Government’s decision to broaden the scope of its anti-graft campaign to incorporate the civil service, if sustained, is a development capable of significantly reducing the massive corruption plaguing the nation’s public institutions. Corruption has for years been the bane of development in the country. But as the late Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore once explained: “The moment key leaders are less than incorruptible, less than stern in demanding high standards, from that moment the structure of administrative integrity will weaken, and eventually crumble.” This is where Nigeria is today.
But reports say President Muhammadu Buhari is taking the anti-graft campaign to the doorstep of the federal civil servants that have actively collaborated with crooked politicians to steal the country blind. In what looks like a redefinition of focus in the resurgent crusade against corruption, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission recently swooped on three civil servants, seizing from them some 24 properties and an unspecified number of cars. The ICPC boss, Ekpo Nta, said that the properties, made up essentially of plots of land and houses located in different parts of the country, were confiscated because they were “excessive, having regard to their present emoluments and all other relevant circumstances.”
Buhari has also instructed the Auditor-General for the Federation to ensure that all outstanding audit queries are conclusively resolved within 30 days and fresh ones responded to within 24 days. The Presidency further states that Buhari is determined “to put an end to the present situation in which, rather than respond to legitimate audit queries, violators of financial regulations in the Federal Government resort to threatening, bribing or mounting other forms of social pressure on auditors.” This is not enough. They should be prosecuted.
Fixated on curbing corruption among politicians and political office holders, who are more visible because of their flamboyant lifestyle and negative public perception, the anti-corruption agencies had hitherto ignored the role of civil servants in perpetrating corruption in public agencies. And this role can only be waved away at the peril of the entire society. As professionals, it is believed that they are the ones that actually tutor susceptible ministers, other political appointees and politicians generally on how to corruptly enrich themselves and, thereafter, cover their tracks.
Rather than rest on its laurels, the ICPC should be encouraged by the success of this swoop to further spread its dragnet within the bureaucracy. Nigerians are shocked that we have a system that impedes service delivery as workers demand to be tipped or bribed to perform their simple duty of taking a file from one table to another.
Events at various times have tended to confirm the widespread belief in the surfeit of corrupt practices in the civil service. The story of a director in the Independent National Electoral Commission, who died in a plane crash, leaving his two wives to row over his N7 billion assets, is one that shook Nigerians to their marrow. The assets of Timothy Akanni, also a pastor in a Pentecostal church, were later confiscated by the Nigerian state after a court judgement. They included 23 bank accounts in various names, company shares, choice lands and houses in Abuja and Lagos.
The phenomenon of ghost workers in the civil service is a sadly familiar story. This is a practice where civil servants, especially those in the personnel and accounts departments, conspire to pad up the payroll with names of nonexistent workers whose salaries are eventually pocketed by the perpetrators. According to the ICPC in March this year, about 45,000 ghost workers had been uncovered in Federal Government ministries, saving the country about N100 billion.
Although the poor salary of civil servants, especially those at the junior cadre, has been fingered as the main reason for the pervading corruption, it is doubtful if the enhancement of salaries will change the situation. This is because multi-billion naira corruption deals are perpetrated mostly by senior civil servants who are relatively well paid. For instance, one of the people whose assets have been confiscated by the ICPC reportedly owned 18 properties. Could that be said to be as a result of trying to make up for poor earnings?
After years in a self-imposed hibernation, the ICPC is now waking up to remind Nigerians of the beautiful and cherished part of their values, long lost to the unbridled quest for wealth. In traditional Nigerian societies, the practice was to question sudden wealth of doubtful provenance. Anyone who suddenly chanced upon wealth far beyond his known source of livelihood was condemned and held in contempt. But now, ill-gotten wealth is celebrated. If a person serves in government and has nothing significant to show for the period spent in service, such a person is now scorned and looked down upon.
What is obvious is that the civil service, just like other areas of the society, has fallen from past glory and needs to be reformed to deliver development. Winning the war against corruption in the civil service will not come from mere arrests and confiscation of assets. Every civil servant that is implicated in this social evil should be prosecuted. A lot more will be achieved through the introduction of Information and Communication Technology into the operations of the ministries, departments and agencies. Buhari should make the operations of the MDAs very open.
Although the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill into law was supposed to change that significantly, it has not really made the desired impact. Only when we uphold the integrity of the civil service can the economy work in a way which enables Nigerians to clearly see the nexus between hard work and high rewards. Like Singapore, our country can survive only if public office holders and senior civil servants are incorruptible and efficient.
