Fast-forward to 2015 and we now have the agent of change himself leading the anti-corruption war, this time, with more determination and singleness of purpose. His “if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria” battle cry resonated powerfully with Nigerians and raised their hopes. However, his strategy doesn’t appear to be different from his predecessors’. Three examples will suffice.
Recently, there was a media blitz against the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, to the effect that he purchased fake military hardware for the army and could not account for a large cache of funds meant for the purchase of military equipment. This led to a commando-like storming of his house in Abuja and his father’s house in Sokoto by the DSS. For students of Nigerian government and politics, this was not a surprise given the history between Dasuki and Buhari. However, the president’s handlers laboured to convince us the president was not pursuing a personal vendetta against Dasuki.
But alas, when Dasuki was finally charged to court, he was only charged with offences relating to possession of firearms without licence and not the corruption/mismanagement the administration had earlier touted. However, at the resumption of his trial two weeks ago, the state introduced new charges of “retention” and “concealment” of “funds that form part of the proceeds of an unlawful act”, and applied for a secret trial. This, at best, is suspicious.
A similar media blitz was launched against Diezani Alison-Madueke when news of her arrest and arraignment in the United Kingdom over allegations of corruption and money laundering broke. The Nigerian government got excited and even raided her houses in Abuja in search of more evidence. It even issued a statement confirming her ordeal at the hands of the UK authorities and its active collaboration in her investigation.
It later emerged that Diezani was never arrested but ‘invited’ for questioning over a suspected money laundering case of £27,000. But right now, her name is synonymous with ‘corruption’ and ‘theft’. She has been thoroughly vilified and labelled a criminal who stole a whopping $13 billion of Nigeria’s money. When I challenged a friend on social media for labelling her a criminal even before she is convicted in a court of law, his response was quite revealing. For him, the mere fact that she is even linked to such an amount is mind-boggling and confirms her guilt.
The last example is the case of Senate President Bukola Saraki. He was a beloved ‘party man’ until he defied his party to clinch the coveted position of Senate presidency and, unlike Speaker Yakubu Dogara, further defied the party in the appointment of principal officers of the Senate. That was when the Code of Conduct Bureau woke up from its 12-year slumber to charge him for false declaration of assets – a crime he allegedly committed in 2003. Without speculating on the innocence or guilt of Saraki, it is difficult to see how this pattern of fighting corruption differs from the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua or Jonathan models.
We know from history that the real cause of corruption is the absence of a real and capable state. However, in the fight against corruption in most of Africa, the emphasis is not on the creation or building of a capable state (strong institutions as well as institutions of restraints) but on the enactment of laws and creation of agencies that are still subject to the whims and caprices or, in the Nigerian parlance, “the body language” of the ‘big man’. This is the story of Uganda also, which, under pressure from aid agencies in 2009, enacted what has come to be regarded as the best anti-corruption legislation in the world. Yet all corruption indicators have continued to worsen.
Nigeria, just like Uganda and many other African countries claiming to fight corruption, may just be engaged in what Harvard’s Ricardo Hausmann terms ‘isomorphic mimicry’ – the creation of institutions that act in ways to make themselves “look like institutions in other places that are perceived as legitimate”, but which in reality are not. Nigeria’s anti-corruption war thus far involves the use the media to demonise, to persecute, and to destroy people’s integrity knowing that, like my friend on social media, most Nigerians believe that every accused person is guilty as alleged. Also, the anti-corruption agencies do not enjoy much independence and can only act at the pleasure, or after reading the ‘body language’, of the ‘big man’.
The current administration in Lagos State understands this so well that when it wanted to demystify former Governor Babatunde Fashola, it did not waste its time going through any legal channel or process. It just tactically released information showing that Fashola used N78 million to set up a website and spent N105 million to construct just two boreholes. The media and the ‘collective children of anger’ on social media did the rest.
Perhaps, as Reuben Abati in his most reflective moment noted, “Our biggest mistake lies in the strange assumption that our problems will disappear simply through intra-elite displacement or the symbolism of grand gestures.” No. Our salvation as a nation lies in the creation of a capable state – a state that works according to laid-down rules and procedures and not according to the ‘body language’ of a leader. Then, just maybe, we can stop this “boringly repetitive national lifecycle”.
Christopher Akor
