About 73 years ago when Nigeria was still a colony, the Emir of Gwandu, moved a motion in the Northern House of Chiefs requesting all Native Authorities to trace and sanction with strict impartiality persons involved in bribery and corruption which were becoming pervasive across the entire colony. What this suggests is that corruption in Nigeria is not new.
Hence, the first national government led by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa (1960-66) formally declared corruption as the nation’s main enemy. But he couldn’t stop the malaise which became a subject of concern to every government thereafter. General Yakubu Gowon (1966-75) was probably the first to formally develop an anti-corruption policy with his promulgation of the ‘Public Officer (Investigation of Assets) Decree’ of 1968, resulting in the forfeiture of corruptly acquired assets by culprits.
Neither the sacking of 10,000 supposedly corrupt civil servants by the Murtala/Obasanjo government (1975-1979) nor the inauguration by President Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) of an Ethical Revolution Committee to wage a philosophical fight against corruption brought any respite. With the return of the military in 1983, General Muhammadu Buhari (1983-85) swore never to “tolerate kickback, inflation of contracts, forgeries, fraud and abuse of office.” On his part, General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-93) invigorated the existing Code of Conduct Bureau and added the Code of Conduct Tribunal to it in 1989 to fight corruption. General Sani Abacha (1993-98) set up the Failed Banks Tribunal and promulgated the ‘Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Decree No. 13 of 1995’ which he himself obeyed more in the breach.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) brought into the anti-corruption fight two full-fletched anti-corruption organizations – the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan government (2007-15) did little about Nigeria’s corruption impasse ending ingloriously as one that overlooked allegations of missing huge sums of money from government coffers. Arguably, their ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost the general elections of 2015 to corruption. But President Muhammadu Buhari (2015-2023) also failed his admirers who thought the saviour had come. His party, the All-Progressives Congress (APC) unwittingly invited and protected from prosecution, many suspected corrupt politicians who decamped to the party.
Whether the current President Bola Tinubu would be the redeemer is too early to tell but he appears to be the first to recognize that having taken from the police the task of fighting corruption and handed it over to another entity – the EFCC, it is hypocritical to have asked police operatives to lead the same EFCC. Analysts such as this writer who drew attention to this were not only ignored, more and more members of the police family were drafted into the EFCC. It is the first malaise, the easy going new EFFC leader, Ola Olukoyede, a legal expert should halt. While it is unfair to condemn every police operative, to take a job from an organization and hand it to its operatives through the back door puts a garb of ‘business as usual’ on the so-called new handlers.
It is not only the imposition of police style of leadership that must change, customized bureaucratic processes and procedures must be critically subjected to global realities. For example, the fight against cybercrime is one that must be vigorously pursued, but EFCC must not copy or support the annoying method of picking-up affluent looking young Nigerians from our streets to hideouts to extort money from their ATMs etc. EFCC’s work methods must be distinct, clear, humane and directed only at crime, not extortion. If this is not done, the public will not know the difference between the EFCC and other law enforcement agencies especially those with criminal tendencies. Ample light must thus be thrown on the difference between the unpatriotic bodies and the EFCC so the latter does not incur a poor public perception that would antagonize the people against her employees.
Curiously, poor public perfection is already the pathetic fate of the EFCC right now. She is doing the nation’s most intractable job, yet many in whose interest the hazardous job is being done prefer to idolize their corrupt kith and kin who strip the nation of the resources earmarked for executing development projects. Today in Nigeria, many communities organize huge rallies to welcome back home, their heroes who are temporarily released on bail while prosecution continues. EFCC workers are Nigerians to whom the hailing of corruption suspects, sends a clear dissuading message. If the truth must be told, Nigerians need to introspect and clearly make their intentions known because what many of us do now gives the impression that there is no need to fight corruption, yet we have anti-corruption agencies whose staff are threatened daily by corruption giants.
It is even more pathetic that the government which set up the EFCC and continues to mouth the need to seriously fight corruption is one of those whose disposition dissuades the EFCC from commitment to the same assignment it got. Otherwise, why will government pardon the few ex-governors that the commission was able to prosecute to the point of conviction? When what the commission went through to be able to secure conviction is looked at again, no one would be left in doubt that the establishment of anti-corruption agencies is merely to make the people believe that ‘government is working.’ Under the circumstance, the EFCC has no option than to incorporate in its public enlightenment programme, the exact nature of the challenges it passes through to execute its duty.
Of course, there are many advantages of public enlightenment schemes. The first is accountability where such organizations report back to the taxpayers who are their true owners. The EFCC should therefore tell Nigerians what it does and is currently doing as well as what it has failed to do. But most importantly, the reason it has failed to do certain jobs must be clearly stated – a good example being the obstacles it gets from corrupt elite. If I were EFCC chair I will go after any corrupt Nigerian irrespective of his political affiliation. But I will follow the rule of law as I know Barrister Olukoyede will do. I will not invade anybody’s house at night, but I will firmly operate with courage. Indeed, I will start by enlisting the support of fiery Femi Falana SAN, who said some two years ago that the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association NBA knows the corrupt judges and even senior lawyers.
I will go after corrupt judges and their accomplices and present my findings to the National Judicial Council (NJC) which is the only body empowered to discipline judges in Nigeria. If nothing is done to them and therefore, they are allowed to remain in office, any time an EFCC case is assigned to any of such judges I will apply that they recuse themselves from my commission’s cases. I will tell the nation through the media why I object to such judges hearing the cases of their friends and associates in our custody. In other words, Ola Olukoyede should adopt the strategy of the late Dora Akunyili at NAFDAC to present occasional detailed and direct progress reports so that Nigerians can know why bodies like the EFCC are usually unable to successfully execute their assignments. I will extend the strategy to the legislators that we hear pad the annual budgets and coerce heads of public bodies to render material returns to them.
If the above is done regularly, the EFCC will become the agency of the people; and many Nigerians will more willingly give information to the commission. But if the EFCC chair allows himself to be intimidated, he will be presented while leaving office as a corrupt EFCC chair like his predecessors. Even if some chairpersons of EFCC were corrupt, we all know that Nuhu Ribadu an internationally acclaimed ant-corruption czar was not. Yet, corruption fought him back, got him sent away from EFCC on a course, demoted him from Assistant Inspector General of Police to a Deputy Commissioner of Police, stopped him from receiving his certificate at the course and eventually retired him from office. Today, he is the National Security Adviser NSA.
It is because ordinary Nigerians, the media and civil society organizations are not with the EFCC that our wealthy elite is continuing with corruption. It is also for the same reason that corruption is cascading to the lowest cadre below. For EFCC to succeed, we must all stand behind the fight that will rescue Nigeria from its stunted growth. There is no better time than now to join other patriots in the fight. EFCC must work for us.
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