Nigerian lawmakers, because of their antipathy towards laws put in place to guide their behaviour, are often derisively dismissed as law-breakers by Nigerians who believe they are out only to serve themselves and not those they represent. We didn’t need to search far for evidence. Our lawmakers so far have not tried to invalidate the claim by well-informed Nigerian opinion leaders that lawmakers in breach of the constitution and the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission’s (RMAFC) salary ceiling for lawmakers awarded themselves outrageous monthly salaries of between N20m-N30m in a nation where many states cannot pay the N30,000 minimum wages. Nigerian lawmakers have since acquired the unsavoury reputation as the highest paid lawmakers in the world with the influential London Economist in 2013 ranking Nigeria as “the country with the most unjust and lopsided pay structure in the world”.

Beyond humongous salaries they are allegedly paying themselves, it was obvious from  RMFAC published details of the remuneration package  for political, public and judicial office holders, that lawmakers  are not entitled to operational vehicles, but an optional car loan of between N7.9m and N8.1m for each lawmaker.  But the senate in spite of this went ahead to spend  N4.7 billion on Peugeot 508 saloon cars for themselves in 2015 and similar amount on Toyota Camry saloon cars in 2020. If Nigerians are outraged with the 10th assembly’s N160m financial frivolity on “operational vehicles” for each of its 469 members, at a period when Nigerians are experiencing economic pain, it was because the action was considered insensitive and treacherous.

First, this was at a time the voters on whose back the lawmakers rode to power are unable to go to work daily because of increase in cost of transportation as a result of fuel subsidy removal. It was a period of an ongoing government negotiation with Labour in order to prevent a general strike and a lock-down of the economy. It was also at a time the government was desperately trying to work out palliatives in form of money transfer to some thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable in the land.

With the naira in free fall against the dollar, many believe the  time is most inauspicious for legislators to spend our scarce foreign exchange on importation of toys when we have local brands such as Innoson, Nords, Pro-Force and others producing high-end vehicles, including SUVs currently patronized by some state governments in the country. As one local manufacturer puts it: “The National Assembly buying foreign-built vehicles at this time is dispiriting especially when you consider that we are all trying to promote buy Nigeria to grow the Naira”. “Exporting jobs by ordering from foreign brands instead of local brands” as the Centre for Social Justice also recently observed, many believe is a crime against the nation.

But if you ask me, I will say the antics of our lawmakers; their betrayal and corruption are but symptoms of greater malaise assailing our nation. We are probably expecting too much from our lawmakers who unfortunately cannot give what they don’t have.

 The military destroyed our political socialization process and when finally forced to step aside after almost 30 years, what was bequeathed onto us was a military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians that behave like army of occupation groomed in the art of sharing loot of conquered territories.

It was therefore not an accident that within three months of coming to power in 1999, the new government and legislature populated by retired Generals and other ranks and their business fronts came out with petroleum importation policy through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A House probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7t through the fuel subsidy regime exploited by lawmakers, PDP stalwarts and their children without importing a pint of fuel.

It was not a surprise that with Obasanjo’s privatization policy, they sold to themselves Nigeria’s total investment of about $100b for a paltry $1,5b while with Obasanjo/Jonathan monetization policy, civil servants and lawmakers including Speaker Dimeji Bankole, Senate President David Mark and CBN Governor Chukwuma Soludo allegedly bought their official residences at a fraction of their real cost.

It was not also a surprise that the new-breed successive leaders of the National Assembly were all discovered to be men with feet of clay. Senate presidents Evans Enwerem was removed from office on November 1999 for falsification of name, Chuba Okadigbo was removed as Senate President in August 2000 by 81-14 votes over inflation of contract costs while Anyim Pius Anyim out of office was grilled by EFCC for shortfall of about N396 billion in ecological fund deductions as well as over $1.3B Centenary City project.  Bukola Saraki sold the victory of his party to the opposition by cutting a deal which ceded the deputy senate presidency to the opposition, in what Itse Sagay described as “a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”.

In the Lower House, Speakers Salisu Buhari was removed for certificate and age falsification, Patricia Ette was removed in 2007 over award of about N628m for the renovation of her official residence and that of the deputy speaker,  Dimeji Bankole bought his palatial official quarters for N45m after N200m provision had been provided in 2008 budget for its renovation. There was also  Abdul Mumin Jibrin who, when  accused of ‘unilaterally padding the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State, attributed his travails to his inability “to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker Dogara and the three other principal officers”.

The excesses of our lawmakers did not go unnoticed by Nigerian concerned opinion leaders. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as governor of Central bank on December 1, 2010 during a lecture at the University of Benin was the first to inform Nigerians that federal legislators had cornered about 25% of federal government budget. The late former Justice of Supreme Court, Justice Kayode Eso on November 21, 2010 warned that ‘for any senator including absentee senators to take home N30m every month without accountability as a foundation for revolution”.

While ex-President Obasanjo at the public presentation of the autobiography of Justice Mustapha Akanbi, in Abuja, in November 2014 ridiculed the National Assembly, as “largely an assemblage of looters and thieves”, it was the view of Biodun Jeyifo that “if you want to know why looting and thievery became so pervasive in the 4th Republic, you must pay attention to the legalization and institutionalization of greed and sleaze in our predatory legislature”.

Lawmakers’ infidelity, perfidy of ethnic nationalities and political intrigue and economic sabotage by those who have no faith in the country are but symptoms of our greater malaise. Our malady is our superstructure. General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Decree 24 as Pa Ayo Adebanjo has repeatedly warned, will not take us to the Promised Land.

President Bola Tinubu might have tried to prove that separation of power in presidential system is an illusion, the N5.7b Prado toys’ treachery is a sad reminder that even if an angel operates a unitary constitution in a multicultural society, he will fail. To guard against the fate of his predecessors therefore, the president must ensure we stop playing the ostrich and return to where the rain started to beat us.

It is said that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled on humans was to make them doubt his existence. The quip, dating back to as far back as the 1836 book by John Wilkinson and memorably quoted in a 1995 Hollywood film, The Usual Suspects, is perhaps accurate only as far as Western society is concerned. The dirtiest trick the Devil has played on Nigerians is to make us believe that though he is an omnipresent source of mischief, he somehow manages to reside only in the people whose existence annoys us.

Since the Kaduna-based Muslim cleric and attention-seeking troublemaker, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, managed to grab some spotlight last week by describing the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory,  Nyesom Wike, as “Satan,” it has been amusing reading his defenders’ denunciation. Of the plenty words available —from the printable to the cringeworthy—that Gumi could have selected, he chose an evocative one like “Satan.” If he had asked me very nicely, I could have helped his vocabulary range by supplying him with a few words that suit Wike’s crass character better. Since his days as education minister when he and the archenemy that has defined his politics, Rotimi Amaechi, were involved in a public contest of wills, I had determined Wike to be a clown and a mere vulgarian. If anything has improved since then, it is the intensity with which he proves me right.

Those who took offence at the “satanic” attack on Wike were quick to point out the provocation, and that Gumi’s intemperate language could cause religious divisiveness. Under some other set of circumstances, that could be true except that accusing someone of being “Satan” is hackneyed. As recently as mid-last month, a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, Pedro Obaseki, described Wike as “Satan’s lieutenant” for how he diminished their party before joining the All Progressives Congress cabinet. Fine, I agree that the difference between being Satan himself and being his mere lieutenant is like a five-star review and a three-star. Still, Wike can at least take some consolation that someone thinks he is a social terror.

That said, what Wike’s defenders missed is that there is perhaps no other politician who has banalised identifying Satan in political exchanges better than Wike himself. There are many examples, but let us start with December 2016, during a Christmas service at the Rivers State Headquarters of the Living Faith Church in Port Harcourt where Wike announced to the church that, “No power can bring me down because I am solidly and comfortably rooted in God. My belief in God strengthens me at all times. We want you to continue to pray for this state because Satan is at work. If God be for us, nobody can be against us. We have had turbulent times, but we have always come out victorious. This state is a Christian state. Therefore, we shall continue to collaborate with the Church.”

Then, in February 2017, when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited Rivers, held a town hall meeting in the Government House with Wike, and then turned around to hold a stakeholders’ meeting with Amaechi, he criticised them saying, “Since the Acting President began his tour of the Niger-Delta, this is the first time he will be sleeping in a state. This is the first time he will be passing a night outside his region. What does that tell you? It means Rivers State is safe. But you know Satan will never sleep. Lucifer will always stay awake. Anywhere Satan sees light, he will always want to turn it into darkness.”

Please also note that on some occasions when Amaechi’s defenders stood up to Wike, they also accused him of using “satanic elements and witchcraft.”

