By Dele Sobowale

“When those in office regard the power vested in then as personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves…The fundamental structures of the modern state are eroded like the supporting beams of a house after termites have eaten them. Then the people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders”. Lee Kuan Yew, 1988. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 2).

Nigerians, long past being shocked by revelations about official corruption, have been informed that the Federal Minister for Aviation, Mrs Stella Oduah, had received two cars worth $1.6m (N225m) from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA. At least for once, the Minister’s spokesman, Mr Joel Obi, who addresses irrelevancies whenever the Minister is under attack, did not deny the fact that the cars were delivered and received.

He, however, had a “defence” of what will eventually turn out to be multiple crimes, money laundering, falsification of records, import duty evasion, exceeding statutory approval limits and of course, bribery or extortion. The cars were not registered in her name; they belong to the Ministry; when she goes she will leave them behind”.

Nothing more stupid had ever been written by anyone who had left his conscience at home when he took up the job of managing the Minister’s image. The obvious question one should ask Obi is: who told the Minister that the Ministry or the Federal government needed two bullet proof cars, bought at such colossal sums at the Ministry of Aviation? Another question which Obi might help us with is: Are we supposed to allow any Minister to decide which type of cars they would officially use? If N225 million is acceptable for the Minister of Aviation, why can any other Minister request for a Rolls Royce – bullet proof, of course?

Years ago, I met an American who had worked in several countries and three continents of the world, and I asked him what he believes is the cause of bad governance in Africa in general and Nigeria, in particular. His answer was short and sharp. “Corrupt African officials show no remorse even when they are caught”.

Incidentally, I happen to agree with the Minister of Aviation and Mr Obi that the Minister needs protection from terrorists and potential assassins. So, she deserves a bullet-proof vehicle. But, she is not the only one. Virtually, all the Ministers and top officials in Nigeria could be targets for attacks. The points of disagreements are as follows.

There should have been an official policy on this covering all the Ministers. One doesn’t have to like them; they might not even be performing as well as we want. But, we don’t want them becoming victims of criminal attack because that will do more damage to our nation. There is apparently no official policy because if there is one, all the security vehicles would have been procured from the same source and at reasonable price. The taint of corruption would have been removed.

Then there was the issue of price. The Director-General of the NCAA, who attributed the absurd price to the fact that Coscharis has a monopoly on BMW vehicles in Nigeria must have forgotten that since this is not an off-the shelf deal, the NCAA was under no obligation to buy from the Nigerian dealer at three times the landed cost if the cars were ordered from Germany. Anyway one looks at it, there is criminal waste involved – at a time when all Ministries and agencies of government are pleading lack of funds to execute projects.

The argument that the cars were included in the budget also raises the point that the budget was either deliberately or inadvertently inflated. At best, it implies that somebody had failed to do their homework to obtain the true price of the cars or, at worst, that they actually knew the correct prices but chose to budget the wrong figures for their own benefit and perhaps the Coscharis officials involved in the deal.

No government, however rich the nation might be ever has sufficient money to fund all the projects conceivable. That is why priorities must be determined. Safety of top government officials is indeed a priority, but, it should not require more than the barest minimum to provide for that safety. When more is spent, either negligently or willfully, then other priority projects suffer and some might be as important as the security of top government officials.

Right now, one fact is inescapable, the NCAA had, by paying more for the two cars than they were worth had short-changed other projects and other beneficiaries of government expenditure. Several projects which could have been executed with the difference between the amount paid and the actual cost and have been neglected for “lack of funds” have become the unintended victims of this scandal.

Among the most unpleasant consequences of scandals, such as this, are the revelations made about the characters of the officials involved. Leadership had been described by John Brademas, a US Congressman as: “intelligence and integrity or, to use two synonyms: competence and character”. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 125).

At a time when the competence of the top Aviation officials was in question, they have removed all doubt about their lack of integrity. Not a single one of them demonstrated remorse. None said. “I am sorry for what happened”. All they were giving us were excuses for a scandal which was of their own making and there was a pervasive attitude of “what is all the fuss about N225 million?”

Mr Fola Akinkuotu, the NCAA Director General, came across as someone lacking in integrity leaving one to wonder how such a man happened to reach the top in any agency. His explanation that the cars would be used to convey international dignitaries contradicted Obi’s submission that they were meant for the Minister. He also did not explain how they have been deployed since they were delivered; neither did he explain how the international dignitaries, who must now be driven in N225 million cars have been accommodated until now.

Mr Akinkuotu’s statements have also raised another question, both about NCAA and other agencies under the Ministry of Aviation. We should rightly ask if this is the first time such demands have been made of the NCAA and other agencies and if not what had been the response? We might discover that before reaching for N225 million in one go, there had been deals for N25 million, N50 million or even N100 million in the past. Appetite grows with eating and it is safe to assume that the impunity on display started on a low scale and each successful escapade emboldened the syndicate until they felt comfortable about swallowing almost a quarter of a million at once.

Mr Akinkuotu meanwhile saved his strongest criticism, not for the fraudulent individuals who over-inflated the contract but for the patriotic Nigerians who blew the whistle. In the process the man had established beyond reasonable doubt that he has no integrity to protect. By so doing, he has left us with an important question: Do we need such a man at the top of an agency on whose performance millions of air passengers and even more millions on whom the aircrafts could drop suddenly?

Delay in resolving that question might be dangerous. MrAkinkuotu appears like a dangerous man; definitely can’t be trusted.