Three Global Stories of Corruption and Nigeria -By Oluseun Onigbinde

Oluseun Onigbinde

This unfortunate reality is simply because we tweeted publicly available information about the N78million website contract awarded by the former Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola. For a personality who retained a tightly fitted halo throughout his tenure and represented the governing party’s ideal of governance, our non-revelation that a government could spend that amount of money on a website and freely place it in the public domain with no thought to the consequences was a huge blow, considering the reactions from citizens. It was nothing intentional, this was simply our organisation doing its job.

Brazil

In 2010, when Petrobas launched its IPO, it raised $70bn, becoming the fourth biggest company in the world after Exxon Mobil Corp., Apple Inc. and PetroChina Co. This was a national oil company formed in 1953, and every Nigerian would have imagined this was what its contemporary Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could have been. However, that euphoria has been aborted. Petrobras has lost more than half its market capitalisation since 2014 (about $70bn raised five years ago). Recently, six managers resigned and are now under investigation. Several officials linked to Petrobas are in jail and under scrutiny, including the Chief of Staff to the Ex-President, Lula Da Silva.

Petrobas has unravelled, revealed as a huge conduit where about $50bn was used for political patronage in Brazil, with multiple parties benefitting from bribes and other pecuniary support. Its contracts are overvalued and are mainly channeled for the benefits of its top executives and political parties.

All of these sound familiar, like NNPC with its gross opacity and bogus un-receipted expenditure. According to the New York Times, Brazilians are lamenting a lost dream in Petrobas, a behemoth weighed down by the stranglehold of corruption. However, the country’s relevant authorities are taking Petrobas very serious: “117 indictments have been issued, five politicians have been arrested, and criminal cases have been brought against 13 companies.”

Australia

In other climes, Australia to be precise, Bronwyn Bishop, the former Speaker of the Federal Assembly has resigned. What did she do? She spent $3,650 to hire a helicopter for an 80km trip to a golf course to attend a fundraising event for the ruling Liberal Party, rather than take a car for the 90-minute distance. According to sources in Australia, Bishop had used more than $190,000 of taxpayers’ money over the past five years to be driven around in chauffeured cars, limousines and private-plated vehicles. That counts as overvalued and reckless spending, in a developed country without the challenge of power cuts, potholed roads, unfinished schools and other dire development indicators. She had to resign to atone for the unforgivable sin of breaching the public’s trust.

Malaysia

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razakt has been under intense scrutiny for the princely sum of $700m discovered in his account. Citizens asking questions have stated that these are funds from the state development bank, demanding thorough investigations. It was reported that the funds came from donors. The lingering questions of why would such a huge sum of money be in the Prime Minister’s account and who the donors are remain clad in secrecy, but the Malaysians remain forthright. They are still asking questions.

In matters of public corruption, one must align this with market ideologies and sociocultural nuances, to clearly understand what actually transpires. Corruption is mainly about two competing interests in an economic activity – the public interest to optimise scarce resources for its development and a few concentrated interests who have taken a state’s treasury as no more than a transactional outlet.

This tug of war lies in how public resources are spent. And often, corrupt officials employ the same means, including opaque transactions; unremitted funds; overvalued contracts and overhead expenses; the diversion of public funds and inefficient spending. These are the outlets, the vehicles through which the private interests override the interest of the public. If a state has lean resources and these private interests are skimming off the resources for patronage, there will always be less left for the primary business of developing society.

And because this tug of war between the people and their government over State funds will remain with us forever, we need more citizens properly informed, asking questions and demanding accountability.

Nothing retards development in a country faster than corruption and in it wildest form, corruption emerges shamelessly from the shadows to rewards incompetence. My three examples are from countries with far higher development indicators than Nigeria’s and we can see how they take public finances really serious.

This week, I have seen a handful of my staff fearful, passing around alert emails on security threats. We have become more conscious of our environment and every conversation has ended with the need to be wary of “the powers that be.”

This unfortunate reality is simply because we tweeted publicly available information about the N78million website contract awarded by the former Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola. For a personality who retained a tightly fitted halo throughout his tenure and represented the governing party’s ideal of governance, our non-revelation that a government could spend that amount of money on a website and freely place it in the public domain with no thought to the consequences was a huge blow, considering the reactions from citizens. It was nothing intentional, this was simply our organisation doing its job.

No matter when, or how this information got out, the principle behind it will continually irk any law abiding, tax paying yet suffering Nigerian, regardless of location. It will always remain in contention: why should a State pay (and pay that much) for a personal website, considering other competing development needs of the state (like the uncompleted Shomolu-Bariga road)? Would a private sector organisation or individual entity spend N78million on that website? This is what I earlier pointed out, when I said citizens and government are in a severe contest for interests for scarce state resources. We need to think through every contract that takes money from the State’s coffers and ask: is this truly in the interest of the public?

And because this tug of war between the people and their government over State funds will remain with us forever, we need more citizens properly informed, asking questions and demanding accountability. Left to their own devices, politicians are more interested in their personal comfort, preferring to renovate government houses, buy new Toyota Corolla cars for their long convoys, pay prayer warriors, visit fancy beach resorts, buy private jets for shuttling about and treating public treasury like their personal bank accounts.

It is a long road to civic education but as our democracy matures, we will surely liberate our minds and understand how huge our powers and influence as citizens are. Only then can we begin to see brazen corruption beat a hasty retreat.

It must also be noted that politicians also already possess a huge advantage, as the coercive power of the state is given to them, with consent of the majority at the polls. They can, and will often therefore use such powers to hide information from citizens and it is left for the citizens in much larger groups to organise their interests and ensure that every single penny spent has to be in the interest of the public, which is what should obtain in a democracy. This we can only achieve if our politicians decide to, or are forced to accept transparency and accountability as norms, not an exception – what makes this an uphill task is that: citizens do not understand the powers they wield.

It is not in politicians’ interest to be transparent, and in servicing their partisan interests, they believe not all their activities can be brought to light. In fact, every simple query will be treated with scorn and suspicion. Once you elect politicians, they hardly see their position as service or imagine themselves as stewards who must periodically account for their actions or inaction. Rather, they see it as a lordship, a sense that citizens are supposed to be grateful of their magnanimity. No state official can enter office without the votes, the queues of people that they then swear publicly to serve, and if the true essence of service needs to be imbibed, we as their masters need to keep asking questions.

Which is why it is very painful to see citizens diffuse their interests along partisan, ethnic and sectional lines and blindly abdicate their civic responsibilities. It is a long road to civic education but as our democracy matures, we will surely liberate our minds and understand how huge our powers and influence as citizens are. Only then can we begin to see brazen corruption beat a hasty retreat.

Oluseun Onigbinde is the Lead Partner of BudgIT, a civic organisation pushing transparency and accountability in Nigeria.