In the same 2017, at an interdenominational service to thank God for the Supreme Court ruling that declared the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the PDP legal, Wike once again displayed his unique talents for identifying Satan when he said, “God saved the PDP because of Rivers State. We don’t have Plan B. Every other state had Plan B. Our enemies will be put to shame from time to time. Rivers State is the strongest PDP State. While we are reconciling, we must be vigilant. Nobody will take me unawares. Satan will never sleep. Satan will always find ways to cause havoc.” That same year, Wike tweeted that, “The APC is the house of Satan. They have brought so much problems to Nigeria. Nigeria has never been this divided.”

When he quarreled with his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki, he did not stop at accusing him of betrayal and lack of gratitude. He had to fall back on his go-to language of identifying the devil in them. He said, “Satan has agents. Most of the people you see are agents of Satan. I am not in the class of Obaseki.” Also, last year when Amaechi ridiculed the people ecstatic over Wike’s supposed achievements in Rivers State, his riposte was that those unhappy were the children of Satan. While still a  presidential aspirant of the PDP, his campaign was liberally peppered with describing the APC using the idioms of satanism. In Jalingo, Taraba State, Wike especially blamed the growing insecurity in Nigeria on satanic operations perpetrated through his agent, the APC.

There are several other instances of him denouncing the APC as Satan or “agents of Satan.” If it were not Nigeria we are talking about, his serving in Satan’s cabinet would have been dramatic irony. But the turn of events surprises no one. Men like Wike have neither principles nor scruples. Their tongues are like wind vanes; it blows in whichever direction best assures power access. As inconsistent as he is, how Wike conveniently whips out “Satan” to confront political rivals also gives an insight into the nature of evil in political discourse. The Satan in our public culture is not particularly malicious nor wanders the earth to do evil for its mere sake. The Satan in our centres of power is gravely incompetent, lacks any moral convictions (or even the capacity for reflection), and wreaks havoc merely to keep busy.

A part of me wants to feel bad for Gumi that he could not find anything original to antagonise a man whose stock in political trade is satanising his rivals. Calling Wike “Satan” sounds rather desperate. While I can guarantee that attacking Wike will keep him busy for a while, he should also know that that man is going nowhere. Wike is not the FCT minister today because he has an original idea about urban development and regeneration, or even relevant managerial expertise. He came this far as payment for his role in helping the present government to power and as an APC ploy to systematically diminish whatever is left of the PDP. His endurance in that office will be contingent upon his playing both roles effectively. There is nothing the likes of Gumi can do about it.

Gumi’s desperation must have been so intense that he even played the 2027 election card. He did not base the reason the Bola Tinubu administration will not deserve a second term on its crushing dysfunctionality, only on the political symbolism it fails to sustain. Much of his rant in the press conference where he called Wike “Satan” was about how the spaces that “we” occupied but which have been shrunk by a new tribe of political grabbers. Little minds like him think Nigeria was made for them and everyone else is an interloper. He can cry all he likes, but the reign of this “Satan” will be long.

And if the silliness Gumi portrayed in that video is his best tactic for sustaining his relevance now that banditry no longer makes front-page news, then I am afraid he will be out of consequence for a long time.

I had just arrived Abuja from Beijing, China on Monday when news broke that Nigeria won its case against Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited, which had been seeking enforcement of a controversial $11 billion judgement debt in its favour. The Commercial Courts of England and Wales upheld Nigeria’s prayer that the said gas processing contract was obtained by fraud. The judgement affirms the position of Nigeria’s lawyer, Mark Howard, that P&ID obtained the contract “by telling repeated lies and paying bribes to officials.”

While we should rejoice about the court victory, I hope President Bola Tinubu, his Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, and other senior officials paid attention to the careful words of Justice Robin Knowles about public service in Nigeria. “This case has also, sadly, brought together a combination of examples of what some individuals will do for money. Driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; giving no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm for others,” the Judge said before breaking it down for those who may not get his message. “Others that in the present case include the people of Nigeria, already let down in so many ways over the history of this matter by a number of individuals in politics and administration whose duty it was to serve them and protect them.” 

When on 3^rd September 2020, Sir Ross Cranston of the UK High Court of Justice Queen’s Bench Division Commercial Court granted Nigeria’s application for an extension of time to fight the case based on new evidence, three things became evident. One, had the P&ID promoters and their Nigerian collaborators not been too greedy, they probably would have walked away with about $400 million loot and an oil block. But they insisted on $2 billion and now they have nothing! Two, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was instrumental to the temporary reprieve Nigeria secured at the time and should take the credit for Monday’s final judgement. Three, because the P&ID scammers were targeting Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) assets, the suspended Governor, Godwin Emefiele, took the lead in the efforts to have the judgement upturned. Unfortunately, when the statement read at the Villa by Fagbemi on Monday was being drafted, according to an impeccable source, it was resolved that credit should not be ascribed to certain individuals. Such pettiness!

Before I come to the role played by Osinbajo and CBN under Emefiele as well as the critical lesson that should serve authorities in Nigeria about this judgement, let me also claim some vindication. I took special interest in the case because this scam was consummated in January 2010 under the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who was then in a Saudi Arabia hospital. When in my 5^th September 2019 column, ‘Yar’Adua and the $9.6 Billion Question’ I defended my late principal, I got some angry responses from those I suspected were working for (or at least sympathetic to) the P&ID scammers. The company’s main promoter, the late Michaeal Quinn (who died of cancer in 2015) was known to many top Nigerians and a few believed they should defend him despite overwhelming evidence that he wanted to dupe Nigeria. Now that Justice Knowles has confirmed the whole scheme to be a fraud, I seek the indulgence of readers to rehash excerpts from what I wrote more than four years ago before I conclude.  

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Even before receiving inquiries regarding the controversial $9.6 billion judgement that has become a Sword of Damocles over Nigeria, I was already digging to find out what happened. Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, under whose administration the said contract was signed, is not around to defend himself so I felt an obligation to know the extent of his involvement, if any. The first person I reached out to was Mr Tanimu Yakubu, Yar’Adua’s Chief Economic Adviser and close confidant who also had the gas assignment. 

In my 2011 book, ‘Power Politics and Death’ I wrote: “…It was at the margin of the 33rd G8 summit in Germany in June 2007 that the then Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, had a brief chat with Yar’Adua. He bluntly told the president that Nigerian officials were denying a level playing field to Gazprom (the Russian state oil and gas company regarded as the largest extractor of natural gas in the world) which was having difficulties gaining entrance into the nation’s oil and gas industry. Putin told the president he had information that Nigerian government officials, in collaboration with Shell, were deliberately making it impossible for Russian and Chinese IOCs to operate in the country. This was a serious allegation that could not be taken lightly. Upon return from the summit, the president directed Tanimu to monitor and provide him with feedback on NNPC’s proposed partnership with Gazprom until appropriate protocols were signed.” 

Following that encounter in Germany, Tanimu travelled to Moscow to open discussions with Russian gas authorities. That he had no idea about this contract is very telling. The then Attorney General and Justice Minister, Mr Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN, has also put it on record that he knew nothing about it. Meanwhile, those who served in the administration of the late Yar’Adua knew that when it came to contracts, one man had the last say: Engineer Emeka Ezeh, then Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP). Without a Certificate of No Objection from the BPP, no contract would be awarded. Ezeh, one of the few officials in whom the late Yar’Adua had implicit confidence, told me on Tuesday that he only became aware of the contract when the scandal broke out. He then proceeded to give me a copy of the BPP law and a relevant document which puts a serious question mark on the judgment. ‘The Approved Threshold’ given to the ‘Tenders Board and Accounting Officers (Permanent Secretaries and Chief Executive Officers) of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)’ were specific on the amounts that could be approved without recourse to BPP. Under ‘Special Works (NNPC)’, it is stated very clearly that any oil and gas contract that is worth $20 million and above must go to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and secure the BPP Certificate of No Objection before approval. 

We still do not know the exact sum of this vexatious deal. Yet P&ID was reported to have spent approximately $40 million in pre-contract expenditures. The $9.6 billion Nigeria is expected to pay is made of a $6.59 billion profit the company claims it would have made over a life project of 20 years and the balance of $3 billion accumulated interest since 2012 when the judgement was given. It is interesting that it would take some ‘Oyinbo’ people to teach Nigerians the real meaning of ‘419’! 

