After nearly half a century of its reckless and inaccurate usage in Nigeria, the word ‘corruption’ has become a cliché. It is now so lacking in impact that it fails to capture the depth of the moral crisis confronting the Nigerian society. During the sixties and the seventies, the term was ‘official corruption’ denoting abuse of office and other misdemeanours by government officials. The makers of the first coup in Nigeria cited rampant official corruption as the reason for their intervention. This messianic refrain laden with moral outrage at the degeneracy of Nigerian society was repeated by successive coup-makers even as each regime intensified the country’s ethical freefall.

During the eighties, the operative term became ‘bribery and corruption’ as though to indicate the growing specificity of graft in the public sphere. Words like ‘embezzlement’ crept into the national lexicon following the more colloquial idiomatic expressions like ‘chopping money’. By the nineties, corruption had assumed socio-cultural proportions; it was normal to plunder the public treasury at any level. Indeed it was expected. News of thieving public officials lost its shock value to a society that had equally lost its capacity for moral outrage. By the time President Obasanjo came into office vowing to fight corruption and to slaughter all sacred cows, the word had become an abstraction. Obasanjo did create agencies like the ICPC and most notably the EFCC to combat graft, but ultimately he lacked the moral armament to prosecute such a war. His successor, the current president Umar Yar’Adua came into office mouthing a similar refrain of zero-tolerance for corruption and embellished it further with high-minded talk of ‘rule of law.’

The truth is that the profile of what we call corruption has changed over the years even as the word has become more clichéd and impotent. We are no longer talking about a few public officials on the take. We are not talking about kickbacks and ten percent-collecting crooks in the civil service. The conversation is no longer even about the rapacious martial elite that remorselessly plundered the country throughout military rule and now live on ill-gotten wealth in comfortable retirement. Today, corruption has become a quaint euphemism for describing a vast infrastructure of organized crime deeply embedded in the fabric of the nation’s politics, accommodated in the innermost sanctums of governance with links to militancy, terrorism and a network of renegade government agents at their disposal. We are describing the wedlock of the Nigerian state and the underworld that has made it difficult to differentiate one from the other.

This characterization explains the current lull in the war on corruption, the covert and not so covert attempts to defang the EFCC as well as efforts by elements within the current administration to terminate the agency’s prosecution of some highly connected politicians. To understand the politics of fighting corruption in Nigeria, we must understand that a cult of untouchables exists in this country. It is a cabal of highly influential figures who are for all intents and purposes above the law. To the extent to which this cult is involved in Nigerian politics, the war against corruption and agencies of the state must be subordinated to the whims and caprices of its members.

There is probably nothing that demonstrates this cult’s pervasive influence on governance more than the unwritten concord that binds all Nigerian governments, military or civilian, past and present in what can only be described as a pact of non-aggression. The clique of soldiers that took power in July 1966 went on to produce five of Nigeria’s Heads of State (namely Gowon, Murtala, Buhari, Babangida and Abacha) as well as powerful chieftains of the nation’s military elite. Obasanjo is not included because he was not a member of that clique although instructively the most powerful members of his regime were two members, Theophilus Danjuma and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. An understanding developed among Nigeria’s military rulers that no regime would seek to probe or unearth the misdeeds of a past regime. This understanding might have been rooted in some perverse interpretation of comradeship or team spirit. Consequently, one regime could be overthrown by another but would not be hounded or persecuted for any past crimes.

When Gowon was overthrown by Murtala, the former Head of State was told that he was free to return home and basically left in peace. It was only after Murtala was assassinated in a failed coup allegedly linked to Gowon, that he was stripped of his rank and dismissed (illegally) by the Obasanjo regime. It is for the same reason that Obasanjo in the eight years of his presidency never yielded to calls by some people to probe the Babangida regime. Apart from the long-standing relationship between both generals, Babangida had been the prime mover of the Obasanjo candidacy in 1999. Such a move would have been a gross violation of the pact of non-aggression. Of course, it doesn’t stretch credulity to imagine that Nigeria’s ex-military rulers have all kinds of insurance to guard against any puritanical witch-hunts by one of their own comrades. Any leader attempting to investigate a predecessor in office risks the exhumation of the skeletons in his own backyard.

Only one leader in Nigerian history dared to violate the fraternal bonds of the cult of untouchables and that was Sani Abacha although he was really driven by self-preservation and insecurity rather than any moral instincts. Nevertheless, Abacha having duped and deceived his way into power took pains to emphasize his undisputed primacy in the scheme of things. He was ruthless in suppressing any perceived challenge to his position. He hauled Abiola who had many powerful friends in the military elite into prison for insisting on his electoral victory. He had the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, deposed and nearly brought before the failed banks tribunal for what he deemed to be the Sultan’s lack of loyalty. He railroaded Obasanjo and Yar’Adua before a military tribunal on charges of coup-plotting where they bagged lengthy jail terms with the intent that neither of them would ever again breathe the air of freedom. Yar’Adua was eventually murdered in prison while Obasanjo narrowly escaped a similar fate.

