Nigerians have a Jerry Rawlings fantasy. By the day, a growing number of them suggest that the answer to their country's malaise is to have a home-grown Rawlings emerge. Many Nigerians believe that, unless a man with Rawlings' stomach for dealing ruthlessly with the enemies of progress comes to the rescue, Nigeria is bound to stay its dismal course.
For Ghanaians, Rawlings is a contentious, even divisive, figure. In my conversations with numerous Ghanaian acquaintances, I take away the impression that as many of them despises the man as admire him. There's hardly any such ambivalence among Nigerians. For us, Rawlings has heroic allure. Many Nigerians contend that it'd take somebody of Rawlings' willingness to shoot a few bad men for Nigerian knaves masquerading as leaders to sit up.
I'm not altogether persuaded that a Rawlings-like bloodbath is the elixir Nigeria needs. There can be no shortcuts to the ingrained pathology of Nigeria, a country that, in the sage words of Chinua Achebe, always invents a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even so, I don't blame those who wish - indeed, pray - for a Rawlings to descend in our midst and hold our traitorous men and women to account.
I believe part of the reason corruption thrives in Nigeria on a grave scale is that no Nigerian of political consequence has ever been made to pay for betraying the public trust. Impoverished Nigerians desperate for the next meal get lynched everyday for picking somebody's pocket. I'm certain that Nigerian jails teem with prisoners who have languished for years simply for stealing a goat, a tuber of yam, or a bale of textile. Many wretched Nigerians are locked up daily merely because they happened to be in the wrong place when corrupt police officers chose to make their sweeps.
By contrast, what's the harshest sanction ever meted out to any governor or head of state for stealing millions of dollars from the treasury? How many judges have paid a stiff price for selling judgment to the highest bidder? Has any lawmaker been sentenced for pocketing constituency allowances?
At the end of 1983, Muhammadu Buhari led a coup d'état that swept a class of corrupt politicians from power. Many of the rusticated politicians were locked up for months and stripped of their ill-gotten assets. That was until General Ibrahim Babangida showed up and displaced Buhari. One of Babangida's first orders of business was to quickly release the detained politicians. Each freed detainee was "ordered" to refund some sum of money.
Several years later, a confidante of a released former governor told me that the ex-detainee never paid a kobo in restitution. The refund orders, he said, were meant simply to lull the public into a false sense that those who fleeced the public coffers had been divested of their loot.
Far from paying, many of the deposed politicians were soon awarded cabinet posts as well as board appointments by the selfsame Babangida. Their stealing orgy continued - with hardly any interruption. The late General Sani Abacha borrowed from Babangida's script. He surrounded himself with some of the most unconscionable robbers of the public till. Inspired and motivated by Abacha's own depraved expertise in thievery, these men and women pocketed their nation's resources with impunity. Check the records and these looters and embezzlers, who should be incarcerated for life, dominate the rolls of national honour laureates.
All too rarely, an isolated good man or woman breaches the barricades and ascends public office in Nigeria. But, as a general principle, criminals run the Nigerian public space. And these criminals go to any length to protect their "right" to continue the privatisation of public funds.
Olusegun Obasanjo ruled Nigeria as if it were his private fiefdom. For much of his watch, Nigerians got little or no accountability about the management of their oil sector. He permitted his aides to stash away cash in presidential jets during overseas visits. Tafa Balogun,the man Obasanjo handpicked as Inspector General of Police, spent less than six months in jail for stealing a whooping N17 billion. Other presidential chums did not as much as get a slap on the wrist for their grubbing activities.
Now, Nigeria is in the unsteady hands of Mr. Yar'Adua. Yar'Adua's specialty is to use committees to postpone, if not shirk,the task of tackling corruption. He is a man in whom Nigeria's league of former and incumbent corrupt officials are extremely well pleased. His talk-tough, do-nothing style has become manure for those in the business of pocketing public funds.
Those who feed fat on Nigeria's crude are applauding the military bombardment of the Niger Delta in the name of combating militants. Yet, it's their gluttony that produced the militancy in the first place. Are they capable of checking their greed, or would it take a Rawlings to strike fear in these vampires?
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