- Transparency International’s indictment of the Buhari administration is a call to duty
Transparency International’s (TI) latest report indicating that corruption perception in Nigeria has grown worse under the Buhari administration is a cause for concern. It is a confirmation of the general opinion that despite assurances that the Federal Government is doing all it can to win the anti-corruption war, the impact has been negligible, if not negative. Unfortunately, as is always the case, no sooner was the report of the highly credible organisation released in February than the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Shehu Garba, responded that it was influenced by the government’s enemies.
This type of attitude is very unhelpful for a government that came into office with a promise to leave the country cleaner than it met it. At the heart of this government’s failure to improve on the dire rating it inherited has been its inability to open its books and operations to public scrutiny. Accountability is hoisted on the flag of transparency which successive Nigerian governments lack. In addition, unsuccessful prosecution of politically exposed personalities tends to suggest that the tactics being employed are poor, or there is collaboration between such persons and some public officials.
The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, is right to have taken a different position on the matter. He said while the government might have done a lot, the rating is a call to improve on its efforts. This is the direction all officials of the government should take. Blaming all criticisms of the government on enemies is a jaded approach and should be jettisoned. The vice president, being a Professor of Law, should impress on the president the need to radically reform the justice system. Herding former government officials before the courts without the ability to secure conviction or even diligent prosecution is a waste and could only fritter the goodwill hitherto enjoyed by the government.
It should by now be obvious to the executive arm of government that the battle could only be won in conjunction with the other arms of government. The judiciary, besides promising to set aside some courts to try corruption cases, has done little to advance the cause. The legislature, with a plethora of cases against members and principal officers of the houses, are doing all to frustrate the anti-corruption war. There is still a stalemate on the confirmation of the appointment of the leading anti-corruption czar, Mr. Ibrahim Magu.
We call on the Federal Government to set the machinery in motion to arrest the rot in the system. For 2017, Nigeria was ranked 148 out of 180 countries in the world, and 32nd of the 52 countries rated in Africa. In West Africa, Nigeria is deemed better than only Guinea Bissau. This is not good for the country’s image; neither is it good enough to attract foreign investors needed to boost the economy. We reject the government’s position that TI’s rating is untenable because it is based on perception. Since those polled are the same Nigerians who voted for President Muhammadu Buhari on the basis of a touted integrity and thus commissioned him to fight the monster head-long, their verdict after two years in office cannot be easily dismissed.
As the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CSLAC) pointed out in making the damning TI report public, “This fresh setback in the fight against corruption confirms that grand-corruption, political corruption, nepotism, favouritism and bribery persist in Nigeria at all levels;… the negative perception is mainly a consequence of the inability to combat grand corruption and astronomical plundering of public coffers costing the Nigerian tax payers around 25 per cent of annual GDP.”
The president has a duty to ensure that all arms and institutions of state buy into the anti-corruption war. A clearer strategy should be devised to ensure that Nigerians benefit from public fund and all those who brought the country to its knees are expeditiously tried and punished.
