Try as he might, President Goodluck Jonathan convinces no one that the government he heads is tackling corruption. Further proof of this is unfolding as Italian and British authorities reopen investigations into the long-running scandal involving Malabu Oil and Gas Company over alleged corrupt payouts of bribes in the shady resolution of the Oil Prospecting Licence 245 orchestrated by this administration. Reversing our odious reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt countries appears to be a forlorn hope. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has also reopened the case.
Emerging details suggest an escalation of corruption at the highest rungs of Nigerian officialdom, but this is all too familiar to a benumbed population. According to agency reports, prosecutors in Milan, Italy, have intensified a probe into allegations that half of the $1.1bn that oil giants, ENI and Shell, paid for OPL 245 was used to bribe politicians, intermediaries and fronts. The scandal acquires added weight when it is remembered that the $1.1bn was brokered by Nigerian officials and later spiritedly defended by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke. “The role played by the Federal Government and its agencies in relation to block 245 was that of facilitator of a long-standing dispute between Malabu and SNUD over ownership of right to block 245,” Adoke said. He further stated that the allegation of round-tripping levelled against the Federal Government in some sections of the media was without basis and could not be substantiated.
But Italian prosecutors allege that more than half of the $1.1bn ENI and Shell paid for the OPL and passed through official Nigerian channels ended up being shared out as kickbacks to our corrupt officials and their collaborators. In a correspondence to United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service, which is also investigating possible money laundering activities over the transaction involving Nigerian officials and some individuals using British companies, it was alleged that beneficiaries of the bribes used the illicit money to buy private jets and luxury armoured cars. Reports said London’s Metropolitan Police have already frozen two UK accounts holding about $190m belonging to the chief intermediary in the scandal. Even our own EFCC had reported then that “investigations conducted so far reveal a cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings…a prima facie case of conspiracy, breach of trust, theft and money laundering can be established against some real and artificial persons.” But what happened thereafter? Or what do you expect from a President who pardoned Diepreiye Alamieyeseigha, sentenced in 2007 for corruption-related charges? Whose interest did the Nigerian Attorney-General serve in the controversial settlement?
This is really an insidiously messy affair. The tragedy of Nigeria under Jonathan is not, as he and his apologists are ever so quick to point out, that corruption, or all the numerous corrupt cases, began with his administration. The distinguishing mark of his leadership, however, is that there is no sincere effort to turn the tide. The administration has not only rendered the existing anti-graft institutions comatose, it has taken the culture of impunity to a new low.
No country can ever reach its full potential with the level of corruption Nigeria is witnessing. Just as it was the United States, France, Germany and Italy that jailed officials and imposed heavy fines on the foreign firms that gave bribes to Nigerian officials in the Halliburton and Siemens scandals, the UK and Italy are set to demonstrate that no responsible state deliberately permits violation of its laws or encourages corruption.
But it is a different story here. Last month, the EFCC dropped all 47 charges of corruption involving N6bn against a former Works Minister, Hassan Lawal. Earlier in June, Adoke withdrew the N446.3bn theft and money laundering charges against Mohammed Abacha, son of former dictator, Sani Abacha. Before this cavalier deal, the US had frozen over $458m of additional funds stolen by the senior Abacha and stashed away in foreign banks. At least 15 former state governors have unresolved and pending corruption cases against them, some instituted since 2007 but since stalled under the benign Jonathan regime. Indeed, some of those on trial, among them Boni Haruna, have been appointed to high offices by the President.
The 2012 reports of probes into the fuel subsidy scandal, in which the parliament approved only N245bn for payments in 2011, saw the government spending N2.5trn; crude oil sales and SURE-P funds have vanished into the black hole of presidential inertia, while the President continues to shield Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, from scrutiny over a N10bn expenditure on leased aircraft and is comfortable being photographed with alleged subsidy thieves and serial bank debtors. Where is the report of the investigation into the Nigeria Police Force pension fraud launched by the EFCC in 2012? Nigeria is paying a heavy price for a system that breeds and gives free rein to abuses of all sorts. Transparency International says “corrupt civil servants in oil-rich Nigeria pocketed some $3.2bn in bribes in the 2010/11 financial year alone.”
In 2012, the then US Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence McCulley, advised our feign government to demonstrate more courage and conviction in the crusade against graft so as to “send a clear signal that the country is indeed committed to good governance, to the security of its citizens, and to its rightful place as a significant actor on the global stage.” Jonathan has got another chance to show he can make a difference now. Having lost several graft battles, he could return to the battlefield, this time with a genuine determination to bring the Malabu rogues to justice.