According to their statement, “P&ID and the Nigerian Government entered into a 20-year Agreement – known as the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) – to refine natural gas for powering Nigeria’s electricity grid. The GSPA would have been very profitable for both P&ID and Nigeria and have generated an additional 2,000 megawatts of power for the national grid. Such a major increase in low-cost electricity supply brought by the P&ID project would have been transformative for millions of Nigerians.” Should these extraordinary benefits meant to accrue to the country not have elicited publicity on the day the deal was sealed? Do you sign such a contract in secret with intended beneficiaries, in this case Nigerians, not told of their good fortune?  

In a damning report published yesterday, ‘Is one of the world’s biggest lawsuits built on a sham?’, Bloomberg Businessweek, a globally respected American weekly business magazine, not only exposed the sordid contract for what it is, but the writers also provided evidence as to why Nigeria must fight it. The intro sums it up: “A dying Irishman went for one last big score in Nigeria. The project failed, but a London tribunal says his company’s owed $9 billion and counting.” 

However, the matter has now become complicated. I understand that it was when the claimant, P&ID, appointed their Arbitrator that President Goodluck Jonathan became aware of the issue and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources then appointed Mr Bayo Ojo, SAN, a former Attorney General and Justice Minister as a party nominated arbitrator to constitute the Arbitral Tribunal. By the time the sum of $850 million was finally agreed as the term of settlement in May 2015, the government was on its way out. Rather than pay what could have been used against him, Jonathan rightly decided to push the matter to President Muhammadu Buhari.  
 

I have it on good authority that the late Yar’Adua never met anybody from P&ID, and this can be easily verified by the current administration. All the records of visitors to the villa are kept. While I concede that some officials might have taken advantage of the president’s illness to breach their fiduciary duties to our country, the insinuation that the fiasco came about because Yar’Adua was in ‘coma’ lacks any substance. Even if he were in Nigeria at the time, presidents don’t sign contracts. That some imaginary Yar’Adua cabal entered the deal is also false. What is clear to me is that P&ID propagandists as well as government officials who dropped the ball are on overdrive because those who would have disputed their claims are dead.  

There are many things begging for answers here, including the process that led to such ‘agreement’ as well as the terms and conditions. The quantum of the award also raises questions about the integrity of the Arbitral Tribunal. Do you award anticipatory profit recoverable over 20 years, especially when neither risks nor obligations were put on the partner? It is trite to argue that before committing a country to anything that has financial implications, the Ministry of Finance, the AGF and the office of the president must be involved, not just the supervisory ministry. In this case, none was involved. Even if it is Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) must also be involved. It was not, either. 

Whatever the eventual outcome, we can take certain lessons from the unfortunate saga. One, we must put in place a well-articulated National Arbitration Policy. Two, all pending arbitrations should be reviewed with special attention to the ongoing International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) case in Paris concerning the Mambilla Hydroelectric project. Finally, we must institute measures to ensure that Nigerian public officials who sign contracts on behalf of the rest of us do not sell the country cheap. Tying us to scandalous obligations after trading away the jurisdiction for arbitration in case of legal redress is the kind of action that would normally attract capital punishment for erring public officials in some countries! 

ENDNOTE: 

In the euphoria of the moment, the Tinubu administration should not get carried away. Over the years, Nigeria has paid billions of Dollars on spurious judgement debts, and I understand many scammers were also waiting in the wings to pounce had we lost this case to the P&ID. What these international crooks (and local collaborators) do is to get some Nigerian public officials, target a thriving sector, sign some dubious ‘agreements’ that are skewed against Nigeria, wait for some time, and then approach the courts for enforcement. That’s how many idle billionaires have been created in the country.  

Meanwhile, after the CBN had been made to deposit $200 million in court in 2020, Emefiele was involved in hiring fresh British lawyers to fight Nigeria’s case. I understand that to date the CBN has expended about $40 million on legal services. The late former Chief of Staff to the president, Abba Kyari and former EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu also played critical roles for Nigeria to establish a case of fraud on this transaction. But the main man on this issue is Osinbajo. In his 2020 ruling, Justice Cranston admitted that Osinbajo’s ‘fraud on the nation’ declaration in June 2018 turned the table against P&ID in Nigeria’s favour. According to Cranston, Osinbajo’s involvement began in 2017 after he was intimated by the then Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, SAN. 

Let’s hear from the Judge: “Following a meeting, on 13 March 2017, Mr Malami wrote to Vice President Osinbajo, who was acting president at the time, exploring five ‘scenarios’ and making recommendations on each. The first was to negotiate a reasonable settlement. The second was to undertake a ‘forensic and extensive examination of the original contract, Award and other Processes to discover loopholes to upset or vary the Award.’ The merits were said to be that a loophole might be discovered, for example, fraud, technical grounds, or a conflict of interest of the arbitrators. The other options were to inquire whether there was the possibility of an appeal, an investigation by the EFCC and a challenge to the recognition and enforcement of the award.”

On 17 March 2017, according to the Judge, Malami wrote another letter to Osinbajo on the earlier scenarios: “Scenario 1 was now expressed as ‘the urgent need’ (emphasis in original) to negotiate a settlement. The scenario about involving the EFCC was that it should be directed to undertake a discreet investigation of the matter, and also to ascertain the personalities and beneficiaries behind P&ID. There was a further letter from Mr Malami to the Vice President dated 29 March 2017. On 6 April 2017 the Vice President approved in manuscript on the letter its proposal to pursue settlement negotiations. There followed on 16 May 2017 (and afterwards) without prejudice settlement discussions with P&ID. After P&ID stated in September 2017 that it intended to enforce the Final Award, on 7 December 2017 the Vice President granted approval to negotiate further. However, settlement negotiations broke down. The Attorney General, Mr Malami, together with then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Emmanuel Kachikwu wrote to the Vice President on 23 May 2018 in light of US enforcement proceedings which P&ID had initiated, recommending the reopening of negotiations with P&ID while efforts were being made as regards the enforcement proceedings. On 12 June 2018, the Vice President’s office reported that he had agreed with the recommendation and would take up the matter with the President. That same day, 12 June 2018, the Vice President wrote to the President recommending the reopening of negotiations with P&ID. The President approved this recommendation on 26 June 2018.” 

All the offers made to the P&ID promoters failed because they thought they had Nigeria by the balls. According to Justice Cranston, in his minute to the 23 May 2018 joint memo by Malami and Kachikwu, Osinbajo said he considered the transaction ‘a fraud on the nation’, and that there might be “a need to independently review and investigate the entire affair more diligently”. That was the turning point because Osinbajo then recommended to Buhari that the judgement should be challenged. With Emefiele buying into the idea, CBN decided to fund the legal fees. Now that Osinbajo has been vindicated, it is shameful that Fagbemi could not summon the decency to acknowledge the role played by the former vice president. But history will be kind to Osinbajo on the issue. The same goes for the CBN under Emefiele who is currently being punished for his political foolishness.  

Overall, if there is anything that the P&ID scam has exposed, it is that in the Nigerian deep state, there exists a corps of bureaucrats who specialize in misleading political leaders on technical contracts for their personal gain. The minimum responsibility of the Tinubu government therefore is to expose and prosecute all the traitors who abused their fiduciary duties to the country for illicit gains. Charges should also be filed against the foreign scam artists at P&ID to deter those who have made a career of duping our country. Beyond that, we must begin to build a new culture of ethics in the Nigerian public space.

President Bola Tinubu has expressed grief over the passing of Alhaji Adamu Fika, elder statesman and one-time Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, who died on Tuesday at the age of 90.

President Tinubu, in mourning the Wazirin Fika, recalled the salient roles he played in nurturing the enduring institution responsible for the articulation and implementation of public policies at a trying time for the Federal Civil Service. 

He said the late Fika's contributions both as Head of Service and chairman of different civil service reform panels were indelible in the annals of Nigeria's history. 

“Alhaji Adamu Fika’s life of service to Nigeria saw him hold various important positions, before his elevation to the Office of Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; a post he held until his retirement," the President said.

Condoling with the government and people of Yobe State, President Tinubu said Alhaji Fika left behind a legacy of accomplishments, integrity, passion for service, and commitment worthy of emulation by public servants and other compatriots. 

“May Allah forgive his sins and grant him Aljannah Firdaus,” the President prayed.  

Chief Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

October 25, 2023

“For me, justice is the first condition of humanity” – Wole Soyinka

Eleven days after the October 7  horrific  attacks on Israel by Hamas, President Joe Biden of the United States was in Tel Aviv to express his solidarity with Israel and, in his words, for “the world to know where the United States stands.”

His host, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke about the significance of an American president visiting Israel at war. He expressed gratitude for America’s “unequivocal  support,” emphasising that  “the world sees that support in the moral clarity” of Biden’s statements since the attack on Israel. During the attack, the worst in Israel since 1948, at least 1,400 civilians (including children)  and soldiers were killed and no fewer than 200 hostages were taken by Hamas. 

