Jacob Zuma, former president of South Africa, has appeared twice before a judge-led inquiry investigating corruption allegations against him, a development which casts uncomfortable light at Nigeria’s inability to try high-office holders for abuse of office.
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Zuma, who spent nine years in office, is accused of overseeing a web of corruption where more than $7.2 billion may have been stolen, according to former finance minister Praven Gordhan.
This sum, however, looks like chump change in comparison to the monumental corruption allegations levied against previous office-holders in Nigeria but unlike South Africa, Nigeria’s former office holders, including presidents and governors, have little reason to be worried.
“The absence of political will has prevented similar enquiries in Nigeria,” Kolawole Oluwadare, deputy director, SERAP, a civil society group, said by phone.
Oluwadare said similar enquiries can only happen in Nigeria when anti-corruption agencies handle better investigations.
Ibrahim Magu, who heads the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC), said the agency secured 703 convictions and recovered N794 billion between 2015 and 2018, but the bulk of those convicted have been low level crooks, especially internet scammers.
Corruption cases against high profile individuals have always suffered needless delay, but in recent times, they have slowed considerably. For example, Orji Uzor Kalu, former Abia State governor, charged on 109 counts, has been in court for 12 years.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan and his then oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, have been accused of accepting bribes and breaking the country’s laws to broker a $1.3 billion oil deal in 2011.
The deal, in which Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell and Italian oil giant Eni jointly acquired the rights to the OPL 245 offshore oilfield, has spawned legal cases spanning several countries.
While Jonathan had never been tried in Nigeria, the EFCC had applied to court to seize assets of Diezani including property and trinkets worth $40m, a mere pittance to the amount allegedly looted.
Buhari has claimed that fighting corruption is a major plank of his administration but has lacked the guts to try high profile individuals, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his vice president, Atiku Abubakar, for their alleged role in the Halliburton scandal.
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The president’s claim to fighting corruption now rings hollow with his unwillingness to speedily move against corrupt officials in his own government and his cosy relationship with persons accused of corruption.
Babachir Lawal, the president’s former secretary to the government, accused of benefiting illegally from the approval of N544,119,925.36 for the removal of invasive plant species and simplified irrigation, was only relieved of his position after public outrage.
Kano State governor was allegedly caught on video stuffing kickbacks into his pocket and the president criticised the technology used in capturing the act rather than the act.
Under Buhari’s administration, initiatives such as the whistle blower and Single Treasury Account have sought to close gaps in the war against corruption.
However, the president’s decision to withhold assent on the critical audit bill and Companies and Allied Matters Act amendment has undermined his fight against corruption.
The Federal Audit Service Bill seeks to empower the country’s auditor general to penalise government agencies and officials who fail to submit their financial statements for audit.
The CAMA amendment, among other things, seeks to unravel beneficial owners of companies and close a gap corrupt public officials and others use to steal and launder public funds hiding under a corporate veil.
Civil society groups now say Nigeria’s anti-corruption fight lacks gravitas and are urging the anticorruption agencies to step up the fight.
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“The fight against official heist under the Muhammadu Buhari government has been just same way of its predecessors since 1999, in terms of scope and width of operations, and too discriminatory to achieve the ultimate goal of dissuading office holders from their seeming pathological attachment to corruptive acts,” said Debo Adeniran, executive chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL), in a statement.
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ISAAC ANYAOGU
