By Muyiwa Adetiba

It was reported last week that our President wrote to the President of South Africa who is currently the Head of AU (African Union) on the debilitating effect of corruption in Africa.

While it is true that corruption in its various forms has arrested the development of the world’s most naturally endowed continent, the timing of the letter could not have been more curious.

As the letter was finding its way to the southern part of our continent,another letter concerning the fate of his anti-corruption czar had been placed in the hands of an investigating panel. It was a letter that sparked off a series of actions starting from the gestapo style ‘invitation’ of the EFCC boss to his humiliating detention for ten days.

The face of this administration’s anti-corruption war has been accused of corruption and insubordination by his supervisor. Unfortunately, both of them live in glass houses and the stones at their disposal could shatter the thickest of glass.

The rest of us have taken ring side seats while hoping the two gladiators would throw weapons of Mutually Assured Destruction at each other. I would be surprised if the ensuing wounds could easily be patched up by this administration’s spin doctors. Meanwhile, where else outside EFCC is the President’s war against corruption being fought? Is it the ICPC? Or the Police? Or the Justice Department headed by the petitioner-in- chief?

The President’s letter would not have reached South Africa before an episode involving one of his ministers took the centre stage. The NNDC has long been one of the country’s more serious drainpipes and one of our politicians’ more important cash cows. Each successive President must have known this. Ditto successive NASS members.

To them, NNDC served a purpose. Only it was not the one it was created for.  And it was not the one that served the people of the Niger Delta, or the people of this country. This time, a simmering feud within and around the organisation has blown open. The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and the ex-MD of NNDC are tearing into each other and dragging themselves in the mud like pigs.

In a case of ‘if you Tarka me, I will Dabor you’ a story of hubris, greed, vendetta and sexual immorality is shaping. Again, the rest of us have taken ring side seats to see how the whole episode will unfold. It is unlikely that either will come out of it smelling of roses.

Also unfolding is the case of another Minister and a lady. Only this time, there was no mention yet of an amorous interface. Only corruption. A well-known female politician who was suspended along other members of the board for ‘financial untidiness’ has asked the country to look further up as the source of the rot. She has accused the Minister of Labour, the supervising Minister of NSITF, of padding the budget to the tune of 1.2 billion Naira and inserting five SUV cars. Again, we await the story as it unfolds.

Akpabio

While still on the Labour Ministry, we should not forget that it was around this time too that the National Assembly decided to suspend the employment of a thousand workers from each of the local governments by the ministry of labour because it was not allowed to be part of its implementation. The bigger picture is never important to small minds. Those who decided to suspend an initiative like this despite the current dire times are small minds. Like a commentator said, ‘why would an examiner also want to take part in an exam if it is not another face of corruption’? It is the same way I wonder why NASS members are so interested in constituency projects when we have the Local Government as a recognised tier of State administration. The primary duty of the National Assembly which is to make laws for the good of the country has become subordinated to more lucrative duties like oversight and constituency projects.

NASS is currently in the news again for the wrong reasons. A video of some SUVs has surfaced on the social media. If true, it means the cars of our august members of the House of Representatives have arrived. If true, it means that despite COVID 19, despite the looming recession, our so called political representatives still had the guts to import about 400 cars into the country. Which country outside Africa would import vehicles of such volume if it had a fledging automobile industry that could help to reduce unemployment at home? Which could even spend scarce foreign exchange at a time like this? It is, if true, insensitive and unconscionable. The country needs to decide what to do with NASS, and very soon!

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So when our esteemed leader writes another foreign leader on corruption especially at this point in time, it suggests a couple of things. He is either saying ‘read my lips’ or he is out of tune with the reality in his country. The former is common to politicians the world over. It is mouthing the right thing even when you know, and the people hearing you know, that what you are preaching is not what you are practicing. The latter is more worrisome. It means you are either in denial, living in the past, or you are in the dark. If Africa is held back as endowed as it is because of corruption, Nigeria which should be its crown jewel, is comatose because of the same ailment.

Nigeria has everything a country needs to thrive – size, population, climate and resources; human and natural. But leadership has always been the problem. President Buhari once had the moral right to pontificate on corruption. In fact that was the ace he had when he was campaigning. But he has been on the saddle now for more than five years. Very little has changed and I dare say he has all but lost that right today. And for the avoidance of doubt, corruption is not limited to the appropriation or misappropriation of funds. That would be too narrow. Anything that is opaque; anything that uses other considerations outside transparency, justice and equity, is corrupt. That includes nepotism.

So in order not to be accused of hypocrisy, or penning a weightless letter, our President should first look in the mirror, remove the log in his eyes so he can best see the speck in his brother leaders’ eyes. The country is oozing with corruption – from COVID 19 palliative, to poverty alleviation scheme, to CBN Agric initiative. The stench is close to source.

Vanguard