Netanyahu acknowledged  Biden’s description of  Hamas as “sheer evil,” saying  that Biden had “drawn the line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarians.” Incidentally, Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, had earlier called Hamas “human beast.”

On the day Biden was in Tel Aviv, Israel had in retaliation imposed a siege on Gaza, a strip that has been under the occupation of Israel for 56 years. The supply of water, food, fuel  and electricity had been cut as a result of the blockade imposed by Israel amidst bombing of targets. At least 4,000 Palestinians  been killed by Israeli  strikes as the time Biden spoke in Tel Aviv. In the  last 48 hours alone  more than 700 people have been killed   in Gaza, bringing the total to be more than 5, 000 people killed.

Although Biden asked the Israeli cabinet to ensure the delivery of  life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,”  he had no strong words against the situation  in Gaza in which innocent civilians including hundreds of children have  died in a collective punishment  inflicted by Israel  at the time he spoke. Rather, Biden  was quick to exonerate Israel of the blast that occurred in a Gaza hospital in which scores of Palestinians including children died  without any independent  investigation. Both Israel and Hamas are still  trading blames over the tragedy. 

Doubtless Hamas should be held responsible for the killings and hostage taking of October 7  and Biden said so clearly. Israel should also be held to account  for the killings of innocent civilians under siege  for 12 days now in Gaza; but America and its western allies are not saying so unequivocally as they rightly condemned Hamas. When Russia cut supplies to Ukraine the European  (EU) said so without ambiguity  that Russia committed war crimes. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, the EU reportedly was  about to cut the aid to the Palestine Authority until reasonable counsel prevailed against this instinctive reaction. The  western double-standards are simply incredible. The West must take the rest of the world to be fools given the way they apply double- standards and invoke a  selective adherence to their values about equality of human lives.

Indeed, the voices from Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and most of  western capitals  are symptomatic of the dearth of moral leadership in the world today. This makes the global political and diplomatic outlook dangerous. 

Palestinian lives  are equal to Israelis lives and none should be unjustly taken even in a state of war.  The Geneva Conventions are not in the books for nothing.

Only yesterday, the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, seemed to have found his voice at last to condemn  the” clear violations of  international laws in Gaza” and that “protecting civilians cannot mean  using them as human shields.” 

When the West condemns Hamas, that is said  to be  moral clarity. But when the killings of civilians by of Israel are condemned, it is not seeing as moral clarity by the West. A criticism of Israel is often taken to be antisemitic or a glorification of terrorism. 

The phrase moral clarity is often used by western politicians especially Americans when they chose to make a distinction in  human affairs between “evil -and good.” Those who  are friendly to the West  are good while their enemies are evil.

The use of  the category moral clarity is one of the hangovers of the Cold War.  Hence Soviet Union was simply the “evil empire” to President Ronald Reagan of the United States.  Now, both the Left and Right of American politics appropriate “moral clarity”  whenever they claim  that they are saying it as it is from their own perspective while clearly ignoring the other side of the argument.  Their moral clarity is often about one side of reality. Whose moral clarity is it, anyway?  

In particular, moral clarity has been used as a shibboleth  by American leaders to justify or at least rationalise oppression, injustice and violence perpetrated  in the course of the  Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In fact, Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, wrote a book entitled “The Case for Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza.”   As Barack Obama was elected American president in 2008, an American moral philosopher, Susan Neiman,  wrote her own book entitled “Moral Clarity:  A Guide for Grown -Up Idealists.”  Neiman  explains the use of  the much abused category as follows: “Moral clarity, however, is about looking at each  particular case, looking at all the facts, looking at the context and working your answers.” Politicians and public intellectuals take that to mean labelling what they observe without being politically correct or employing euphemisms. So it is moral clarity to label Hamas “terrorist.” But the moral clarity doesn’t extend  to telling  Israel that it is violating international laws with impunity or calling  the situation in Gaza “apartheid.”   Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence  aided Hamas in the early stages to weaken  the  Palestinian solidarity. Israel once used Hamas against the Fatah faction based in the West Bank. It is reminiscent of how America once helped in the   breeding  of  elements of Osama Bin Laden’s  al Qaeda against the defunct Soviet Union. The group later turned against America in a most tragic manner. Western politicians hardly  mention these sordid facts of history in their exercise of  moral clarity.

The Question of Palestine is rooted in a bloody history. It is the oldest land dispute on earth. Violence from both sides has failed to solve the problem. The first prime minister of Israel, David Ben -Gurion,   said in 1919  of the  Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “There is no solution. We want Palestine to be ours as a nation. The Arabs want it to be theirs – as a nation. I don’t know what Arab would agree to Palestine belonging to the Jews.” Ben-Gurion could not foresee a solution to the problem; but he believed that it could be managed.  The former trade unionist who  later became a  leader of Israel once made an assertion at the outbreak of the Israeli-Arab war which Netanyahu should probably ponder today. Ben-Gurion wrote as follows: “We will break Transjordan, bomb Amman and destroy its army, and then Syria falls, and if Egypt will  still continue to fight, we will bombard Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo… This will be a revenge for what they (the neighbouring states) did to our forefathers in Biblical times.” This mindset for territorial expansionism has hardly changed in Israel 75 years later. Instead the cycle of violence reigns supreme in Palestine.

Even in 2023, some historians of the  age-long conflict are saying that the “two-state solution “ has been rendered a “diplomatic fiction”. Israeli has ignored a catalogue of resolutions against the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the encroachment of the land.

According to the Jerusalem-based human rights watchdog B’Tselem, in the last 17 years, Israel  has attacked  Gaza six times before the  present  siege, at least  4,000 people – 405 in 2006, 1,391 in 2008 and 2009, 167 in 2012, 2,203 in 2014, 232 in 2021 and 33 in 2022. It has been shown that  casualties for  civilians have outnumbered fighters.

Guterres said rightly  yesterday that the tragic October 7 attack of Israel  by Hamas “did not happen in a vacuum.”

In the face of the humanitarian  catastrophe  unfolding in Gaza and the danger of the crisis spreading in the region, it is time to have the  moral clarity to call for an immediate  political solution that will ensure the release of all the hostages and an end to the siege on Gaza.

The security of Israel should be sacrosanct while the freedom of the Palestinians and their right to own a  piece of the earth as their own  land in which to  establish a sovereign state should be guaranteed in a package  of an enduring solution.

Moral  clarity should also mean building a community of Jews and Arabs who, despite the bitterness in their lands,  defend our collective humanity.  A model of such a community  is the one of  those Jewish and Arab doctors who reportedly  worked together in bravely  attending to those injured in the October 7 attack.

Beyond that, Israelis and Palestinians must reflect on the history of the conflict to see that violence from either side  will not  bring a solution. Ben-Gurion boasted about  military power in 1948, it would a grave  error if Netanyahu in 2023 still believes the problem has a military solution.

Instead, the  real solution lies in promoting  the cause of  justice and our shared humanity in Palestine.  

“Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy; and to this end Government shall as and when practicable provide (a) free, compulsory and universal primary education; (b) free secondary education; (c) free university education; and (d) free adult literacy programme.” Section (18 :3) of the 1999 Constitution.”

Aside the fact that the constitutional provision is not enforceable the phrase “as and when practicable” was deliberately inserted in the Constitution to allow the members of the ruling class to determine the time that every Nigerian will access to education. The human rights community resolved to mount pressure on the neo-colonial State to make education available to Nigerian citizens. On the basis of the campaign the Federal Government ratified the United Nations Child’s Rights Convention in 2001 and enacted the Child’s Rights Act in 2003. This was followed by the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act in 2004. In addition, article 17(1)  of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act states that every individual shall have the right to education.

As the 36 state governments were not prepared to enforce both laws we commenced another campaign for the popularisation and adoption of the Child’s Rights Act.  Even though the Child’s Rights Act has been adopted and enacted by the 36 states of the Federation, it is regrettable to note that the laws are observed by all the states governments in breach. In 2022, UNICEF reported that Nigeria had 18.5 million children that were out of school. The number has since increased as millions of children have been compelled to withdraw from public and private schools as a result of incessant abduction in the northern part of the country.

In commemoration of the 2023 International Day of the Girl Child at plenary earlier this month, the members of the House of Representatives unanimously passed an embarrassing resolution which urged the Federal Ministry of Education to drastically reduce the number of out-of-school girls by ensuring compulsory free education for all girls across the country. This was sequel to the adoption of a motion by Rep. Kafilat Ogbara (APC-Lagos). The legislator said that the last survey by UNICEF revealed that 18.5 million children that were out of school in Nigeria, 60 per cent were girls. While insisting that adolescent girls have the right to a safe, educated and healthy life, Hon Ogbara said that investing in girls’ leadership included creating space and platforms for girls to raise their voices at every policy-making level.

