One week after former President Olusegun Obasanjo commented on the anti-graft war in Nigeria, CHUX OHAI writes that his critics are seething with rage
On June 15, 2011, former President Olusegun Obasanjo indicted his successors in office at the 100th session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, when he declared that the Federal Government lacked the will to fight corruption.
In the presence of an estimated 80 former presidents and prime ministers from 56 different countries, Obasanjo had added that those who were involved in the current fight against corruption in the country were strongly entrenched.
The former president had made the comment in response to a question from the moderator of the conference, who wanted to know if President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration possessed the political will to fight corruption.
Obasanjo was quoted to have said, “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.
“I haven’t seen that will of persistency and consistency in Nigeria, because the people that are involved in corruption are strongly entrenched and unless you are ready to confront them at the point of even giving your life for it, then you will give in and when you give in, that is the end of it.”
The comment had immediately ignited reactions back home. Two days later, Obasanjo was at the receiving end of flaks from Nigerians, who felt that his pronouncement was misplaced and unnecessary.
In Abuja, members of the Senate reacted to the comment. While some lawmakers blamed the former President for laying the foundation for the lack of bite in the current fight against corruption, others described his comment as unbecoming of a statesman and inimical to the economic well-being of the country.
As a result of Obasanjo’s statement, some lawyers and civil rights activists had felt compelled to review his role in the fight against corruption between 1999 and 2007, when he was at the helm of the affairs of the country.
One of them, a Lagos lawyer and activist, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, told SATURDAY PUNCH that since Obasanjo had previously mustered the will to put in place the necessary anti-corruption laws and institutions, it would be futile not to accept the fact that the former president built on the groundwork for the fight against corruption, as contained in the Criminal and Penal Codes.
Although Aturu argued that it would be unfair not to admit that Obasanjo had demonstrated some commitment to the fight, at least during the first one or two years of his tenure as president, he regretted that, between 1999 and 2007, no other positive achievement in the anti-graft war could be ascribed to his government.
Aturu said, “Along the line, maybe Obasanjo was overwhelmed by the relentlessness of corrupt public officials or maybe he himself found out that he was not clean enough to wage the war to a logical conclusion, the evidence available to us suggests clearly that he lost steam.
“There are those who would justifiably point to the blind trust of Transcorp and the unethical raising of funds for a presidential library from government contractors while still in office.
“Thus, the administration’s war against corruption became decisively selective and the anti-corruption agencies became more like lap dogs trained to harass and whip into line members of the opposition within and outside Obasanjo’s party, the PDP.”
Apart from Aturu, most critics of the Obasanjo administration believe that its approach to the fight against corruption was selective.
For example, in his reaction to the subject, another lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Mike Ozekhome, accused the former president of establishing Nigeria’s leading anti-graft agencies, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, for the purpose of hounding his opponents out of office.
Ozekhome said that during Obasanjo’s eight-year tenure, it was obvious from the manner in which he handled the anti-graft crusade that he was only interested in punishing his political opponents.
But Aturu expressed the opinion that a selective war against corruption was better than none.
He said, “I am one of those who insist that it is better to have a selective war against corruption than to have none as would seem to be the case at the moment.
“Once you do not manufacture evidence against anyone, it is not a defence to say that ‘I am being tried because I am not in the good books of the government.’
“The question which must be answered is: Did you commit the offence? When the selective administration leaves, another one will turn on the sacred cows of yesteryears and before long the lesson will be driven home that the best policy is to stay clean.”
Without mincing words, Aturu’s final verdict, which clearly contrasts with the general opinion held so far, is that Obasanjo’s recent declaration that his successors, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and the incumbent President Jonathan, did not have the will to fight corruption was right, after all.
He said, “Of course, it is best to have a thorough and non-selective war against corruption. But here, we think that the proverb is apt: half bread is better than none! From that perspective, it is possible to argue therefore that Obasanjo was right when he said that his successors were not doing much to fight corruption.”
The chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo Adeniran, agreed that Obasanjo did well to build on the existing structures that were aimed at ridding the country of corruption by creating laws, such as the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, the Money Laundering Act, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, as well as the Procurement Act.
Yet, while he affirmed that it was wrong to hold Obasanjo guilty of selective justice in the fight against corruption, he said there was no significant difference between Obasanjo and his successors, as far as the fight against corruption was concerned.
Adeniran said, “Just like the former President found it difficult to prosecute corrupt leaders, his successors have not impressed me in this regard.
“Obasanjo’s regime failed to prosecute former military heads of state, administrators, governors, ministers and commissioners that were accused of corrupt practices. All former heads of state and their ministers indicted in the Halliburton and Siemens scandals were not investigated not to talk of prosecution.”
Adeniran said that judging by his antecedent, Obasanjo had no moral right to say his successors lacked the will to fight corruption because they were simply building on the foundation that he had laid.
He said, “If former President Obasanjo said the fight against corruption waned after his exit from office, he is only standing logic on its head as the successive governments after his own have only built on the foundation he laid.
“It may also be that his opinion was informed by his failed efforts to incite the EFCC against his new found foe, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, the former governor of Ogun State, who successfully demystified him.
“It might also be because Jonathan disregarded Obasanjo’s self-acclaimed invincibility by, unlike the late Yar’Adua, refusing to acknowledge Obasanjo as a godfather during his campaign tour of the country.
“Obasanjo might have started a revenge mission against Jonathan for not playing the gullible and dogmatic good boy.”
Ticking off the ‘sins’ committed by the former president against the anti-graft crusade between 1999 and 2007 on the tips of his fingers, Adeniran continued, “It was during Obasanjo’s tenure that the sum of $110m out of the $180m said to have been doled out as bribe in the Halliburton, Wilbros and Siemens scandals were recovered by him and members of his cabinet. Yet, his successors did nothing to prosecute any of those indicted in the cases.
“Most of the contracts awarded during that period were not executed and nobody was punished for them. They were awarded to fictitious and incompetent companies without anybody answering queries in the courts for them.
“It is on record that it was during his tenure that about $16bn was wasted on the Integrated Power Project, which only increased power outages instead of making power available for the people. That was the time bribe-for-budget became the order of the day in the National Assembly.
“Plane crashes were rife as a result of the misapplication of the budget for the aviation sector. No minister of aviation was prosecuted for the negligence that cost Nigeria several precious lives and innumerable amount of money and other resources.
“Budgets were deliberately left un-implemented, like those for road repairs and Turn Around Maintenance of the nation’s refineries as well as for the Universal Basic Education Programme, so that relevant ministries would have ‘unspent budget’ to share at the end of the fiscal year.
“In those days, the fabled ‘banana peels’ in the legislative houses which typified regular corruption by the leadership of the National Assembly got into the Nigerian lexicon.
“It was during the tenures of Obasanjo’s successors that unspent budgets were asked to be returned to the national treasury and those who failed to obey the directive, including his daughter, Iyabo, were made to face the law; even when they were not punished.”
Some of the high profile cases that have been handled since the inception of the current fight against corruption include the one against a former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun; former governors of Delta and Bayelsa states, Mr. James Ibori, who is currently facing trial for fraud in the United Kingdom, and Mr. Diepriye Alameyeseigha; former Senate President Adolphus Wabara; and former Minister of Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji.