• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Magu, his bosses and Nigeria’s failed fight against corruption

Ibrahim Magu

I have tried to refrain from commenting on the recent arrest and detention of the erstwhile acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu. He was arrested and later suspended ostensibly to allow for a seamless investigation into allegations levelled against him by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice principally on discrepancies between recovered assets and those actually lodged in the coffers of the Central Bank of Nigeria, selling of recovered assets to cronies and general abuse of office. Let me be upfront.

I think the arrest and suspension of Magu is a non-issue and the result of crude power play between different factions of the ruling cabal and has nothing to do with fighting corruption or accountability in the polity. However, the issue has dominated national discourse with the faction on top currently using the media to spread salacious news about the misconduct of Magu in office, just the way Magu institutionalised media trial of suspects and political opponents.

To begin with, Nigeria’s war against corruption is fundamentally defective in that it does not take a holistic view of the problem of corruption. It only seeks to punish (or more appropriately make scapegoats) and not prevent corruption. We know from history and from studies that the real cause of corruption is the absence of a real and capable state. We also know that an effective war against corruption must look at the sources, nature and trends in the evolution of corruption and map out strategies to tackle it from the root.

It may be easier to create agencies to fight corruption. It may be easier to launch a media campaign against perceived corrupt officials or even make scapegoats of some, but such actions never get the country anywhere. They are just mere tokenisms that fizzle out with time

However, in the fight against corruption in Nigeria, the emphasis is not on the creation or building of a capable state (strong institutions as well as institutions of restraints) but on moral suasion and the creation and duplication of agencies that are still subject to the whims and caprices or in the Nigerian parlance “the body language” of the “big man”, who use the agencies to prosecute his political battles.

Most of Nigeria’s institutions were destroyed during military rule, including the police, which gave rise to wanton corruption. However, on return to democratic rule in 1999, instead of embarking on reforms to rebuild state institutions and especially the police, the government, in seeking for quick wins, and maybe also reacting to pressures from the international community, created brand new agencies to perform the functions of the police.

Of course, with time, the same problems that rendered the police ineffective have caught up with the anti-corruption agencies and have rendered them virtually useless also.

Very little efforts were made to reform the public service after 1999. Real reforms of the public service to plug the loopholes through which corruption takes place have not taken place. The public service is as bastardised at it was in the heydays of military rule and it is still possible or even now much easier for elected and appointed public officials to ignore, circumvent and sidestep all public service rules and procedures to embezzle and steal public resources entrusted to their care without the fear of repercussions. While the country continues to experience massive financial haemorrhage in the public sector, the government keeps flaunting its anti-corruption credentials while celebrating successful convictions of a handful of officials.

Of course, corruption is a highly emotive issue in Nigeria and every government must be seen to be fighting it. Since the popularity of a government depends almost exclusively on the public perception of its anti-corruption efforts, successive governments have learnt the art of media trials to shore up their popularity.

Hence Nigeria’s whole anti-corruption war have been reduced to this sort of charade – rash and indiscriminate arrests, media trials, outright falsehood bandied as investigations, and supposed confessional statements obtained mostly under duress and splashed generously on the pages of newspapers but with few and largely unsuccessful arraignments, prosecutions and convictions. In most cases, the investigation and prosecution of suspects are so shoddily and shamefully done that it becomes impossible to convict the accused. This has been the modus operandi of the EFCC under Ibrahim Magu.

But even with the Nigerian standards, Magu was unqualified to be made Chairman of the EFCC. Twice his name was forwarded to the Senate for confirmation; twice he was rejected based on damning security reports from the Department of State Security, another agency that reports directly to the president. Yet, he was illegally kept in office until he had fulfilled the purpose(s) for which he was kept there and his bosses had no further use for him.

It may be easier to create agencies to fight corruption. It may be easier to launch a media campaign against perceived corrupt officials or even make scapegoats of some, but such actions never get the country anywhere. They are just mere tokenisms that fizzle out with time. Examples from other climes such as Uganda show that a country can have the best anti-corruption legislation in the world and still see all its corruption indices worsen. What helps a society to effectively tackle and prevent corruption is the creation of a capable state and that begins with respect for and strengthening of state institutions.

Perhaps, as Reuben Abati, in his most reflective moment noted, “our biggest mistake lies in the strange assumption that our problems will disappear simply through intra-elite displacement or the symbolism of grand gestures.” No! Our salvation as a nation lies in the creation of a capable state – a state that works according to laid down rules and procedures and not according to the ‘body language’ of a leader. Then, just maybe, we can stop this “boringly repetitive national life cycle”

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