At about the same time, the Senate  passed for first reading of  a bill that recommends a fine of N50,000 to parents who default in providing their children with primary and secondary school education. The bill proposed by Senator Orji Kalu seeks to amend section (4) (b) of the Principal Act by deleting N2,000 and inserting N20,000; section (4) (c) of the Principal Act by deleting N5,000 and inserting N50,000 while section 3(2) of the Principal Act is amended by deleting N10,000 and inserting N100,000.”

It is indeed regrettable to note that the members of the House of Representatives are not aware that the Child’s Rights Act, 2003 and the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act 2004  have made education free and compulsory for every Nigerian child from primary to junior secondary school. In Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project v Federal Republic of Nigeria (2010] ACHPR 109 and Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP) GTE and LTD v Federal Ministry of Education (unreported suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/978/15), the Ecowas Court and the Federal High Court directed the Federal Government to ensure that every Nigerian child is given free and compulsory education.

In a demonstration of executive lawlessness, the judgments of both courts were flagrantly disregarded by the Federal Government.

It is submitted that since each of the 36 States of the Federation has adopted the Child’s Rights Act and enacted a Child’s Right Law, it has become the joint responsibility of the Federal, State and Local Governments to ensure that every Nigerian child is given the opportunity to acquire free and compulsory education. Furthermore, the Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2019, guarantees free education up to senior secondary school level for every person with disability while all public schools, whether primary, secondary or tertiary shall have at least one personnel trained to cater for the educational development of persons with disabilities or special facilities for the effective education of persons with disabilities.

These laws have been observed in their breach because the members of the political class drawn from all registered political parties have not demonstrated any commitment to the education of every child in Nigeria. Hence, the members of the legislative and executive organs of governments have failed to appreciate the danger of having 18.5 million out-of-school children, the highest number in the world. Therefore, amending the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act to make it more stringent for parents will not work in a poverty- stricken environment.

In June last year, the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Mr. Hamid Bobboyi bemoaned the refusal of state governments to provide counterpart funding and access the annual matching grants given by the commission to develop their basic education system. The commission was particularly concerned that about N110 billion of the intervention funds accessed from UBEC were not utilised by the states in 2021, with the money left in the coffers of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).

Sometime in 2017, we learnt that the federal government had decided to refund state governments all monies so far deducted from their accounts to meet the London Paris Club obligations. We were able to convince the Federal Government to deduct the counterpart fund that the state governments had failed to contribute to the Universal Basic Education Fund. The suggestion was accepted by the Federal Government and that was how the sum of N71.3 billion was deducted from source and remitted to the account of the UBEC. Thereafter, UBEC added  the matching grants of N71.3 billion and the states received a total of N142.6bn for the provision of needed facilities in public primary and junior secondary schools in the country.

What the National Assembly should do is address the refusal of state governments to make  counterpart contribution to the Universal Basic Education Fund pursuant to section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act. As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly should ensure the amendment of the Constitution to empower the Accountant-General of the Federation to deduct from source the counterpart fund payable by every state government to the Universal Basic Education Fund.

It is common to say that Nigeria is a corrupt country. However, that does not really make much sense. Almost every country is corrupt to the extent that there are always some people, in the public or private sector, who deal corruptly. So, a self-acclaimed Nigerian patriot can answer back, “but all countries are corrupt because they have corrupt people”. This is true. I recall a friend who was vexed with what he considers my puritanic stand on public probity and advised that a country needs some corruption to even get running. To him, some degree of corruption is a lubricant of public leadership.

Nevertheless, Nigeria is corrupt in the sense that many countries are not, or at least in the sense that countries aspiring to development should not be. In Nigeria, corruption is not just pervasive, it is respectable and even admirable. One measure of this Nigerian exceptionalism is the number of manifestly corrupt politicians who occupy high political offices in Nigeria, and who have bright political future. These corrupt VIPs didn’t mask their way to the top. They got to the top notwithstanding that people know they are extremely corrupt, even criminal in their conducts. Their continuous ascent to high political offices despite open history of corruption and criminality suggests that either the people do not care much about corruption and criminality, or the system is trapped in indifference or cooption. In which case, corruption and criminality become social norms, a form of social compact.

Do not take my word that Nigeria is corrupt in an exceptional manner. Take the word of a former Nigerian Assistant Inspector General of Police who later became a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. One morning he stood up in the legislative chamber, surveyed the many rows where the so-called ‘distinguished’ Nigerians sat to make laws that cater to their own interests and do deals. He blurted out in disbelief: “I never knew I would meet so many people I put in jail as a police officer here in this chamber”. If you did not get the point. He could not believe that criminals who served terms when he was a police chief could become distinguished senators of the republic. May be that is the reason Alex Perry, the Newsweek columnist, captured Nigeria’s exceptionalism in corruption in these devastating words: “Nigeria’s rulers have often been indistinguishable from its criminals. In Nigeria, corruption does not just pollute the system. Corruption is the system”. 

Nigeria’s rulers are indistinguishable from its criminals. In Nigeria, corruption is the system. Let those words sink in. I didn’t make this up. You can read them up in the April 25, 2011, edition of the US Time magazine. The key point is that Nigeria’s version of public corruption is both pervasive and corrosive of public ethics. Elsewhere criminals operate underground, below the law. In Nigeria, they operate in the full glare of the law, they challenge the legal order; and the legal order bends to accommodate and normalize their nefarious acts. That is what Alex Perry means by saying that in Nigeria, corruption is the system.

Corruption scholars worry about how corruption distorts allocation of resources and leads to development failure, and ultimately compounds poverty. That is the reason corrupt countries are likely to be poor. There is an inverse relationship between corruption and development indexes. Developed countries are usually less corrupt. So, if a country is top on development indicators, it will likely be low on corruption index. It might be that being less corrupt enables a country to develop or that being developed means it will be less corrupt.

The discourse of corruption and development has gone through a lot of nuances and elaborations. Development scholars used to consider corruption as the most important problem of development. However, experience of Asia in development led to the idea that some degree of corruption, even grand corruption, is compatible with economic development. In the case of China, some scholars argued that China grew tremendously despite corruption because production grew faster than the grabbing hand. A popular aphorism puts it better: “In China the Hen was increasingly robust and capable of having more eggs than the Chinese foxes (officials) could grab”.  So, no matter how much official stole, GDP growth continued.

Yet in China, thieving officials faced the music. In 2012, a senior Chinese official, Bo Xilai, was arrested and charged for abuse of power and graft. Prime Minister Xi Jinping took the opportunity to launch war against corruption, warning comrades that corruption “would doom the Party and the nation”.  This began a real crackdown on corruption. Yes. China has corrupt officials. However, corruption has not stopped economic growth. This is partly because in China corruption is not the system. The system responds against corruption when it is detected. In Nigeria, corruption is the system. It does not respond against corruption even when it is in the public.

There are many theoretical explanations for why a country could be pervasively corruption. One of them holds that corruption is a ‘collective action’ problem. This is because people expect others to act corruptly and that becomes self-reinforcing. In a corrupt system, it is difficult to opt out of the corruption web. This is because there is a social compact built on expectations of corrupt acts. We expect people to act corruptly. This makes corruption almost compelling. The transaction cost of corruption is low since you incur no real social cost for corrupt acts. A corrupt system has inbuilt incentives that encourage corrupt acts. It is a form of social pathology. Everyone identifies that pathology. But the problem is understanding how it developed and how to destroy it. This difficulty is what makes corruption path dependent. A corrupt country continues to be corrupt until there is a disruption that creates another trajectory of social development.

Some think the way out of corruption is evolutionary. Others think it is revolutionary. One thing is clear, you cannot exit a culture of corruption if the political economy is not infused with values and institutions of ethical individualism and egalitarianism. Ethical individualism provides the motivation for social accountability. But it does not guarantee accountability. Those who conceive themselves as equals will have reason to demand accountability from political authorities. But even citizens who are motivated to demand accountability may still lack the resources and real opportunity to exert accountability. Where that is the case, there is impunity and corruption trap.

This is where Nigeria is. The exceptionalism of corruption in Nigeria is that corruption is now a system of public leadership. Nigeria’s corrupts are not restrained by threat of legal enforcement or social ostracism. Legal rules are designed and administered to wink at corruption, or even to aid and abet it. Recently, judges have issued decisions that normalize corruption and criminality in public administration. The complicit of the judiciary in helping corrupt Nigerians escape any form of legal stricture is only explainable as a sign of endemic state capture. The entire administrative state in Nigeria is complicit in reinforcing corruption in Nigeria.

