Corruption and our collective amnesia (I)
It was a busy day for Mac Arthur Foundation’s grantees, who had been busy at the monitoring and evaluation workshop that lasted from February 10-14 2014. The workshop ended early enough for me to leave the MacArthur Foundation’s office in Maitama District of Abuja to attend an urgent planning meeting for another workshop that the Nigeria Interfaith Action Association NIFAA was planning to host in collaboration with IPAS the following week. Time was running out so I decided to take a taxi to the venue of the planning meeting. I waved to stop an unpainted taxi. The driver slowed down and I told him I was going to Wuse II. ‘Five hundred naira’ he said, looked the other way, ready to move on if the price was not right. I told him a taxi drop from where I was to the meeting venue should not cost more than 300 naira. ‘Madam this is Maitama now’. I looked at him in amusement and told him that the affluent Maitama residents don’t ride taxis to get to Wuse. He laughed and said ‘Okay come in but those who come to visit Maitama people are also rich.’ I entered the taxi and before I could absorb his assumption he said ‘the people who live in Maitama and Asokoro are the ones controlling everything in this country. They take what they like from government money and leave us to struggle for the garri we eat and the pure water we drink. The stealing is too much. Radio Berekete dey expose them well well. One day levels go change.’ I was reflecting on this when he turned the corner and we arrived at the venue of my meeting.
The following day, February 11 2014, I attended a meeting convened by UNDP working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNDOC, the Federal Government and the European Union. It held at Rockview Hotel in Abuja. The partners are planning to implement a project titled Support to AntiCorruption in Nigeria. I was invited as a member of the Civil Society Advisory Committee for the project. All the major civil society organisations working on anti corruption were there. We were provided with a terms of reference (TOR) for the project, formulated by national stakeholders with support from the European Union EU which is funding the project. It will support Nigerian government by contributing to Nigeria’s efforts in enhancing transparency, accountability and combating corruption. The project objectives are to provide effective support to anti corruption coordination, policy formulation and legislation. The second objective is to strengthen institutional and operational capacity in the main anti- corruption agencies, with emphasis on cooperation and the third is to enhance accountability, transparency and public engagement. The last objective is the one that accommodates civil society’s contribution and justifies the establishment of the Advisory Committee that was being inaugurated. Under that objective, civil society organisations will be empowered to increase provisions of services and their participation in anti- corruption activities. The Committee will provide a forum for civil society to offer strategic and substantive guidance on combating corruption, promoting accountability, integrity and proper management of public affairs and property.
As the UNDOC and UNDP officials took us through the 2014 Plan of Action and the TOR, I kept thinking of the my encounter with the taxi driver and wondering what he would say about our small efforts to fight the pervasive corruption he had localized as a Maitama and Asokoro malaise. One of the participants, lawyer, columnist, Eze Onyekpere gave me a publication titled ‘Recommendations on the 2014 Federal Budget Estimates (Inappropriate and Frivolous Expenditure). It is published by the Citizens Wealth Platform which is a coalition of nongovernmental, faith based organisations, professional and other citizens groups dedicated to ensuring that public resources are made to work and be of benefit to all. The Coalition is located within the Abuja based Centre for Social Justice. In the preface to the book titled Let My People Go, Eze Onyekpere who is the Convener of the Citizen’s Wealth Platform said ‘it has become a yearly ritual for budgets to be proposed by the executive, approved by the legislature and implementation to proceed in a haphazard manner. The 2014 federal budget is tagged a budget of job creation and inclusive growth. In the past, we have had budgets of consolidation, growth, hope but nothing changed after the budgets were implemented. We want to find the link between the proposals for expenditure, policies and governmental action and tag of job creation and inclusive growth.’
A few days later, one of our internet contacts circulate a document that jolted us from our slumber. He reminded about the cases of corruption involving high profile citizens that we seem to have forgotten.
He reminded us that at a 2006 plenary session of the Senate, Nuhu Ribadu, then Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) told the legislators that 31 governors were being investigated. Among them was Kalu Orji Kalu of Abia state who was charged for corruption involving 5 billion naira diverted from Abia state treasury. When Kalu was detained in prison, three other Governors were also cooling their feet there. They were Reverend Jolly Nyame, former Governor of Taraba State; Joshua Chibi Dariye, former Governor of Plateau State; and Saminu Turaki, former Governor of Jigawa State. Dariye had to contend with a 23-count charge involving the embezzlement of the sum of N700 million. He swept aside the allegations brought against him and won a senatorial seat in the 2011 elections. Saminu Turaki was docked on a 32-count charge, on allegations that he stole about N36 billion from the treasury over an eight-year period. Soon after securing his bail Turaki became a Senator and served between 2007 and 2011.
Former Enugu State governor, Chimaroke Nnamani, also served as a Senator for four years and was arraigned on a 105-count charge for allegedly stealing the sum of N5.3 billion. Nyame was also docked on a 41-count charge in July 2007. He was alleged to have embezzled the sum of N1.3 billion. Others arraigned are Governor Boni Haruna of Adamawa, Governor Lucky Igbinedion, of Edo State, Governor Abubakar Audu of Kogi State, Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State at the Ogun State High Court, Dimeji Bankole, a former Speaker, House of Representatives, and Usman Bayero Nafada, his deputy. With these cases of high profile looting and there are many more, the anti corruption agencies do need all the support they can get. My taxi driver will also want to know if these VIPs all have houses in Maitama and Asokoro.