OBJ’S INDICTMENT OF SUCCESSORS
IN a moment of rare lucidity, Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had in Switzerland indicted his successors when he declared that the current regime in Nigeria lacked the will to fight corruption because those involved in it are deeply entrenched.
IT was at the 100th session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, in a debate organised by the Club de Madrid on “Meeting Sustainable Societies and Social Justice.” Other panelists at the debate were former president of Ecuador, Mr Osvaldo Hurtado; ex-President John Kufuor of Ghana; ex-Yemeni Prime Minister, Mr Abdul Karin Al Eryani and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr Wim Kok. According to media reports, former President Obasanjo had been asked by the moderator of the debate, Ritula Shah of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) if there was a political will to fight corruption in Nigeria.
AFTER a breathtaking delivery on the history of corruption in Nigeria, beginning from Independence in 1960, the former president came up with an analysis that attempted to absolve his tenure of corruption. Said he: “So when I became president, the first thing I did after my election was to establish an independent body to fight corruption. That body was so effective, in fact two bodies; one was a commission against financial crimes and they were both so effective that ministers of government, the head of the police, and the heads of parastatal (agencies) were put in jail...”
IT was an opportunity for Chief Obasanjo to relapse into megalomania which painted a picture that he alone had been able to fight corruption meaningfully in the country’s political history and that his successors have failed in the fight against corruption. He even gave a tutorial on how to fight corruption; “If you are going to fight corruption, it is not a one night or one day war; you have to be consistent and persistent with it.”
FORMER President Obasanjo could lay an exclusive claim to the initiative which produced both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and Other Related Offences (ICPC) if he wanted but to say these initiatives and bodies represented the beginning of official fight against corruption will be to say the least fraudulent. There are laws in Nigeria which, if invoked, could deal decisively with corruption. We recall immediately the trial of Chief Folorunsho Kila in a celebrated National Youth Service Corps case of corruption and how he was found guilty and jailed and many others in the past who were similarly sanctioned before the establishment of the EFCC and ICPC.
AS we have observed in our other editorial comments, corruption is a universal phenomenon but what is done with it may vary from society to society or country to country. In some societies, corruption is repudiated and strongly sanctioned by summary execution but in other societies, it is celebrated and even encouraged. In Nigeria, corruption is almost always smothered in the head, especially when the high and mighty are involved. We recall that not a few critics of the Obasanjo administration observed that the EFCC was used during his tenure as his official attack organisation against his foes. He even once threatened the present governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Mimiko. But that argument could not stand because a majority of those being pursued by the EFCC then may have been Obasanjo’s foes, yet they had a skeleton in the cupboard which made them run for cover except in the specific case of Dr Mimiko who dared the EFCC and who the then Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu, Ribadu publicly exculpated.
BUT it is necessary to enlighten former President Obasanjo that corruption, a rebellious concept does not stop at ill-gotten wealth by people who have the opportunity of dipping their heads into the collective treasury. Sometime, to it could be about the crashing of the ethical base of a people. For example, not a few people see the building and equipping of the Presidential Library in Abeokuta as being unwholesome both in concept and execution. The project handled during the tenure of President Obasanjo was obscene, because it was like armtwisting all those who received one patronage or the other to cough up. Besides, the 2007 elections which brought late President Umaru Yar’Adua into power had the endorsement of former President Obasanjo. Even the beneficiary, the late President Yar’Adua, admitted that it was flawed.
NOW to us, nothing exemplifies corruption than a rigged election. Those who pillaged the treasury might have done a damage to the purse of the country, but election riggers steal the people’s future and their hope. It is an interesting phenomenon that the former President Obasanjo happens always to be a strident critic out of power but he should not always presume that those who listen to his broadsides are as dumb as they may look to him.
IF former President Obasanjo’s successors had failed in the fight against corruption, couldn’t he see himself as being vicariously liable? After all, he actively facilitated the ascendancy of these successors and that puts the error of character judgment squarely on his shoulders.
0 comments:
Post a Comment