Serious Issue
With Chimex Ndubuisi
We are the cause of our problems
The United Nations (UN) says Nigerian kleptocrats have milked the nation to the tune of about $100 billion through various acts of grand corruption, the cost of which, it lamented, by far exceeded the damage caused by any other single crime.
As far as Nigeria is concerned, we should think not what we can do to corruption but think of what corruption can do to Nigeria and Nigerians.
I have made the above statement because of the level of corruption and the sequential reports of corrupt practices in Nigeria. On the average, there are new cases of corruption reported weekly in the Nigerian dailies. The rates are very alarming. I am also 99% sure that many cases of corruption do not make headlines mainly because they go unnoticed by the press and the law enforcement agents. For the purposes of space and time, I will examine a few cases of corruption in the last 12 months to buttress my point. I will start with the power probe.
The National Assembly revealed that $16 billion was invested in the power sector without anything to show for it. This investment was made without any single megawatt added to the national grid.
To make matters worse, some contractors didn't even know the sites, talk less of doing any job. Where is this money? I'm sure $1 billion out of this amount can build three new refineries. $1 billion should be enough to do a second bridge across River Niger. $1 billion can build a million low-cost houses in Lagos, Kano or elsewhere in the country. $1 billion can build a well-equipped hospital in Nigeria thereby stopping our government officials from flying abroad all the time for medical attention. $1 billion can be used to create jobs for at least 10,000 Nigerians. $1 billion can provide maximum security prisons where corrupt people can be sent to.
The list of what the money can do is endless.
Toward the end of March 2009, the Nigerian dailies reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested two comptrollers of Customs over an alleged complicity in a N3 billion customs duty scam, involving the controversial Vaswani brothers. The Vaswani brothers are the owners of the Stallion Group. Their head office is in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Then came the Halliburton $150 million bribe money traced to Zurich. The total amount was $180 million, which means that $30 million is yet to be traced or found. This bribe was paid to facilitate the award of $6 billion LNG contracts. My argument is that the $6 billion which was the quoted contract sum would be about 20 times the initial costs of the project. The federal government should conduct more enquiries and ascertain how much the original cost of the contracts should have been. This is with a view to knowing how much was actually stolen.
At the heat of the Halliburton bribe money discovery, President Yar'Adua promised the nation that once he had a response, he would make public the names of the culprits and take appropriate action. As part of taking his action, he inaugurated the Okiro Panel. The committee has eight weeks to submit its report. We are waiting and watching how it will go. To be fair and to achieve a balance, the president should name every person involved in corruption henceforth.
A good starting point will be to name those behind the $16 billion unaccounted resources invested in the power sector. Until he does this, many Nigerians will tend to believe the accusations made by Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the federal government is insincere in the fight against corruption.
I read in the Guardian that the African Petroleum (AP) Plc's share price manipulation scam that made AP suffer over N240 billion losses. The culprit in this case was named as Mr Eugene Anenih, the managing director of Nova Finance and Securities Limited.
As if there was a competition, the following day Thisday reported that the suspended chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) with six other commissioners were being charged for fraud of N1.5 billion.
Thisday reported that three house members, including a serving senator of the country, are on the run over a N6 billion rural electrification contract scam. The same paper reported about officials of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) arrested over N1.7 billion contract scam.
Thisday also reported the story of N250 million bribe scandals given over the Ekiti rerun.
The Guardian reported an allegation made by the special adviser on petroleum to the president, Dr Emmanuel Egbogah. He alleged that some members of the National Assembly had taken bribes from some oil firms to truncate the federal government's reforms in the petroleum sector. The amount was not mentioned.
Just recently, Nigerian dailies reported about the arrest of one Mr. Ejike Onwosugbolu who was carrying N250 million cash in three suitcases.
On interrogation, he confessed that the money belonged to a serving governor in a South-East state. Nigerians are waiting for what the EFCC will do about this case.
"The greatest incitement to crime is the hope of escaping punishment"(Marcus Cicero). Corruption has prospered in Nigeria mainly because corrupt government and private officials have a way of escaping punishment.
It also shows the mindset of these evil people. Former Justice Chukwudifu Oputa said: "Nothing will happen in our nation, in our society which did not first happen in our minds. If wrong is rampant, if indiscipline is rife, if corruption is the order of the day, we have to search our individual minds for that is where it all starts."
Prevention is better than cure. My simple advice to the authorities in Nigeria is that they should fashion out a preventive strategy against corruption. Secondly, the authorities should consider making corruption a capital offence.
We can borrow a leaf from China on the best way to fight corruption. The political parties where the indicted National Assembly members are from should take disciplinary actions against them. But before then, let them refund their loot to the people of Nigeria.
Corruption is everywhere in the world, but the difference is how various countries approach it. When the expenses scandal involving British MPs became open in the United Kingdom , the Tory leader (David Cameron) ordered senior conservatives to pay back thousands of pounds to the taxpayers.
The Tory leader humiliated several members of the shadow cabinet by naming them one by one on the national television. He ordered all the people involved to return the total amount claimed. He apologised to the nation for the actions of his party members. In the same way, the Nigerian parties where the corrupt National Assembly members are from should apologize to Nigerians.
America is also another place to look out for when seeking how to deal with corrupt people. A good example should be Madoff who masterminded one of the biggest frauds in history. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Nigerian authorities can do same at home if the federal government is true to its fight against corruption. If no tough measures are taken, corruption will continue to win the battle. May God bless Nigeria.
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E-mail Chimex20032002@yahoo.com