In the matter of election, which is the most important issue of national security and stability, the electoral regulator blatantly refuses to act against clear evidence of corruption and criminality. Even when the constitution prohibits certain corrupt and criminal acts, the administration of justice denies accountability. The recent electoral decisions of some tribunals and courts in Nigeria, waving away with disdain clear evidence of corruption and criminality, are classic illustrations of impunity- the audacity of corruption.

What does systemic corruption mean for development. Political economist, Yuen Yuen Ang examines why China prospered in the face of ‘vast corruption’. She analyzed and dismissed some of the expert opinions on the paradox of Chinese economic boom amidst vast corruption. She concludes that the experts fail to understand that corruption takes different forms. Chinese corruption is benign, rather than malignant. She argues that “while corruption is never good, not all forms of corruption are equally bad for the economy, nor do they cause the same kind of harm”. In China, corruption does not fully inhibit development whereas in Nigeria, it does.

That Chinese type of corruption may not ground its economy may be understandable considering the point eminent political scientist, Samuel Huntington, made about how ‘exchange-based corruption’ like petty bribe “may be one way of surmounting traditional laws or bureaucratic regulations which hamper economic transactions.” Petty theft, grand theft, speed money and access money, as bad as they are, may not completely hobble the economic engine. But when corruption has become a system such that its audacity trumps the administration of justice to the extent that the rules themselves surrender to the juggernauts of corruption, then no meaningful development can occur. The engine will grind to a halt.

This scenario is one aspect of state capture. The criminal and corrupt class captures the state and its instrument of governmentality. Nothing is emblematic of governmentality than the judiciary. Formal constitutional democracy howsoever described enshrines legitimacy, based on, the supremacy of the judiciary. Through the power of judicial review, the courts ensure that all forms of corruption and criminality do not become the ‘system’ by imposing costs and deterrence against them.

Nigeria’s exceptionalism in corruption draws another distinctive between it and a comparable country, Indonesia. Indonesia has the misfortune of military dictators like Nigeria, dictators who are corrupt. But none of them is like Abacha who stole an equivalent of 10% of Nigeria’s GDP. John Hopkins’ Political Scientist, Peter Lewis in his book, Growing Apart: Oil, Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria, 2007, attributes the divergence in development between Indonesia and Nigeria partly to corruption (whereas Suharto commitment to growth, Nigeria’s military leaders were committed to “clientelism, distributional politics and economic predation”). While Suharto and his military clique could focus on development despite significant corruption, Nigeria’s Abachas could not. Because corruption was the system in Abacha’s Nigeria, development was inconceivable as the focus of statecraft.

Many development scholars argue that the main ingredient for economic development is an elite consensus for development. Unless the ruling elites of a country are committed to a ‘development agenda’ there will be no sustained development. Development requires the ruling elites to focus on implementing such an agenda as a primary and controlling ambition. This is the secret of the East Asian transformation. Successful East Asian countries were led by leaders who primarily focused on development and were accidentally corrupt. Nigeria hard luck is that its ruling elites are primarily focused on corruption and accidentally hit on development. In Nigeria, development is an accidental outcome. This is also the significant difference between 1960s and 2000s Nigeria. In the former, leaders were focused on development, but incidentally got corrupt. In the latter, leaders are focused on corruption and are incidentally developmental.

Nigerian leaders wax rhetorical about development agenda. President Tinubu talks endlessly about how he intends to push Nigeria towards development. Our ruling elites talk about emulating China and South Korea. But we do not treat corrupt officials like they do? Mr. Bo Xilai was a senior Chinese official, the Governor of one of China’s richest regions. He was arrested and charged for abuse of power. He was imprisoned with his wife. In China, corruption may pollute the system from time to time, but it is not the system. More than two South Korean Presidents have been imprisoned for years for what may be described as petty theft.

Nigeria’s Mr. Bo Xilai would still be seated at a high political seat, brandishing a medal of honor from the highest court of the land. That is what Alex Perry means by saying that ‘Nigeria’s leaders are oftentimes indistinguishable from its criminals. There may be many routes to development. But none of its will accommodate this high level of audacity of corruption.

It is common to say that Nigeria is a corrupt country. However, that does not really make much sense. Almost every country is corrupt to the extent that there are always some people, in the public or private sector, who deal corruptly. So, a self-acclaimed Nigerian patriot can answer back, “but all countries are corrupt because they have corrupt people”. This is true. I recall a friend who was vexed with what he considers my puritanic stand on public probity and advised that a country needs some corruption to even get running. To him, some degree of corruption is a lubricant of public leadership.

Nevertheless, Nigeria is corrupt in the sense that many countries are not, or at least in the sense that countries aspiring to development should not be. In Nigeria, corruption is not just pervasive, it is respectable and even admirable. One measure of this Nigerian exceptionalism is the number of manifestly corrupt politicians who occupy high political offices in Nigeria, and who have bright political future. These corrupt VIPs didn’t mask their way to the top. They got to the top notwithstanding that people know they are extremely corrupt, even criminal in their conducts. Their continuous ascent to high political offices despite open history of corruption and criminality suggests that either the people do not care much about corruption and criminality, or the system is trapped in indifference or cooption. In which case, corruption and criminality become social norms, a form of social compact.

Do not take my word that Nigeria is corrupt in an exceptional manner. Take the word of a former Nigerian Assistant Inspector General of Police who later became a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. One morning he stood up in the legislative chamber, surveyed the many rows where the so-called ‘distinguished’ Nigerians sat to make laws that cater to their own interests and do deals. He blurted out in disbelief: “I never knew I would meet so many people I put in jail as a police officer here in this chamber”. If you did not get the point. He could not believe that criminals who served terms when he was a police chief could become distinguished senators of the republic. May be that is the reason Alex Perry, the Newsweek columnist, captured Nigeria’s exceptionalism in corruption in these devastating words: “Nigeria’s rulers have often been indistinguishable from its criminals. In Nigeria, corruption does not just pollute the system. Corruption is the system”. 

Nigeria’s rulers are indistinguishable from its criminals. In Nigeria, corruption is the system. Let those words sink in. I didn’t make this up. You can read them up in the April 25, 2011, edition of the US Time magazine. The key point is that Nigeria’s version of public corruption is both pervasive and corrosive of public ethics. Elsewhere criminals operate underground, below the law. In Nigeria, they operate in the full glare of the law, they challenge the legal order; and the legal order bends to accommodate and normalize their nefarious acts. That is what Alex Perry means by saying that in Nigeria, corruption is the system.

Corruption scholars worry about how corruption distorts allocation of resources and leads to development failure, and ultimately compounds poverty. That is the reason corrupt countries are likely to be poor. There is an inverse relationship between corruption and development indexes. Developed countries are usually less corrupt. So, if a country is top on development indicators, it will likely be low on corruption index. It might be that being less corrupt enables a country to develop or that being developed means it will be less corrupt.

The discourse of corruption and development has gone through a lot of nuances and elaborations. Development scholars used to consider corruption as the most important problem of development. However, experience of Asia in development led to the idea that some degree of corruption, even grand corruption, is compatible with economic development. In the case of China, some scholars argued that China grew tremendously despite corruption because production grew faster than the grabbing hand. A popular aphorism puts it better: “In China the Hen was increasingly robust and capable of having more eggs than the Chinese foxes (officials) could grab”.  So, no matter how much official stole, GDP growth continued.

Yet in China, thieving officials faced the music. In 2012, a senior Chinese official, Bo Xilai, was arrested and charged for abuse of power and graft. Prime Minister Xi Jinping took the opportunity to launch war against corruption, warning comrades that corruption “would doom the Party and the nation”.  This began a real crackdown on corruption. Yes. China has corrupt officials. However, corruption has not stopped economic growth. This is partly because in China corruption is not the system. The system responds against corruption when it is detected. In Nigeria, corruption is the system. It does not respond against corruption even when it is in the public.

There are many theoretical explanations for why a country could be pervasively corruption. One of them holds that corruption is a ‘collective action’ problem. This is because people expect others to act corruptly and that becomes self-reinforcing. In a corrupt system, it is difficult to opt out of the corruption web. This is because there is a social compact built on expectations of corrupt acts. We expect people to act corruptly. This makes corruption almost compelling. The transaction cost of corruption is low since you incur no real social cost for corrupt acts. A corrupt system has inbuilt incentives that encourage corrupt acts. It is a form of social pathology. Everyone identifies that pathology. But the problem is understanding how it developed and how to destroy it. This difficulty is what makes corruption path dependent. A corrupt country continues to be corrupt until there is a disruption that creates another trajectory of social development.

