Wanted: Nigeria, the TV Show 

There ought to be a TV show called Nigeria. 

Channel Nigeria would not even have to work “hard” because extensive and expensive programming would not be required. Only a sense of irony, along with the ability to constantly remind yourself that this channel is Rated F (for funny, not fake) would be required. 

Think about it: the new Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, without bothering to announce the c-word—coup d’etat—takes over the government. Nigeria is all about money—usually illicit money—and he who controls its flow controls Nigeria. So a take-over is actually what Sanusi has achieved, and you can confirm that from the fact that the supposedly elected leader of Nigeria has not said a word since the CBN governor launched himself. 

How did Sanusi breach the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fortress? He took a page out of the PDP playbook by overrunning the banks, shutting down escape routes, and grabbing some of the top offenders. Apparently, before anyone powerful enough to stop him could come out of a medically-induced coma, he had published a list of the nation’s worst debtors. 

All that would have been just one hour of programming on Channel Nigeria. The next 24 would have been filled with the manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres within the government and outside it. No viewer would have abandoned the gripping drama even to use the toilet. 

And think about the next day: all those powerful men and women that, warned to pay their debts immediately or else, were all over Nigeria and the world either moving money, or trying to move other men and women to move money. 

All that would have left a lot of time, last week, for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Since video cameras can capture smoke and fumes, viewers would have been entertained by hours of screaming from the so-called anti-corruption agency. Last week, the EFCC was belching fire from every imaginable orifice on its body, claiming to be on the verge of sending the bank chiefs dismissed by the CBN to jail over hundreds of charges. 

If Channel Nigeria producers asked me, I would have suggested that their special programme on that commission be called the ECFC: Economic Crime Forgiveness Commission. Every Nigerian, particularly the staff of the commission, knows that the agency’s interest in combating corruption is conditional: if you are rich and connected, you are “prosecuted” with an eye on being forgiven. 

Or, the EFCC can put you on its “perpetual prosecution” list, which means that although everyone knows you are guilty, you stay free and enjoy your loot while the commission manufactures and multiplies excuses about why it has yet to put you in prison. 

But if you are truly powerful, the EFCC never even mentions your name. Patience Jonathan, the wife of the Vice-President, was in 2006 twice hauled in by the EFCC for money-laundering. Three years ago. 

In fact, the only person that has come close to mentioning her name since then, in connection with this issue, is her husband, Goodluck Jonathan. Two weeks ago, in a speech to the board of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), he blamed the pervasive graft in the country on the “prevailing level of social insecurity.” Let me quote him: “Corruption is due to insecurity as most people accumulate wealth for fear of the future.” 

Comprehension dawned on me. I finally understood why, in one month while he was Governor of Bayelsa State, the EFCC seized from his wife, N104 million, and then, $13.5 million. That was August 2006, and the EFCC obtained a court order to freeze N104 million, so as to give the commission time to complete its investigation into the variety of crimes involved. 

Weeks later, on September 11, 2006, the EFCC seized $13.5 million from the same woman. The EFCC spokesman at that time, Osita Nwajah, told the international press Mrs. Jonathan had allegedly laundered the money through an associate. Nobody has ever said another word about these “investigations,” or where the monies are. Even the Nigeria mass media maintains a stupendous silence about it, which makes Mr. Jonathan’s statement to the NSITF very interesting.

And of course, after he became the Vice-President, Mr. Jonathan was himself compelled to declare his assets, which he put at an extremely conservative N295 million. But as I observed at the time, since the former university teacher had been Governor of Bayelsa for only 17 months, the arithmetic suggested he had grown pretty quickly, at over N17 million monthly. 

My point is that Channel Nigeria would have had a lot of exciting material in the past two weeks, perhaps including an insightful quote from the Vice-President about the thriller in the banking sector. 

That excitement spilled over to the National Assembly last week, where the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency dragged Mr. Sanusi in with the intention of stripping him to his professional underwear. They threatened to deal with him and reverse the CBN’s N420bn bailout, which they said he had no legal authority for. 

The Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, who seemed to have no idea how the law works, boasted that the CBN was unconstitutional and would be incinerated. On Wednesday, after Sanusi had explained the logic of his action as well as the provisions of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, Mr. Ozomgbachi was still barely conscious. “That Act of the National Assembly is invalid,” he said, pathetically. “It is null and void.”

Representative Ozomgbachi’s arrogance seemed to have been matched only by his ignorance and apparent compromise: it was discovered that his fiercely anti-reform rhetoric was written on the letterhead of Rockson Engineering, one of the companies identified by the CBN as being highly-indebted to the banks. He was belching someone else’s fire. 

Yes, it is all stranger than fiction, but would be free on Channel Nigeria. 

Will Sanusi last? Of course not. In Nigeria, filth is more powerful than right and wrong, and the CBN chief is not right on all the issues. Episodic, periodic uprisings are good, but as we have learned, they will always fizzle out because they are not systemic or institutional. In PDP country, Sanusi is a fever, and will, sadly, be neutralized. 

Will the bank executives go to jail? No. Many of them are far too involved with the PDP machine and the most powerful Nigerians. Deliberate “errors” will be made; favours will be called in; the tempest will calm down. If anyone is sent to jail, it will be for public relations reasons only; he will be out in a few months accumulating fat government contracts and disbursing influence and affluence. 

The truth is that we can make no true or sustained progress because we know what the problem is but are not courageous enough to attack it. We have tried everything except what is right: to apply the same standards to everyone. 

Robot  # 1 | 06.09.2009 08:47

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PAPIG  # 2 | 06.09.2009 17:36

SO Thank you for your consistency relating to unmitigated corruption in high places. It is a topic most hitherto respected journalists have given up on. With main stream journalism emasculated, Gani, Fela and Dele Giwa gone, and passage of the icons of the progressive left like Omafume Onoge, Ola Oni, Bala Usman, Bade Onimode etc; the coast may now be very clear for the Maradonas of Nigeria to bring out the drums. Not so quickly though, we still have our SO and WS. But we the Nigerian people MUST WAKE UP FROM OUR DEATHLY SLUMBER and face our NEMESIS HEAD-ON.