It was this last act; his incarceration of two of Nigeria’s most respected soldiers that sealed Abacha’s fate after his own demise. He had violated the pact of non-aggression and treated two respected soldier-statesmen with ignominy. It was this sin that informed the Obasanjo regime’s single-mindedness in recovering monies stolen by the deceased dictator. Instructively, the task of Abacha loot recovery was assigned to Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, the National Security Adviser and a seasoned military intelligence officer whom Abacha had used to scheme his way into power and then disgracefully retired from the army. Gusau went about his assignment with considerable motivation. When Abacha’s son tried to hedge on the looted funds, he was promptly jailed until he reconsidered his ways. No ex-Head of State has been as publicly condemned and vilified by a subsequent government as Abacha. Not that he was undeserving of such odium but this was Obasanjo’s vengeance and also that of the cult of untouchables on the one man who dared to break the code of non-aggression. It is ironic that Abacha may be the only Nigerian ruler that did not see sacred cows anywhere. Indeed, given enough time, Abacha would surely have turned his guns on Babangida, his alter ego with whom he felt he was in competition.            

                 Understanding the cult of untouchables will help us to situate the pathologies that drive the exercise of power in Nigeria. Among the former military ruling elite, corruption is a difficult term to understand. They regarded their capture of the Nigerian state as war and their loot as their rightful plunder just like feudal warlords of the medieval times. While in power, they owned the state so they could not have been stealing from the state. In other words, they could not have been stealing what they owned. The concord that binds Nigeria’s past and present rulers allows them to retire in peace to enjoy their wealth without fear of persecution or prosecution. Many of the political operatives that came into public office at the onset of civilian rule in 1999 had been satellites of the military elite. They had been contractors, brokers, jobbers and courtiers that had seen at close quarters the plunder of Nigeria by the military untouchables. They now saw civil rule as an opportunity to stage their own great state robbery using the legal umbrella afforded them by either constitutional immunity or their connections to the powers that be to avoid any hassle. Consequently, a culture of impunity flourished during the Obasanjo era among state governors and other political apparatchiks. It would be accurate to say that the plunder perpetrated by many governors in the last eight years approaches that perpetrated by their military predecessors. In fact, civilian politicians seem driven by a desire to surpass the kleptomania of military overlords of yore.

          At the time, many of these governors were protected by constitutional immunity or their links to Aso Rock. The poster-boys for the culture of impunity were Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa. Both governors took their larcenies to such extremes that they were arrested by the British police and had to flee the UK as fugitives. Alamieyeseigha was eventually impeached from office, tried and then jailed. He was released by the Yar’Adua administration as a sop to militant groups in the Niger delta. Dariye is currently on trial for money-laundering and theft. But generally the war against corruption was undermined by Obasanjo’s moral inconsistencies and the EFCC’s own susceptibility to charges of selective prosecution. Even as the Obasanjo era wound down, Nuhu Ribadu, the crusading head of the EFCC promised to hunt down the governors at the end of their tenures. Without the constitutional immunity afforded them by their office, the agency could now prosecute them based on the cases they had built over a long period of time. That was not to be.

          The simple truth is that the political environment in which the EFCC now finds itself is different. The Yar’Adua administration despite its verbalized commitments to fight corruption is itself morally paralyzed. The Yar’Adua presidency is the product of a process so flawed that his mandate is the subject of vigorous disputation before election tribunals. The ex-governors that have been targeted by the agency insured themselves by heavily contributing to Yar’Adua’s electoral victory. Clearly, these governors are in a position to derail the Yar’Adua presidency if they are prosecuted by revealing the nuts and bolts of the PDP’s presidential conquest. For example, the terms on which Peter Odili surrendered his presidential ambition for Yar’Adua are worthy of enquiry. They might well include terms that preclude his investigation and possible prosecution on charges of corruption. What is the nature of the bargains and trade-offs that cemented Yar’Adua’s free passage to the PDP ticket and subsequently the presidency?

          Some critics who took Yar’Adua’s preachments about corruption seriously have called on him to probe the past administration’s dealings. This stems from a misunderstanding of the mechanics of the Nigerian power establishment. Yar’Adua will not probe his predecessor for the same reason that Obasanjo could not probe Babangida. Such an act would violate the pact of non-aggression and unnecessarily imperil his own administration. It is typical for a Nigerian leader to investigate his predecessor but only for the sake of gathering dirt as a form of insurance. Obasanjo did the same and so probably will Yar’Adua but nothing more. No former Nigerian President or Head of State is about to have his day in court and no present Nigerian leader is about to develop the guts to start such a tradition.