Some think the way out of corruption is evolutionary. Others think it is revolutionary. One thing is clear, you cannot exit a culture of corruption if the political economy is not infused with values and institutions of ethical individualism and egalitarianism. Ethical individualism provides the motivation for social accountability. But it does not guarantee accountability. Those who conceive themselves as equals will have reason to demand accountability from political authorities. But even citizens who are motivated to demand accountability may still lack the resources and real opportunity to exert accountability. Where that is the case, there is impunity and corruption trap.

This is where Nigeria is. The exceptionalism of corruption in Nigeria is that corruption is now a system of public leadership. Nigeria’s corrupts are not restrained by threat of legal enforcement or social ostracism. Legal rules are designed and administered to wink at corruption, or even to aid and abet it. Recently, judges have issued decisions that normalize corruption and criminality in public administration. The complicit of the judiciary in helping corrupt Nigerians escape any form of legal stricture is only explainable as a sign of endemic state capture. The entire administrative state in Nigeria is complicit in reinforcing corruption in Nigeria.

In the matter of election, which is the most important issue of national security and stability, the electoral regulator blatantly refuses to act against clear evidence of corruption and criminality. Even when the constitution prohibits certain corrupt and criminal acts, the administration of justice denies accountability. The recent electoral decisions of some tribunals and courts in Nigeria, waving away with disdain clear evidence of corruption and criminality, are classic illustrations of impunity- the audacity of corruption.

What does systemic corruption mean for development. Political economist, Yuen Yuen Ang examines why China prospered in the face of ‘vast corruption’. She analyzed and dismissed some of the expert opinions on the paradox of Chinese economic boom amidst vast corruption. She concludes that the experts fail to understand that corruption takes different forms. Chinese corruption is benign, rather than malignant. She argues that “while corruption is never good, not all forms of corruption are equally bad for the economy, nor do they cause the same kind of harm”. In China, corruption does not fully inhibit development whereas in Nigeria, it does.

That Chinese type of corruption may not ground its economy may be understandable considering the point eminent political scientist, Samuel Huntington, made about how ‘exchange-based corruption’ like petty bribe “may be one way of surmounting traditional laws or bureaucratic regulations which hamper economic transactions.” Petty theft, grand theft, speed money and access money, as bad as they are, may not completely hobble the economic engine. But when corruption has become a system such that its audacity trumps the administration of justice to the extent that the rules themselves surrender to the juggernauts of corruption, then no meaningful development can occur. The engine will grind to a halt.

This scenario is one aspect of state capture. The criminal and corrupt class captures the state and its instrument of governmentality. Nothing is emblematic of governmentality than the judiciary. Formal constitutional democracy howsoever described enshrines legitimacy, based on, the supremacy of the judiciary. Through the power of judicial review, the courts ensure that all forms of corruption and criminality do not become the ‘system’ by imposing costs and deterrence against them.

Nigeria’s exceptionalism in corruption draws another distinctive between it and a comparable country, Indonesia. Indonesia has the misfortune of military dictators like Nigeria, dictators who are corrupt. But none of them is like Abacha who stole an equivalent of 10% of Nigeria’s GDP. John Hopkins’ Political Scientist, Peter Lewis in his book, Growing Apart: Oil, Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria, 2007, attributes the divergence in development between Indonesia and Nigeria partly to corruption (whereas Suharto commitment to growth, Nigeria’s military leaders were committed to “clientelism, distributional politics and economic predation”). While Suharto and his military clique could focus on development despite significant corruption, Nigeria’s Abachas could not. Because corruption was the system in Abacha’s Nigeria, development was inconceivable as the focus of statecraft.

Many development scholars argue that the main ingredient for economic development is an elite consensus for development. Unless the ruling elites of a country are committed to a ‘development agenda’ there will be no sustained development. Development requires the ruling elites to focus on implementing such an agenda as a primary and controlling ambition. This is the secret of the East Asian transformation. Successful East Asian countries were led by leaders who primarily focused on development and were accidentally corrupt. Nigeria hard luck is that its ruling elites are primarily focused on corruption and accidentally hit on development. In Nigeria, development is an accidental outcome. This is also the significant difference between 1960s and 2000s Nigeria. In the former, leaders were focused on development, but incidentally got corrupt. In the latter, leaders are focused on corruption and are incidentally developmental.

Nigerian leaders wax rhetorical about development agenda. President Tinubu talks endlessly about how he intends to push Nigeria towards development. Our ruling elites talk about emulating China and South Korea. But we do not treat corrupt officials like they do? Mr. Bo Xilai was a senior Chinese official, the Governor of one of China’s richest regions. He was arrested and charged for abuse of power. He was imprisoned with his wife. In China, corruption may pollute the system from time to time, but it is not the system. More than two South Korean Presidents have been imprisoned for years for what may be described as petty theft.

Nigeria’s Mr. Bo Xilai would still be seated at a high political seat, brandishing a medal of honor from the highest court of the land. That is what Alex Perry means by saying that ‘Nigeria’s leaders are oftentimes indistinguishable from its criminals. There may be many routes to development. But none of its will accommodate this high level of audacity of corruption.

While trying to controversially obtain billions of dollars from Nigeria through the courts, P&ID had access to Nigeria’s internal documents which it should not have had access to, a British court found.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the court also ruled that the contract and arbitration for which the firm wanted Nigeria’s money was fraudulently obtained.

Robin Knowles, a High Court judge in London, ruled that the 2010 gas contract at the centre of the long-running saga involving Nigeria and Process & Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) was fraudulent.

The ruling comes after a decade of legal wrangling that put Africa’s largest economy at risk of having to pay $11 billion in compensation.

In 2017, an arbitration tribunal ordered Nigeria to pay $6.6 billion to P&ID following the collapse of a contract between the group and Nigeria’s petroleum ministry. The award increased to $11 billion with interest.

On Monday, Mr Knowles overseeing the appeal at the high court in London said the awards “were obtained by fraud” and “the way in which they were procured was, contrary to public policy”.

Interestingly and beyond the corruption-tainted contract, the judge indicted P&ID for improper retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents that it had received during the arbitration.

Mr Knowles said P&ID retained the documents (rather than returning them unread) so as to monitor Nigeria’s position and awareness as the arbitration continued.

“This included monitoring whether Nigeria had become aware of the deception being practised by P&ID on the Tribunal and on Nigeria as a party before the Tribunal,” the judge said.

He added that Nigeria’s right to confidential access to legal advice was utterly compromised throughout all or most of the Arbitration. “It is now apparent that through the course of the Arbitration, P&ID was provided with many of Nigeria’s internal legal documents,” the judge said.

Specifically, there was a flow of over 40 of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents to P&ID during the period of the arbitration from commencement on 22 August 2012 to Final award on 31 January 2017.

Details of the contents of these internal legal documents were revealed in the 140-page judgement delivered by Mr Knowles on Monday.

Between 2012 and 2017, these materials monitored by P&ID showed that Nigeria had no awareness that its former legal adviser, Grace Taiga, had been bribed when the gas contract came about and that bribery or corrupt payments continued to buy her silence. Ms Taiga was a former legal adviser to Nigeria’s petroleum ministry.

“Indeed they were bribing or making corrupt payments to keep the truth concealed and (through retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents) monitoring Nigeria’s awareness of the truth,” the judge said.

P&ID argued that its retention of Nigeria’s internal legal documents “did not cause any substantial injustice within section 68, because it had no effect whatsoever on the Awards, irrespective of how or from whom the documents were obtained.”

The judge, however, rejected the argument saying they did not cause substantial injustice because they gave P&ID no relevant advantage in the arbitration but it shows the effect of a dishonest course of conduct.

“The Court will be realistic here about what proof is possible in terms of showing the effect of a dishonest course of conduct. The nature and contents of the documents, and the scale, continuity and circumstances of P&ID’s conduct were such that, in my judgement, Nigeria’s right to confidential access to legal advice was utterly compromised throughout all or most of the Arbitration.”

The judge agreed with Nigeria. He said: “I have reviewed these internal documents and at least some were plainly subject to legal professional privilege: they were confidential to Nigeria and P&ID was not entitled to see them.”

P&ID’s improper retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents, received at various points during the arbitration, enabled P&ID to track Nigeria’s internal consideration of merits, strategy and settlement during the arbitration, court papers show.

In addition, P&ID’s improper retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents also allowed it to monitor whether Nigeria had become aware of the fact that the tribunal and Nigeria were being deceived.

