Jigawa State: Fighting Corruption Through Risk Management -By Aliyu Sulaiman

During an interview with Daily Trust a few weeks ago, Governor Umar Namadi of Jigawa state, intimated that he had set up a committee to probe the activities surrounding some missing funds in the state which ran into ‘hundreds of millions of naira’. These points to the suspicion that these funds were misappropriated, mismanaged, diverted or blatantly stolen, and the committee would investigate and forward recommendations for his approval for onward implementation. Even before the interview with Daily Trust, His Excellency the governor was recently captured on camera, in what turned out to be a viral video on social media platforms, where he was obviously livid and scolding someone who seemed to be a state government official for ‘inflating a contract’. The governor was adamant that the inflated funds must be returned.

It is safe to say that His Excellency is well aware of the level of mismanagement of state funds. In all of these, the common theme is loss of public funds. And perhaps now more than ever, Jigawa state needs to save as much funds as it can for the challenges ahead. For all the agricultural potentials of the state, there is still a huge infrastructure and funding gap to boost the state’s economy into self-sufficiency.

There is no surprise too, when the bill for the establishment of the state’s Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission passed its third reading in 2022. Kano and Bauchi states already have this type of agency and it is expected that a similar blueprint will be applied for Jigawa state.

It is against the backdrop of loss of funds (for any reason) that Jigawa needs to create an independent anti-corruption and risk management agency, which would proactively and smartly identify, measure and mitigate risks associated with leakages, stealing, misappropriation and mismanagement of the state’s funds. This risk management agency could also handle all public complaints against the state’s public servants bordering around their ethics, which have the ripple effects of crystallizing into loss of funds, or dovetailing into corrupt/nepotistic practices. It is clear that this agency is similar to the ones operated in other states like our neighbors, Kano. However, the key factor here is that Jigawa state would have some different and proactive modus operandi, which is why and where enterprise risk management comes in, as against a reactive ‘investigate and then prosecute’ conventional anti-corruption agency.

The state should look to create an all-encompassing and robust agency, which not only investigates petitions and attempts to run after corrupt people, but also smartly assesses the systems of funds allocation (budgets), disbursement and utilization, to block all avenues for possible fraud and/or wastages. This agency would be smart, lean and data-driven, so much so that objectivity would be sacrosanct and difficult to circumvent.

All the necessary composition of legal, financial (audit), law enforcement and technology building blocks would be harmonized to work in synchronicity to achieve the mandate spelt out by His Excellency, the governor. The main functions of the commission will include but not limited to vetting of cost allocations in projects and supervising them through to their completion, and reviewing and investigating petitions within stipulated service level agreements and turnaround time. The commission would also sensitize public servants on the CBN Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism Act (2022) among other fraud detection and prevention trainings.

This submission is therefore appealing to the executive governor to make this agency or commission among the priorities for his first few months in office, while incorporating the aforementioned additions to a conventional PCACC.

Perhaps most important among the need to have a robust PCACC and risk management Agency is that in a globalized, constantly evolving and smarter world, risk management will help the state government and its agencies to be more reactive to change, which will in turn help them make better decisions and operate with more internal efficiency. Data would also be readily available for non-apparent risks, which would aid in making the executive make better decisions – exposure to financial loss will be minimal, and the number of cases for the PCACC to investigate and prosecute will be brought down to the barest minimum. Ergo, a ‘preventive first’, then curative-oriented PCACC.