Anti-Graft Law: Less Talk, More Action

One issue that has continued to dominate discussions and reviews at home and abroad is President Muhammadu Buhari’s famed anti-corruption fight. This is due largely to the fact that the issue formed an integral part of his agenda before and upon assuming office as President in 2015. Infact, since then, he has, at every given opportunity, vowed to stem the tide of corruption and bring culprits to justice.
Only recently, after being declared the winner of the controversial presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Buhari re-affirmed his so-called commitment to a more vigorous anti-graft war in what many an observer have since written off as a fluke. This is moreso as many highly perceptible segment of the Nigerian society strongly believe that President Buhari has always looked the other way when corruption cases involving high-profile members of his All Progressives Congress (APC) are established.
Keen observers of the Buhari Presidency anti-corruption war and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have serially accused the President of deliberately inflicting pains on his perceived enemies under the guise of fighting graft while filing away charges of prominent members of the APC and cabinet with similar cases.
Apart from the contract scandal involving former Secretary to Government of the Federation and active participant in Buhari’s Presidential Campaign, Babachir Lawal and the discovery of billions of Naira in the custody of erstwhile Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayodele Oke, who are both currently facing trial following sustained public criticisms, there abound corruption cases involving strong pillars of the Buhari re-election campaign team which have been swept under the carpet. Typical examples are the petitions against the APC National Chairman and former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, former Akwa Ibom State Governor and ex-Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, former Governor of Rivers State and the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who was indicted for massive looting of the State treasury by the George Omereji judicial panel of inquiry set up by the State government in 2015, and Kano State Governor, Abdulahi Ganduje who was recently shown in a video that went viral allegedly collecting bribe in dollars.
It is perhaps, against the backdrop of the apparently one-sided anti-graft war and the growing consensus that the war is aimed at suppressing opposition and dissenting voices that many human rights and anti-corruption watchdogs have dismissed all the hype about President Buhari’s anti-graft fight. The Transparency International (TI), in its latest corruption perception index showed that Nigeria only moved from 148th position in 2017 to 144th in 2018.
Albeit, the Buhari administration has, at various times, dropped figures as recovered looted funds, Nigerians have not been given a total of what it has recovered so far, and the use to which the money has been put. Even more worrisome is the fact that the government is the still borrowing extensively from local and international sources to fund critical sectors of the economy without tangible results. While the PDP borrowed only $63 billion in its 16 years in power, Nigeria’s debt is currently estimated at about $80 billion. Added to this is the subsidy scam payment of 1.4 trillion and other rots in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which is directly under Buhari’s supervision.
With all that calling President Buhari’s integrity to question, little wonder the United States recently released evidence of massive corruption under his administration in its current report.
The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, in its Country Reports On Human Rights Practices for 2018 released penultimate Thursday, said despite Buhari’s avowals of his commitment to the anti-corruption war, the Buhari-led Federal Government has given impetus to its officials to engage in corrupt practices with a sense of exemption from punishment.
Said the Report: “Although the law provides criminal penalties for conviction of official corruption, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity”.
What the report implies is that the Buhari Presidency has not been very sincere in the anti-graft war given the impunity with which its officials have engaged in corrupt practices without fear of being hounded by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC).
As it is, the Buhari-led Federal Government must come out clean in the fight against corruption in such a manner that would convince everyone that the fight is not just targeted at the opposition alone but to everybody found wanting, no matter how well placed the person(s) in the government. What is thus needed now is less talk, more action.