The way forward in effectively tackling the high-level corruption and criminality, as Ibrahim rightly pointed out, is for Left forces: “to work hard to challenge and remove them from power” through an independent political organisation, with a people-centred national agenda on democracy, development, and social justice.
The gargantuan corruption of military regimes in the country has resurfaced. Trending now is the August 2021 interview by former military Head of State, retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA).
In the interview, reported by the Nigerian Tribune of 20 August, 2021, Babangida said: “We [the military] are not corrupt. I will proudly say it because what I read in the papers, if it is true, then I think I used to say we are saints.” He added: “I keep giving example. I sacked a governor for ₦300,000. Today, there are ₦300,000 billion, still not issued, not solved”.
Certainly, high-level corruption did not start in 1999; it has been on ground since the colonial era. The Lagos-based The Guardian of 16 December, 2025 reported that over $400 billion was stolen by top-level Nigerian public officials between 1960 to 1999 alone, while the London-based The Economist of 10 October, 2019 put the figure at about $582 billion.
The Guardian added that of these amount, Switzerland repatriated over $1 billion to Nigeria in several phases. The United States returned $311 million of Abacha looted funds in 2020, and “an additional $23 million” was equally repatriated. The United Kingdom repatriated $23 million looted Nigerian funds.
Doubtlessly, it was the Babangida regime that officialised, institutionalised, liberalised, and deeply entrenched corruption in Nigeria. State resources, oil well allocations, preferential import licence allotments, commercial favours and shady contracts awards were used to buy loyalty from military officers, political elites, traditional rulers, academics, amongst others.
The Pius Okigbo Panel discovered in 1994 that out of the $12.4 billion generated from the oil price windfall between 1988 and 1994, $12.2 billion was spent outside the national budget framework, with no legislative approval, proper documentation and, was, therefore, unaccounted for.
Nigeria, under the regimes of Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalam Abubakar, was seen as the symbol of corruption.
However, this does not invalidate the fact that high-level corruption has risen astronomically and fantastically since 1999. So terrible has high-level corruption become since 1999 that the former United Kingdom Prime Minister, David Cameron, once described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt.”
The British International Corruption unit reported that it confiscated £76 million, while Steve Goodrich reported another £791 million Nigerian loot had been frozen worldwide since 2006. The Nigerian government equally confirmed in 2023 and 2024, “the recovery of tens of millions of dollars tied to former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke.”
In his 28 July paper, titled, “Comrade Segun Osoba: The Radical Historian Who Stood with the People”, presented in Abuja, he said: “Nigerian political space is completely dominated, not by bourgeois forces, but by criminals pretending to be politicians; whose focus is looting the treasury. They have no agenda for the people but are highly skilled in divide-and-rule tactics (and) continue to divide citizens along primordial lines while they loot.”
But recovery is not the problem, as the unfortunate situation that the repatriated loots are relooted themselves. The same edition of The Economist reported that “When Switzerland returned $500 million of Mr. Abacha’s money, most of it disappeared again.”
So Babangida only said the obvious. In fact, he was diplomatic with the truth! Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, formerly of the Centre for Democracy and Development, was not diplomatic.
In his 28 July paper, titled, “Comrade Segun Osoba: The Radical Historian Who Stood with the People”, presented in Abuja, he said: “Nigerian political space is completely dominated, not by bourgeois forces, but by criminals pretending to be politicians; whose focus is looting the treasury. They have no agenda for the people but are highly skilled in divide-and-rule tactics (and) continue to divide citizens along primordial lines while they loot.”
Yet, all sorts of anti-corruption agencies were established under the current lumpen democracy in Nigeria to tackle high-level corruption.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (IPCPC) was established on 29 September, 2000 to combat corruption, bribery, and abuse of office in both the public and private sectors. It even has Anti-Corruption and Transparency Units (ACTUs) in Ministries, Department, and Agencies (MDA) of government.
Similarly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was created on 12 December, 2002 to combat advance free fraud (“419”), money laundering, and high-profile corruption.
These and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) – charged with the tasks of combatting money laundering, terrorism financing, and other financial crimes, have not fundamentally impacted on the anti-corruption war. So, why would Babangida not glorify his administration?
The issue is not whether corruption and criminality have not flourished since the military era. The question is why society seems helpless in combatting corruption.
At least, under military dispensations, journalists in the print media like African Concord, The News, Tell, Tempo, as well as the National Concord, The Nigerian Tribune, The Guardian, amongst others, openly exposed high-level corruption and criminalities.
The problem, as Professor Ibrahim argued, is that the lumpen politicians, “have been able to do so because the participation of the political Left in partisan politics has been weak and poorly organised… the Left have operated in various political platforms without coordination or strategic planning. This has impacted negatively on their capacity to take control of political power in Nigeria and implement a development model that will move the country forward.”
Students, led by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), regularly confronted and combatted high-level corruption. They took to the streets virtually on an annual basis to challenge and combat economic policies that aid corruption and criminality, trigger hunger, politically disempower the masses, and sharpen authoritarianism.
Why is society tolerating the most retrogressive, self-centred, kleptomaniac, and degenerate characters that Nigeria ever had since 1960? Characters who shamelessly parade themselves as “patriots”, “progressives” and “democrats”!
The problem, as Professor Ibrahim argued, is that the lumpen politicians, “have been able to do so because the participation of the political Left in partisan politics has been weak and poorly organised… the Left have operated in various political platforms without coordination or strategic planning. This has impacted negatively on their capacity to take control of political power in Nigeria and implement a development model that will move the country forward.”
But a question further arises: Why have the Left forces been unable to unite on a minimal programme of action against today’s Nigerian lumpen politicians, as they did in the dark years of military dictatorship?
First, when the Left forces were seriously engaged in combatting the military to disengage from the political scene, they did not organise to play a central role in the post-military dispensation. Those who saw this necessity, went into the lumpen parties as individuals and got swallowed in them.
Secondly, after 29 May, 1999, Left elements massively ported into Non-Government Organisations, whose programmes were inspired, driven, approved and funded by foreign donors. These did not address the issue of Left forces independently participating in partisan politics to acquire state power.
So, just as the Left elements who joined the political parties were swallowed by lumpen politics, so were the Left forces who took to NGOism swallowed by the donor programmes, which focused on mere formalism, crass legalism, and promotion of the donors’ interests.
The donor agenda is generally antithetical to democracy – defined here as the negation of all monopoly of power and enthronement of people in state and societal affairs. Nor are they for development, which I define as tackling the problems brought by capitalism and modernity, and empowering the people in the affairs of the economy. My submission is that donor programmes cannot sustainably tackle high-level corruption and criminalities.
Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: [email protected]
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