Corruption fight: Can this dog bite? -By Fola Ojo

As a military Head of State from 1983 through 1985, Muhammadu Buhari ran a heavy-handed corruption-cum- indiscipline pulverising platoon that is still being spoken about till today. Some of our elected political leaders in the preceding disbanded civilian regime who were trusted with the nation’s resources and destiny were determined to have soiled their offices. They were ostracised behind iron bars for a length of time. Although there were some here-and-there conclusions that the adjudication process was both crude and mean; to a large extent, the overarching goal was achieved. Transiently, sanity returned to the Nigerian society. Less than two years, another military grouping short-lived the process in a coup d’état.

My strive in this piece is to create an emoji of the mindset of this man who now has begun another fight against gerrymandering geeks and gluttons; against unrepentant hyenas of heinous heisting of public funds who are still alive and kicking hard among us.

From the electioneering season late last year up until now, President Muhammadu Buhari’s buccal and body languages are pitched on the other side of wanton impunity and corruption. It’s been more of this and less of plans and policies revelation. Buhari is not incognisant and nescient about where he is leading Nigeria, his inner resolve, however, is more brass-bound against corruption and wickedness in high places. He will probably prefer to be branded a no-nonsense warrior against corruption and profligacy, not necessarily a cutting edge administrator. His choice to sit on the Ministry of Petroleum Resources as the Charge d’affaires, I am confident, is to fumigate the environment blubbered and fattened with cankerworms of thievery and business waywardness. This President wants men and women without spots and wrinkles in his world. That will be a hard find in today’s Nigeria. The President knows this.

In his recent working strut to oil-rich Iran, Buhari announced that some treasury looters had begun returning stolen money voluntarily to the Federal Government. This is a familiar lyrical bulletin. How much has been recovered to date, and who these loot-returnees are remain facts or fictions hanging in the dark cumulus. All stolen funds, no matter how far they have travelled, and under what sick bed a strong-room may have been architected will be retrieved, the President has boasted. “…we are collecting documents and some of them have started voluntarily returning something…So, the day of reckoning is gradually approaching”, the President reportedly said.

This administration has barked! Strong words have been rolled out. We now know what will become of the fate of those adjudged guilty of corruption. Threats are out there like bestrewed and sprinkled confetti that the days of the corrupt are numbered. Well, in the Nigeria that many of us know, our dogs, no matter how big and beastly they look, possess only the barking bravura. Barking dogs against corruption in Nigeria have never had a single tooth to bite big thieves with dexterity.

I recall the N195bn pension scam tale. One Alhaji, who headed the Pension Reform Task Team, was accused of misappropriating billions of naira worth of pension funds which he claimed to have recovered from pension thieves. This Alhaji allegedly mopped up pension funds from Nigeria’s financial institutions and drained the huge sum into his private accounts. When summoned by the Senate, he countered with litigation against the legislative body and the Inspector-General of Police asking for the sum of N1.5bn in damages. When he learnt that the long arm of the law was about to tighten around him, he absconded to Saudi Arabia. Nigeria is still in search of the alarming Alhaji and the money that triggered the alarm.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission not too long ago also arraigned a director alongside five others in the Police Pension office before an Abuja High Court on an 18-count charge of conspiracy, breach of trust and embezzlement of N32.8bn police pension funds. After a long drag and hullabaloo on the streets and pages of newspapers, the big boss who pleaded guilty to stealing N2bn was fined N750,000! He paid it instantly. The billions are gone forever. Our corruption dogs possess only the barking bravura, no biting dexterity.

A few years ago, former President Goodluck Jonathan set up a committee to probe the N255m bulletproof car scandal in the aviation ministry under Stella Oduah. The former minister was indicted. What happened? The woman became a senator, and the case has suddenly gone cold. Our dogs do bark, but can’t bite. I can go on and on on corruption stories around which our toothless dogs have barked, but can’t bite even if they want to.

One of the reasons why Buhari personally took for himself the exclusive oversight of the petroleum ministry is how to stave off the stench. A politically conducive environment to lawlessness, cronyism, and ethnic politics is a breeding ground for corruption. The audaciously bold and duplicitous characters that spin through the crevices of government after government; the wheelers, dealers and egregious Erebus in the piazza of power will only go into asphyxiation if the nooses are tightened around looseness of money in government. If laws in the books only bark; but enforcement is zero, it is nothing but an approbating nod to the pillagers to keep doing what they are doing.

President Muhammadu Buhari said it again this time during his working strut to oil-rich Iran that some fellas who stole from the public till have returned part of the loot to his government. The action of anyone of these faceless and nameless people is an automatic admission of guilt. What then should happen to a man or woman who has admitted to an infraction such as this? Why are they still walking around free? And why are we not putting names to the players of the dirty game?

Corruption is a fact of life; but it does not have to be a way of life as it is in Nigeria. Singapore, one of the top-notch countries in the world adjudged incorruptible, is not totally free from corruption. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that while Singapore’s system is generally “clean and maintains high standards”, the problem of corruption “will never disappear completely.”

The primary root cause of corruption is inability to meet needs; not necessarily greed. I agree with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. When a man’s Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, and warmth are deprived, the inner striving of man as configured by God will drive him to meet those needs. One hundred and twenty million people are hungry in Nigeria. They are burdens on their loved ones who are either in business or government and politics. Those in politics cannot say “No” to their relatives who are among the 120 million. Everybody now goes berserk stealing to meet some needs.

As long as there is pervasive poverty and unbridled inflation in Nigeria, corruption will be a long-term adversary. As long as youths, the crème-de-la-crème of any society, are walking around aimlessly on the streets with no hope; as long as the only set of people who are well-remunerated in our workforce are the politicians who go home every month in money bags, corruption stays alive. Corruption can’t be killed with long prison sentences or return of loot. Slam a corrupt man behind bars, one day he’ll be out. To a deprived man, prison sojourn was just a shift change. He’ll start another work shift of siphoning funds in his charge when he’s out. When a government succeeds in removing those factors, corruption will abate. Then our dogs will bite big thieves and leave a deterrent mark; and there may be less of any boastful barking.