Few things confer greater honour and privilege than being a minister in the government of one’s country. From a wider population, you are one of the select few called upon to run the affairs of your nation. Surely, a ministerial office is not a source of personal wealth, power or prestige. Rather, it’s a call to service, an opportunity to use your talent to advance the progress of your nation and the wellbeing of its people. Therefore, it’s an unpardonable betrayal for any minister or office holder to abuse his or her office and put private gain above public good. Sadly, in Nigeria, there’s an entrenched victory of private gain over public good.
The Betta Edu scandal, the latest of such malfeasance by ministers and other public officers, shows, once again, that most of those tasked with governing Nigeria lack the ethos of public service and a commitment to the common good. They behave with utter arrogance and impunity, self-convinced that they can get away with anything without accountability and consequences. That’s the pattern of abuse of power revealed by what’s now called Edugate or Bettagate!
But let’s be clear: the Betta Edu saga is a symptom of an acutely deeper malaise: the proneness to official corruption in Nigeria. Why is there such proneness, such proclivity? To answer that question, we must, as a starting point, understand that good governance and selfless public service do not happen by chance; they are products of the deliberate choices a nation makes. Those choices are threefold.
First, those appointed ministers must have the right skills, competence and experience; they must be among a nation’s brightest and best. Second, those appointed ministers must have the right values, a moral compass, underpinned by a strong public-service ethos. Third, there must be robust institutions, with right and invariant rules, norms and structures, to constrain the behaviour of officeholders. Unfortunately, none of these critical elements is evident in the governance of Nigeria.
Take competence and integrity, which are inextricably linked. If truth must be told, Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, put absolutely no premium on the combination of competence and integrity when selecting his ministers. His ministerial appointments were intended to reward personal relationships, repay political favours and shore up support for his re-election bid in 2027. Because of those self-interested motivations, he appointed as ministers many people who fail the honesty and integrity tests.
Think about it. In Tinubu’s cabinet is a notorious accomplice in General Sani Abacha’s national heist, his looting of Nigeria’s treasury; in his cabinet are former governors currently accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, of multi-billion-naira corruption; in his cabinet are sundry others dogged by various accusations of impropriety and dishonesty. Take Edu herself. In 2020, the Cross River State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association passed a vote of no confidence on her over accusations of professional misconduct in her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic when she, a medical doctor, was commissioner for health in the state.
The Betta Edu saga is a symptom of an acutely deeper malaise: the proneness to official corruption in Nigeria.
Of course, in Nigeria, the usual riposte is: he or she has not been convicted by any court as if that’s the only evidence that someone is corrupt. Elsewhere, the standard is different. For instance, if a UK Cabinet Minister, who earns about 148,000 pounds per annum, has assets worth several millions of pounds, which are not inheritance, the British public won’t say he or she has not been convicted by a court; rather, they will say: what are the sources of the wealth? Under the Nolan Principles of Public Life, no one with questionable characters, even without a criminal conviction, will be appointed into a UK cabinet or kept in it, if already appointed. But in Nigeria, countless people with unexplained and inexplicable wealth are serving ministers and senior public officials. Even the president’s stupendous wealth is unexplained and inexplicable!
So, when the Betta Edu scandal broke, my reaction was: no surprises; garbage in, garbage out! When a president pays little attention to the values of integrity and honesty in forming his government, scandals like Edugate are inevitable. And more scandals will emerge during the life of the Tinubu administration, which, as I once wrote in this column, is the most integrity-deficient in Nigeria. I disagree, therefore, with those praising Tinubu for his response to the Betta Edu scandal: for suspending and investigating Edu and halting the so-called National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), a cesspool of corruption.
Truth is, Tinubu’s response was a reaction to the public outcry and opprobrium that followed the scandal; it was not borne out of an intrinsic concern for probity in public office. Secondly, his fire-fighting actions won’t move the dial on the endemic and festering official corruption in Nigeria. As I write this, some ministers are probably enriching themselves, families and friends through massive contract fraud and outright embezzlement. And nearer the next general elections, some will use public funds to build war chests for themselves and their party. After all, this is Nigeria!
Which brings us to the institutional element. Serious nations don’t only expect officeholders to behave with honesty and integrity; they also build strong institutions that constrain and influence their behaviour. And one area where strong institutions, with robust controls and safeguards, are particularly needed is the spending of public funds. The concepts of regularity and propriety are fundamental to the use of public funds. In the UK, the fact that a ministry has budget allocation doesn’t mean it can spend it without following due process. There are rigorous systems for committing and paying funds. For instance, there’s separation of authorisation and payment, meaning that while Ministers authorise spending, they don’t make payments. The Accounting Officer, who is the permanent secretary, is held to account for stewardship of his or her ministry’s resources, and, thus, must take personal responsibility for ensuring probity and ethical standards in the use of funds, including challenging a minister’s decision.
But the global best practices do not exist, or are not strictly adhered to, in Nigeria. For instance, in the Betta Edu scandal, the minister transferred N585 Million of public funds into a private account. She did so despite the Accountant-General of the Federation’s objection, and despite the Financial Regulations, which strictly prohibit payment of public money into any private account. Simply put, she ignored the rules!
But what about the permanent secretary, Abel Enitan, the ministry’s accounting officer? Well, he failed woefully to safeguard the ministry’s resources by challenging the minister’s decision. Yet, Tinubu appointed him to run the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation after Edu’s suspension. That decision is utterly wrong and misguided, as the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, and Transparency International (Nigeria) rightly said in a joint statement. An accounting officer who couldn’t take personal responsibility for ensuring regularity and propriety in the use of his ministry’s funds is not fit to lead the ministry.
Then, there’s the global best practice on conflicts of interest. Elsewhere, actual or potential conflicts of interest are scrupulously avoided. But in Nigeria, public officials treat conflicts of interest with levity. Edu reportedly awarded a N438 Million contract to a company owned by Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the Interior Minister, who is currently being quizzed by the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, over the contract scandal. Such blatant conflict of interest is only possible in a country where there’s no integrity in public life.
Let’s face it. There are many incentives for official corruption in Nigeria. Unless they are systematically tackled, ministers and other officeholders will always abuse public office for personal gain. Good governance and selfless public service don’t just happen. Nigeria must make the right choices!
