materials that the body also assesses come from the World Bank surveys, African Development Bank, IMF, other credible World reports, as well as surveys companies that intend to come into the Nigerian market have carried out on the business environment. One question that TI may, for instance, ask a company operating in Nigeria is: Do people use power, especially government officials, for private gains? The response is that in Nigeria, they are daily confronted with public officials that ask for bribes. Nigerians won’t disagree with that, of course, although their officials will write on why that cannot be the case. And Nigerians would not have known what they knew in 2012, if lawmakers had not taken their oversight function seriously. In the process, Senators removed the mystical eku cloth off the fuel subsidy masquerader, and the House of Representatives revealed the scam in the pension scheme. Let Nigerians consider the billions of naira involved in fuel subsidy scam alone, and judge how corruption cannot be even a remote cause of the problem in the aviation and road transport sectors. Did Jonathan forget that in January 2012, construction and maintenance of roads had been one of the reasons he said subsidy would be removed?

The President made his remark at the funeral service for the former National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Azazi. The Presiding Bishop at the occasion, Bishop of Bomadi Catholic Diocese, Vicarage Hyacinth Egbebor, had said the insecure conditions of Nigerian roads was a reason people take to the air. Corruption is at the root of it, the Bishop had added, and that once upon a time he too was nearly killed on the deplorable East-West road. The President heard the cleric, and he reacted. Did any reader notice something that sounds like jest in that comment, in its context, and in the nuances of how Nigerians understand words? And the President has figures to back his claim. He and his officials sat and they discovered that, of most of the cases in court, “about 80 per cent of them are not corruption cases.” Alright! But has thought been given to just one corruption case, and in one sector, where looting is such that it could have overrun the nation’s budget, and one way or another affects allocations for roads that should be constructed or maintained? The oil subsidy matter is a case in point.

Subsidy on imported fuel alone was taking a huge chunk of the national budget, when lawmakers caused hearings to take place. Now, according to the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, much of the billions claimed illegally as subsidy have been paid back into government coffers. Other players are in court. Weeks back, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman said N14bn was moved out of the country between January and August, 2012, and since September, his men had intercepted $14m at the nation’s airports. Those are the ones that were discovered. Could they possibly be part of the funds that could have gone into the aviation sector, road construction and road maintenance? The governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, granted an interview after the crash of the military helicopter that led to the death of Azazi and Governor Patrick Yakowa. He said his colleagues were interested in the investigation to unravel the causes of the crash, and they would send their own observers. He had not made three sentences in the course of the interview when he made strong allusions to corruption. In fact, he had said corruption had to be confronted and fought. There is no doubt the governors were suspicious that the military helicopter had not been in top condition as of the time it crashed. Yet, there was allocation for its maintenance in the budget.

Not long ago, soldiers mutinied because senior officers helped themselves to the hard currency meant for their allowances in peacekeeping operations. The soldiers were court-martialled. That was how the career of fine young soldiers was terminated, their lives hanging in the balance. Because of corruption in the military. Now their Commander-in-Chief dismisses corruption as one reason for the nation’s problems, separating what corruption affects from what it does not. One should think a primary school pupil knows that when more is frittered in one place, less of the same will be available in another. Does Nigeria have a corruption perception problem, with what is reported each day? Yes. Then it should be confronted, rather than this kind of justification that is dished out piecemeal, and which no discerning mind would give a serious attention.

One should think it’s about time the nation’s leadership stopped sidestepping the issue. There is an elitist conspiracy to shield from imprisonment every corrupt person that is a prop for the political class in this country. The leadership talks about cases and reports it has seen. Nigerians know of the cases they see, come up against each day. Obviously, Nigerians see, but the leadership chooses what it wishes to see, and justifies. Those concerned know how many corruption cases the current Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, has caused to be withdrawn from court. A reason the civil society called for his dismissal recently. And lawmakers sit in the dome after they have admitted they took bribe. Officials aided oil importers to loot in the oil subsidy scams, but the same officials, at whatever level, still sit in offices in government agencies. Credible organisations that other nations take seriously make indices on corruption available, leadership here ignores them. That, in a situation where a country like Burundi, for instance, is working with TI in order to reduce corruption incidence in that country. It is because Burundi knows this: Nations and international organisations that partner her take reports from bodies like TI seriously. So her leadership, in all sincerity, partners TI to reduce incidence of corruption. A sensible thing to do, because the same TI does not only show problems, it proffers solutions as part of its report.

Nigeria’s leadership debunks TI rather than go the Burundi way. And this happens at the highest level, making citizens distrust the government. Has any Nigerian seen a leadership which speaks but discerning citizens don’t take seriously; one that reduces the irreducible to the point of incomprehensibility and befuddlement? Then he’s seen a leadership that should enter the silence mode, more often than not.