In concluding the matter, Mr Knowles said: “I will be referring a copy of this judgement to the Bar Standards Board in the case of Mr Trevor Burke KC and to both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board in the case of Mr Seamus Andrew.

“I trust that these two regulators of the legal profession in England & Wales will consider the professional consequences of the conduct of Mr Burke KC and Mr Andrew (P&ID) lawyers in relation to Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents.”

[Premium Times]

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has removed the name of Timipre Sylva of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the list of candidates for the November 11 governorship election.

INEC also removed the name of Sylva’s ruining mate, Joshua Maciver, from the list.

 This was observed in the amended list of candidates released released by the Commission

The amended list was signed by the Secretary of INEC, Rose Oriaran-Anthony,

The column containing the names of APC candidates and his ruining mate was left empty in the list on the INEC website, with the words “court order” written.

The Commission also listed Ahumbe Chiazor as the running mate and Uchechukwu Ishiodu as the governorship candidate for the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the state election of Imo.

In the revised document, Oriaran-Anthony clarified that the Commission’s actions complied with court orders on the lists supplied to it.

According to her, the Commission received a court order regarding the APC’s nominee for the Bayelsa governorship race after it was published.

“By virtue of the provision of Section 287 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Commission is bound to enforce the orders of the court on the nomination of candidates by political parties in the state.

“The Amended list of candidates in respect of the 2023 Bayelsa State governorship election is hereby amended pursuant to the court orders served on the commission,” Oriaran-Anthony said.

She further reminded Imo voters that in compliance with Section 32 of the Electoral Act of 2022 and the timetable and schedule of activities for the election, INEC released the final list of candidates for the state governorship election on June 9.

She said after the publication, the Commission was served with an order of court for including the PRP and its candidate on the 2023 Imo State governorship election list.

The ICIR reported that a Federal High Court in Abuja disqualified Sylva from participating in the Bayelsa State Governorship Election.

In a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/821/2023, Demesuoyefa Kolomo, a member of the All Progressives Congress in the state, asked the court to determine Sylva’s eligibility for the election, given his past terms as governor of Bayelsa from May 29, 2007, to April 15, 2008, and from May 27, 2008, to January 27, 2012.

But, in his affidavit, Sylva stated he was elected once as the state’s governor, disputing the 2007 election’s occurrence. While citing an April 2008 court of appeal ruling that nullified the 2007 election, the former minister also emphasised his constitutional and legal right to contest the most-coveted seat in the state.

However, delivering judgment on Monday, October 9, the presiding judge, Donatus Okorowo, held that Sylva, having been sworn in twice and ruled for five years as governor, would breach the 1999 constitution if allowed to contest again.

Okorowo also said Sylva, who served as the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources in the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, would spend more than eight years in office if allowed to participate in the election and eventually win.

Okorowo highlighted that the drafters of the nation’s constitution explicitly stipulated that a person should not be elected governor more than twice. 

He further mentioned that all parties involved in the case acknowledged that Sylva had been elected into office twice.

Okorowo stated that if Sylva could contest the next election, any citizen could contest for a political office as often as they wish.

The states are three of six states in Nigeria with off-season governorship polls. 

The current governor of Imo State’s term expires on January 14, 2024; Kogi and Bayelsa States had respective terms that expire on January 26, 2024, and February 13 of the same year.

The ICIR, in this report, presented the top candidates in the three states and their chances.

[ICIR]

• In a bid to counter wildlife trade, Nigeria recently publicly destroyed seized pangolin scales, leopard, python and crocodile skins.
• Nearly 4 tonnes of seized pangolin scales and 110 kilograms of dried skins from a variety of protected species were incinerated.
• Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world, for the use of their scales and their meat is considered a delicacy by some.

In a groundbreaking move, Nigeria has publicly destroyed tonnes of seized wildlife products, including pangolin scales and leopard, python and crocodile skins. The public display echoes similar events in Kenya and elsewhere on the continent and marks Nigeria's renewed commitment to combatting wildlife trafficking and safeguarding the nation's biodiversity.

The event was the first of its kind in Nigeria and was intended to send a strong message to traffickers and consumers of the illegal trade, and to safeguard the nation's biodiversity, according to conservation officials.

"By destroying these pangolin scales and skins, we're crushing the illegal trade that preys on our wildlife. Our commitment is unwavering, and we will not compromise on the protection of our endangered species," said Kolawole Gbenga, head of conservation monitoring at the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Nesrea).

The incineration ceremony took place in Abuja on 17 October, according to local media, and pictures were posted on the Nesrea Facebook site. The event was presided over by representatives from various government agencies, local and international environmental NGOs, and wildlife conservation experts.

Nesrea said it had collaborated with the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) Foundation, with support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Together, they burned nearly four tonnes of seized pangolin scales and 110 kilogrammes of dried skins from a variety of protected species.

Gbenga also said that Nigeria is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The international agreement seeks to ensure that the global trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of species.

The international community would see that Nigeria is serious about combatting the illegal wildlife trade, improving the battered image of Nigeria, which has become a transit point for illicit trade in animal products.

According to CITES, pangolins are among the world's endangered "Big Five", together with elephants, rhinos, sharks and tigers.

The pangolin is the world's most trafficked mammal and is hunted primarily for its scales, which are in high demand in traditional Asian medicine. The meat is also a delicacy in some Asian cultures and is consumed as "bush meat" in some parts of Africa.

In some areas, the pangolin is also killed for superstitious reasons, as its sighting is believed to signify the onset of drought, further driving the mammal into extinction.

Each of the eight pangolin species, including four from Asia and four from Africa, holds a place in Appendix I of the CITES, ensuring that they receive the highest level of legal protection. With the severe depletion of the four Asian pangolin species, the demand in Asian markets is now being met by a growing supply of trafficked African pangolins and their parts.

While existing CITES rules impose restrictions on the trade of Asian species, they do permit regulated trade in the four African species. However, illegal trade is threatening this species dangerously close to extinction, with two of the four African pangolin species listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (or IUCN) Red List.

In recent years, Nigeria has become a busy transit hub for pangolin-scale trafficking from the four remaining African species.

According to recent research by the University of Cambridge, pangolin scales intercepted by Nigerian officials between 2010 and 2021 amounted to a staggering 190 407 kilogrammes. This translates to around 800 000 dead pangolins.

Ivory tusks have also been found among the impounded scales, which signals trafficking is far more complex and well-organised than previously thought.

According to Gbenga, Nigerian authorities recognise the urgency of protecting this species and have taken significant steps to address the trafficking of pangolins through its borders.

"We have adopted the first National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime. Subsequently, the government has also established the Wildlife Law Enforcement Task Force, of which Nesrea is the operational lead, to work closely with other key stakeholders and the Federal Ministry of Environment in addressing wildlife crime in the country," he explained.

He added that the Nigerian government, through Nesrea, also uses the Endangered Species (Control of International Trade and Traffic) Act and the National Environmental (Protection of Endangered Species in Domestic and International Trade) Regulations 2023 to combat wildlife crime.

Nigeria joins other African countries, notably Kenya, which held its first public burning of ivory tusks in 1989. That event, the first of its kind, was presided over by then president Daniel Arap Moi. In 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta presided over a similar burning of ivory tusks at Nairobi National Park in a move designed to send a message to poachers and consumers alike.

Nathan Gichohi, a senior ecologist at the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) based at the Tsavo-Mokomazi landscape, supported and endorsed Nigeria's move:

"It's a very good thing to destroy the pangolin scales. Because for one, if they are not destroyed, they will end up in the illegal market. This is what usually happens with all trafficked wildlife trophies. If they are not destroyed, of course, they will end up in the illegal market," Gichohi said.

The AWF has also partnered with UNODC to curb illegal wildlife trade in the international arena.

"It's a question of working with the consumer countries, together with international instruments like CITES and those other multilateral agreements so that the consumer market is closed," he said.

Other African countries that have burnt items seized from illegal wildlife traders include Gabon, Tanzania and South Africa.

This is a significant step for these countries, as illegal wildlife trade has often been linked to illicit financial flows. From bribes to money laundering, the list is endless.

According to the 2020 UNODC report, it's estimated that between 2016 and 2018, the illegal income generated from trafficking ivory was around $400 million, and for rhino horn, it was about $230 million.

The bulk of this money is made at the retail level, where the products are processed and sold to the final buyers. In reality, the actual illegal financial flows, which involve moving money across borders, could be far higher and as an unknown percentage funds criminal and terror networks inside host countries, Nigeria and other African countries are now looking to crack down harder.

[news24]