Bribe Or Community Dev …That Gitto Church Gift To Otueke

Nigeria’s political history is replete with gory tales of how influential government officials played God, by demanding and receiving from beneficiaries of public contracts, 10 or even more percent tithes in gratification. At some point, road projects were tied to the erection and proper furnishing of palatial mansions as gift to the awarding authority.

At other times, outrageous advance fees were said to have been demanded and received as condition for the award of contracts. Such gifts, the pre-1999 press suggested, often resulted in shoddy jobs as no contractor would willingly work in deficit unless adequate assurances was given for latter-day rewards in form of a follow-up contract or upward review of an existing one in variation.

Basically, such interactions are considered immoral, even criminal because they easily compromised the supervisory awarding authority’s duty of ensuring timely and quality service delivery. How, for instance can a Works Minister, already provided a well-furnished duplex in choice areas of any of the major cities, say Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, by a friendly contractor be depended upon to ensure effective adherence to contract details? Or seek to revoke such a contract, when, he or she is a beneficiary of the proceeds from such shoddy jobs?

These are why public officers are expected to live above board and avoid questionable freebies, particularly Greek gifts. They are forbidden from demanding or receiving gratification of any form in return for public contracts executed or to be awarded to a given contractor.  Another danger to such illicit relationship between government officials and beneficiaries of such government contracts is that it unwittingly destroys the advantages of fairness and impartiality. It instead encourages cronyism  and godfatherism in the choice of who to execute a given public project.

Generally, it destroys all the needed imperatives of providing level playing field that should guarantee award of contracts to the best  bidder and not necessarily the lowest of the most familar.

In such cases, what should be of paramount concern to the awarding officer should be the competence, capacity and history of similar projects handled by the bidders. It must not be influenced by past of future gifts nor based on existing friendship, which can only blur proper assessment of the yardsticks required for the award of public contracts.

This is why various enactments like section 6 of the Code of Conduct for public officers as embodied in the first schedule of the 1999 Constitution and the Code of Conduct and Tribunal/Act (CAP C15) laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004, were contemplated in the first place. It is also to fight this and other colours of official corruption and abuse of office that anti-graft institutions like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) were created in the first instance.

Today, war against corruption appears to be a major pillar upon which the Federal Government hinges its crave for global popularity and internal acceptance.

In pursuit of this objective, government has demonstrated reasonable openness on many hitherto secret transactions of government including monthly allocations to states and local governments and passing into law of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

Infact, Nigerian’s confidence in pursuit of the Presidency of World Bank is in part, also  based on the achievements of the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in that respect. This means her supervisor, President Goodluck Jonathan should, himself, be more corruption-free than his team, if the country is to record any meaningful success in the war against corruption. But if , as they often say, the head is rotten, then the body has no use surviving or even hoping to survive.

That is indeed why the alleged gift of church building to President Jonathan by a friendly contractor with a long history  of government favours, naturally agitated not just the  political opposition but indeed a cross section of  organised labour. Media reports said President Jonathan had demanded and received from the managing director of Gitto Contrizioni Generali Nigeria Limited, a construction firm substantially owned by an Italian, based in Nigeria, the gift of a church building in Otueke, the Commander-In-Chief’s home town in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

For this, the main opposition, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) called for the impeachment of President Jonathan on grounds that he had compromised his high office. The party last week, infact urged the National Assembly to commence a large scale probe into what it called the unholy relationship between the President and a favoured contractor.

Ordinarily, such comments should be commended, particularly, since they contribute to the required vigilance for the success of the corruption war but the calls also raise some questions which answers should throw brighter light on the truth, motive and consequences  of the transaction, before the president should, if necessary, be hanged.

Is the church in Otueke a personal gift to the president? Or is it to Otueke, the president’s community? By their nature, are orthodox churches and mosques supposed to be personal or public? What is the purpose of a church building in the president hometown? To Generate revenue for the president’s family and friends or to further the gospel  and Christianity? Will that be  the first time, influential people have contributed to the building of a church or mosque in Nigeria? What has changed?

A university Don, Professor Steve Azalki considers  “ the uproar that greeted the St. Stephen’s Anglican Church building renovation by Gitto, as uncalled for because the company  only carried out its corporate social responsibility to the community”, as would Shell, Total or even Julius Berger in a host community.

Also, the General Secretary of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Marcus Omokhuale, said the donation should not be celebrated because the president had not committed a crime.

“I do not see it as any crime. Building a church is meant to further the work of God. I do not know if Jonathan will benefit anything from it apart from the fact that the building was built when he was President,” Omokhuale argued.

This, inadvertently addresses the question of motive. About the same time as opposition politicians were calling for the president’s head, over a 400 capacity church building renovation, an influential Islamic leader in Northern Nigeria presented a cheque of N500 million donated by another corporate citizen, to Gen Abba Kyari (rtd) for the completion of the Borno Central Mosque building. What does the donor need in rewards other than to further the work of Allah?

Should such a donation be questioned or its beneficiary vilified?

I ask because some politicians are taking this self-righteous indignation a little too far. Its not strange among communities in Nigeria to demand of project handlers and big companies operating in their localities, certain basic needs, like employment opportunities, access roads, schools, hospitals or even contracts.

So, what is wrong, if, an old church structure became a danger to worshippers and the Otueke community whose son, the first citizen of Nigeria, and  for whom countless dignitaries may visit, consider the renovation of the local church as a priority? What is wrong, if the President adds a word or two to the community’s demand and it is done?

If the funds spent on the facility were public’s and President Jonathan willfully channeled such to personal uses, that make sense and justify the protests. But that a corporate citizen decided to give a little back to the community, from which he had made reasonable fortune from projects done, should prompt impeachment, is an example of self-righteousness far beyond the clouds.

This would not be the first time the Federal Government or President Jonathan’s actions would immediately ignite uncalled-for calls for his impeachment. The other day, while, organised labour was protesting the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise called petrol, the Save Nigeria Group, at once called for regime-change and labeled the President  in the most demonic of colours, saddist, thief and badluck simply, the lightest.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was later to dismiss such calls as both unauthorised, senseless and uncalled for, and infact hinged its hurried termination of the nation-wide strike on such malicious campaigns for regime change.

Today, it is the ACN calling for the impeachment of a duly elected president because, of all things, a contractor offered to renovate a church building in the president’s home community, Otueke not as  a family cathedral for the Jonathans but strictly a public facility to advance the work of God, just like the N500 million donation to hasten the completion of the Borno Central Mosque. How sad!

A purposeful opposition should, at all times, try to tinker alternatives and better ways of running public business and not criticise every activity of either government or the president, just for the sake of doing so. Rather than play to the gallery and unwittingly heat-up the system, by seeing virtually every government glass as half-empty instead of half-full, the  ACN and other opposition politicians need to exercise considerable patriotism and eschew bitterness in the criticism of government activities and actions. What obtains now falls far far short of expectation.

My Agony is that many of those calling for the president’s head today are brief-case carrying contractors without reputation or capacity but who are regularly involved in securing and selling contract deals by night and force themselves on to the judgement table of others, by day.

Methinks these calls are getting a bit annoying and too mischievous, and should be stopped forthwith. None has the exclusive right to assume the role of an accuser and judge at the same time. Only bad losers and arm-chair critics do. Theirs is to prove otherwise.

Soye Wilson Jamabo

President, Jonathan and Bola Tinubu (ACN)