Magu affair and politics of anti-corruption
The facts of the allegations of corruption against the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, are questions for the presidential panel investigating him and the courts to settle. But the appearances of the case aptly demonstrate the politics of anti-corruption law enforcement in Nigeria that is significant to scrutinise in its own right.
In his 2016 book, Moral Economies of Corruption: State Formation and Political Culture in Nigeria, the British historian, Steven Pierce suggests that accusations of corruption in Nigeria are a discursive label applied selectively and primarily to achieve political ends. The evidence of wrongdoing matters in a corruption case, Pierce says, but the political objective achieved by that evidence often matters more.
Pierce’s argument has three implications for anti-corruption practice in Nigeria, and all the three appear evident in Magu affair. The first is that accusations of corruption are an effective political device used selectively by those in government and in opposition alike for removing public officials from office in the name of fighting corruption, but not in the substance of it.
Magu may or may not be guilty of the allegations against him. That is a matter for the courts to decide. But there are indications that his removal from office is the primary objective, and that nothing else will come out of the case now that it is achieved. He was arrested on Monday, 6th July, and suspended by the end of that week. A presidential statement signed by Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, noted that the suspension was to allow for “a transparent and unhindered investigation” into the case. There should be no question about this.
However, this rule is always applied selectively in Nigeria, even by this same government. For example, a Senate ad-hoc committee indicted former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, for awarding N540 million worth of contracts to his own companies in December 2016. Yet, the former SGF held on to his office for several months until his suspension in April 2017, after much heat from Nigerians.
Mr Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, then Director-General of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC), was charged to court by ICPC for alleged misappropriation of N2.5 billion in March 2019. But he was not suspended until February 2020. In fact, Kawu appeared in court several times while still in office.
Moreover, when former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, sent a 7-page letter to the president alleging insubordination and breach of due process in awarding contracts worth billions of dollars against then Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru in 2017, the case was not even investigated by the presidency, and the late GMD remained in office until retirement in 2019.
In other words, it is changes in the political situation that informed the removal of Ibrahim Magu, not necessarily the need to ensure accountability in the EFCC as the government claims. After all, allegations of corruption were first raised against the same Magu by the Department of State Security (DSS) as far back as 2016, but for political convenience at the time, this same government insisted on his nomination.
The second implication derives from the first. All high-profile corruption cases are both political and legal. But in Nigeria, the politics can be more pronounced than the law. Politics determines who gets exposed or punished for corruption, rather than the need to reform society or to uphold the law. Therefore, anticorruption often becomes a political game, or what Steven Pierce calls “political performance”, played out most prominently on the pages of newspapers, rather than actively in the courts of law.
It is difficult to imagine anything more consequential for the fight against corruption in Nigeria than this case, which offers the government’s anti-corruption agenda a golden opportunity not only to reform the EFCC, but to transform the entire architecture of anti-corruption in Nigeria.
Yet, there is no much evidence that law enforcement or reform is the intent. The panel investigating the case has been dragging on for months. Perhaps the case is rather complex, given that there are twentytwo separate allegations involved. But all the government needs to initiate prosecution and wider reform is enough evidence to support just one or two charges of corruption. For the head of an anti-corruption agency, participating in one instance of corruption is as bad as involvement in a hundred.
Furthermore, the panel is fast turning into a forum for fingerpointing and blame-throwing for the sake of ritual and entertainment rather than for pre-prosecution purposes. Over the past several weeks, various actors in the case have been feeding the press with accusations and counter-accusations that are carefully designed to manipulate public opinion, rather than to help the panel establish a case.
There is, then, the real danger that this case might go the way of hundreds of previous corruption cases that have been pursued almost entirely on the pages of newspapers and panel reports, but without leading to any convictions or systemic reforms. Given the frequency of corruption scandals in our politics, there is the risk that this case may soon be overtaken by another, and may soon fizzle out altogether.
All of these lead us to the final point; playing political gamesmanship with corruption cases is precisely why Nigeria’s ranking in global indices like Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index remains consistently low. More importantly, it explains why high-level corruption persists and undermines all meaningful efforts in anti-corruption policy and practice over the past two decades.
Dr Suleiman is a Research Fellow in Democratic Governance at the Atiku Centre for Development, and Assistant Professor in Media, Politics and Governance at American University, Yola amusule@live.com