The political operatives of the Obasanjo era belonged to a different generation. Most were in their forties and fifties but they had seen how the military elite operated and understood the logic of the untouchables. Being an untouchable means that one is at the very pinnacle of the power pyramid. Naturally, Nigeria’s new generation politicians desire the invincibility that being an untouchable confers. They want to be part of the cult and that necessitates entanglements with the presidency designed to make them indispensable to the peace and progress of the current administration. In the scheme of power only expendable politicians will ever even remotely face justice but their crimes pale in significance beside that of those who are or who want to be untouchables. This is why the EFCC and its crusading boss have been beleaguered since the onset of the Yar’Adua administration. The Attorney-General Michael Aondoaaka has since taking office distinguished himself by his efforts to sabotage the agency. When not trying to reduce the prosecutorial powers of the commission, he is taking over cases initiated by the commission, or proposing a merger of the ICPC and the EFCC to avoid duplication of roles. One might suggest that given the fact that 80 percent of the inmates of Nigeria’s heavily congested prisons are awaiting trial, role duplication by two government agencies is scarcely the biggest problem confronting the Ministry of Justice. Aondoaaka’s obsession with the EFCC suggests that he has been pocketed by persons who are interested in weakening the commission. Prior to his appointment, his legal representation of some politicians had brought him on collision course with the agency and it explains his interest in several of the EFCC’s cases. The obvious conflict of interest presaged by his previous briefs should have been enough to disqualify him from that office. As things stand, the justice ministry is manned by an Attorney-General who is unambiguously a puppet of elite interests.                     

Since the arrest of some former state governors particularly Delta State Governor James Ibori by the EFCC, moves to have Nuhu Ribadu removed from the helm of the EFCC have intensified. Clearly, Ibori is a sacred cow; an untouchable whose prosecution is inimical to the fortunes of the Yar’Adua presidency. This is unfortunate and yet understandable. The president appears not to have the moral spine to do what is right. The fact that his own presidency is the offspring of a fraudulent electoral circus further weakens his position and has left him intensely vulnerable to the untouchables. For instance, the link between rogue politicians and violent militant groups in the Niger delta are well known to security agencies; however, the political and the moral will to lay the axe to the root of the tree is profoundly lacking. Yar’Adua is loath to touch Ibori, just as Obasanjo was inexplicably reluctant to deal with Lamidi Adedibu’s excesses in Ibadan. These acts of omission are not as mysterious as they seem. There are instincts other than morality or propriety that dominate the psyche of Nigerian governance. There are codes by which politicians are bound to act that have nothing to do with social contracts or public interest. Self-interest is one. Obasanjo once ventured an explanation of these codes by saying that “there is honour among thieves.” Under the circumstances, it is difficult for the president to yield to his puritan impulses assuming he has any.

All of this is more tragic than it sounds. There is an unprecedented loss of faith in our public institutions and in our public officials. Nigerians expect politicians to steal. They may nod in agreement at the presidential homilies or gubernatorial sermonizing but they fully expect their leaders to be corrupt. They even understand it and appreciate that in the context of the ethnic merry-go-round that we have turned democracy into, everything will be fine so long as everyone’s kinsman gets a shot at the national cake. This is dangerous because democracy (even our inferior version of it) cannot thrive in an atmosphere of public distrust and disinterest. It should be remembered that previous military interventions in Nigeria were preceded by periods of intense loss of public faith in civil politics. The moral devaluation of the society will continue until sacred cows are laid on the altars of justice and slaughtered. Only the scalping of high profile VIP felons can make the sort of moral statement that the society needs for its redemption; a statement that signals a reversal and a real change in the nation’s troubling moral orientation.

Nuhu Ribadu could well be forced out of office somehow. The EFCC might be abolished or somehow neutralized. Some people will celebrate a victory but it will be a pyrrhic victory. All the while, the Yar’Adua government will continue to trumpet its mantra of ‘rule of law.’ The politics of the untouchables will continue and reach its logical conclusion. At the heart of the cult of untouchables is an element of social Darwinism; survival of the fittest. No Nigerian politician enjoys being expendable while being excluded from a select group of untouchable dignitaries. Such inequity offends the natural egomania of Nigerian politicians. Everyone wants to get into the clique at the summit of the power pyramid and they will do whatever it takes and deploy whatever resources at their disposal – cash, guns, terror, violence, vote-buying, rigging, militants, private armies, etc – all the while undermining the legitimacy of the state and fanning the embers of popular discontent. It is this struggle for ascendancy and for differentiation that will cause the cult of untouchables to self-destruct.           

Robot  # 1 | 28.12.2007 09:55

The cold war between the EFCC and elements in the Yar'Adua administ...Read the full article.