DEEPENING DEMOCRACY: A corruption score-card

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is the world’s most credible measure of domestic, public sector corruption. Figures released this week show that public corruption is highest in Somalia and Afghanistan. Nigeria has improved its position. The CPI scores countries on a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of corruption and 10, low levels. That ranking is based on data from country experts and business leaders at 10 independent institutions, including the World Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit and World Economic Forum.

In 1997 when 52 countries in the world where score-carded, Nigeria, then wallowing under the Abacha dictatorship had the distinction of being the most corrupt country in the world. In 2000, during Obasanjo’s celebration of one year of the return of democracy, Nigeria once again was rated the most corrupt out of the 90 countries assessed that year. In the 2009 assessment, Nigeria has improved to the 130th position out of the 180 countries that were score-carded.

These scores however do not justify any celebration. The question we should ask ourselves is how come post war Liberia, oil rich Gabon and our neighbours in Niger Republic and Togo all performed better than us.

In his presentation of the 2009 scores, Osita Ogbu, the Secretary general of Transparency in Nigeria, castigated the performance of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Administration (Leadership, 18/11/2009) . He argued that the regime’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa is known for aiding corruption in Nigeria. He concluded that “the government is only paying lip-service to the fight against corruption. There is a reign of impunity in the land which the Attorney-General of the Federation has called the ‘the rule of law’.” Every week, Nigerians are inundated with news stories about massive corruption. A very long time ago, the former Chair of the EFCC,

Nuhu Ribadu, informed the country that his organisation has evidence that at least 31 state governors were corrupt. None of those governors has gone to jail for looting their state treasuries. This means that the present set of governors can continue the practice in a relaxed and confident manner.

It is true that the former chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority is today in jail for corrupt practices. It is even more true however that many in the regime are furious at the audacity of the judge that jailed him and the tempo of the attempt to release him from jail has today reached a crescendo.

The investigation by the House of Representative in the power sector revealed that the Obasanjo’s government wasted public resources to the tune of 16 billion United States Dollars in the power sector with nothing to show for it. And yet, it took the American courts to reveal the Halliburton affair in which $579 million was paid as bribes to occupants of the corridors of power in Abuja. The German courts revealed that Siemens paid 1.3 million Euros to Nigerian officials. The Swiss courts have revealed the Panalpina bribery scandal and the American criminal justice system have recently jailed the American legislator receiving bribes from Nigeria.

Indeed, almost every edition of Next newspaper has revealed one corruption scandal after the other and nothing happens. Virtually all the officials continue enjoying their stolen loot while we Nigerians continue to read about how they are ruling and ruining our country.

I have complained previously that the Halliburton revelations show that the apex of our leadership, Generals Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalam and Obasanjo were directly implicated in receiving bribes from the company, and yet we name our biggest avenues after them and we do not even paint graffiti over their names. The tragedy is that we as a people have become too complacent over corruption.

When the Halliburton story broke, the Presidency described the level of involvement of highly placed Nigerians in the bribery scandal as a manifestation of the height of deceit by our leaders. Spokesman for President Yar’Adua, Olusegun Adeniyi promised that his boss had made up his mind to fight such criminal acts and that the authentic list of all the bribe takers would soon be made public. Subsequently, the government settled for a quiet investigation by Inspector General of Police Okiro who has since retired while the case file has gone cold.

The latest corruption scandal that has broken out concerns the Local Organising Committee of the Under-17 Soccer team, which we have been assured, will be thoroughly investigated and the culprits punished. Yes indeed, we have heard that before. It is clear that the forces protecting the system of corruption within and around our governments are formidable and have succeeded in stalling all attempts to deal with them.

But for how long?