By Chris Agbiti
Not a few Nigerian, perhaps, received with much gusto the news of the exit of Emmanuel Ayoola JSC (Rtd) from the Independent Corrupt Practices And Other Related Offences Commission, popularly called, ICPC, as chairman. It will be recalled that when he was appointed chair of the Commission to replace Mustapha Akanbi, JSC, (Rtd) quite a number of informed minds viewed his appointment with mixed feelings.

His appointment came at a time Nigeria was in the nadir of corruption rating in the international community. The public expectation of an anti-corruption czar was then largely defined by the template of dare-devilry and adventurous fighting spirit as set by Malam Nuhu Ribadu, his counterpart then in the sister Commission, EFCC. Thus, coming from such a background as a retired judicial officer with its defining ethical orientation of non aggressiveness and extreme conservatism, it did not take long before justice Ayoola began to prove the cynics right as his tenure was much characterized with languor and lack luster performances.

By Chris Agbiti
I could recall the interview of Justice Ayoola published in the Vanguard of Friday, the 15th day of September, 2006, at the outset of his tenure at the ICPC, wherein the Justice Ayoola laboured, albeit fruitlessly, in response to the incisive question posed by the interviewer as to why the ICPC had less publicity than its sister commission, The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). He attempted to explain it away by saying that the less publicity of the ICPC had nothing to do with its efficiency.

Justice Emmanuel Ayoola

The learned retired justice of the Supreme Court went further to state that the ICPC is not only a law enforcement agency but also an agency with a mandate to do system review.  He capped it up with a clincher that the reason for ICPC’s less publicity could be attributable to Nigerians love for new things, apparently referring to the goodwill enjoyed by the then much newer EFCC.  Some explanation.

It bears repeating to state that at the inception of the Obasanjo administrations, the country had already attained the ignominious rating as the 2nd most corrupt nation in the world.  Thus, the task of fighting the hydra-headed monster, called corruption, inevitably, became the first major assignment the Obasanjo administrations had to grapple with, hence, the birth of ICPC.

Sadly enough, since the inception of ICPC, the much expected courage, zeal, aggressive drive and, I dare say, the adventurous spirit required to carry out such noble responsibility of sanitizing the nation of the vice of corruption, the raison d’être  for the establishment of ICPC, have been found lacking in all those that have so far piloted its affairs. This perhaps may be responsible for the near comatose state of ICPC, and the attendant derisive appellation of “toothless bulldog” the commission has acquired.

Justice Ayoola’s predecessor, Justice Mustapha Akanbi,(Retd.) in rationalizing his own inefficiency, inundated us with the excuse of paucity of fund (one wonders why the Ribadu EFCC was not so hampered) as the reason for his non performance. And thus, when Justice Ayoola came up with his own rationalization, encapsulated in a high falutin phrase, “system review”, (whatever that means) he merely succeeded in treating us to an old song rendered in a different tune.

Nigerians, of course, already corruption-fatigued, wearied and weigh-down by the perversion of their value system really expected new strategies of fighting corruption at ICPC under Justice Ayoola to complement the effectual template of fighting corruption evolved by Ribadu at EFCC.

Methink it is a misconception of the true intention of the framers of the ICPC Act and a misinterpretation of the roles of the ICPC in the fight against corruption, for the learned retired Justice to conceive “system review” within the perspectives of public advocacy and orientation as the policy thrust of his leadership at ICPC revealed. Justice Ayoola failed to realize that other agencies, past and present, i.e MAMSER, WAI_C and lately, NOA and SERVICOM had fruitlessly played that role of public advocacy and orientation, no thanks to the hydra-headed monster itself that helped to stymie all noble efforts in that direction.

As the ICPC embraces a new leadership in its management and administration under the proposed new helmsman, Justice Pius Olaiwola Aderemi, it is pertinent to stress on the need for the new helmsman to properly redefine the perspective of the mandate of ICPC by fashioning out new strategies of fighting corruption in Nigeria. Corruption, for majority of Nigerians involved, has become an attitude. It now pervades every sphere of our lives. so much so that  it even defines our value system in certain respect.

An attitude that has thus become so central to the collective psyche of a group can only be altered by fear of pains that comes with the power of sanctions which the law has imbued the ICPC with to invoke. That may explain why the “Ribadu EFCC” could invoke more fear in people involved in financial and economic crimes than the ICPC, Code of Conduct and the Police.

Much as I am aware of the statutory provision of Section 3(4) of the ICPC Act that reserves the chair of the Commission to a person who has held or qualified to hold office as a judge of a superior court of record, it is pertinent to still state that except the new Chair of ICPC consciously makes a clear departure from the existing paradigm of fighting corruption, defined, perhaps by the ethical orientation of the professional backgrounds of his two predecessors, (of which Justice Aderemi unfortunately belongs) it is but a matter of time that the Commission will begin to struggle for a place at the back sit of infamy where the other non performing agencies of government are seated, snoring away.