Areas of concentration for President Buhari (3)

By Douglas Anele
Remember, a committee of the Senate of the Second Republic, headed by the late Dr.Olusola Saraki, was about to scrutinise the Ayo Irikefe Report concerning the purported missing NNPC funds when Buhari came to power through a military coup in December 31, 1993. Since then, the Report seems to have disappeared without trace. So where is the Irikefe Report? Was Buhari cleared or indicted by the panel?

Buhari

If he was cleared, why was the findings not made public before he was overthrown in August 1985? As far as I am concerned, silly insults and shibboleths from Buharimaniacs notwithstanding, President Buhari’s anti-corruption reputation remains tainted unless contents of the Irikefe Report are made public or he publicly addresses the matter himself.

Perhaps, Buhari refused to appear before the Oputa Panel set up by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to address some troubling national issues because he was either unprepared or unwilling to answer embarrassing questions concerning the $2.8 billion scandal. Such scornful attitude to the panel is a clear case of hubris bordering on the sacred cow syndrome that has made a caricature of the Nigerian system.

The only way a political leader serious about fighting corruption can win over sceptics is by being transparent and humble enough to address serious allegations of financial irregularities that occurred in any public or private institution where he or she worked previously.

Another problem with President Buhari’s scapegoat mode of fighting corruption is his arbitrary decision to beam his anti-graft searchlight only on Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure. Prof. Ben Nwabueze has masterfully discussed this matter in his thought-provoking and well-researched series of essays entitled “Position of Igbo Leaders of Thought on corruption probe”. I completely endorse his criticism of the specious arguments by the Presidency and other APC leaders supporting the selective character of the probe; hence there is no need to repeat his arguments here.

But even if Buhari carries out his threat to probe Jonathan’s government only, one would not be surprised if some prominent APC stalwarts, especially those that decamped to the party from the PDP and who helped Buhari to emerge as President, are caught in the anti-corruption dragnet. On the other hand, as long as previous leaders aside from Jonathan are not investigated by President Buhari, his war against corruption will remain grossly incomplete like a fraction without its integer. Besides, why the vuvuzela approach, the media orchestration, of the probe? Is all the media sensationalism necessary?

By announcing (advertising might be a more appropriate term) every time his intention to probe his immediate predecessor, President Buhari is unwittingly forewarning those he wants to probe to take necessary precautions that could lead to the disappearance of cogent and implicative evidence which might have consequential implications for the outcome of the proposed probe. In other words, loyalists of former President Jonathan and other key players in his government still occupy strategic positions in both public and private institutions. Therefore, to protect them, these loyalists would ensure that relevant information that might implicate their benefactors is hidden away from the prying eyes of the investigators or, better still, destroyed.

Inspite of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s scepticism about the usefulness of probes, the quantum of official corruption in Nigeria is so horrifying that the importance of scrutinising past governments cannot be dismissed cavalierly. But the way the current administration is handling the matter is somewhat amateurish, as if talking about corruption repeatedly makes combating it a lot easier.

There is no good reason why President Buhari should not revisit, in addition to cases of financial rascality that might have occurred during Jonathan’s tenure, the $12.6 billion dollar gulf war windfall of 1990-1991, the hurried public expenditures towards the end of Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime, and the billions of dollars wasted on phantom electrification programmes and white elephant projects between 1999 to 2007. What about the gargantuan malpractices in the allocation of oil wells, oil fields, marginal wells and oil blocks from 1985 to date – why should the President not probe all this? As Prof. Nwabueze succinctly observed, “No evidence of corruption is more visible and concrete than the palatial houses built by past leaders, multi-billion projects like a university, a library, mechanised farm etc”.

By probing Jonathan only, President Buhari will be ignoring these glaring signposts of graft. Now, imagine the sanitising anti-corruption effect on political office holders, civil servants and Nigerians in general if, after thorough forensic investigations, past and serving leaders found guilty were successfully prosecuted, sentenced to prison and stripped virtually of all they acquired through stealing of public funds.

If President Buhari does this, he would automatically become one of the greatest anti-corruption leaders in Africa, alongside Jerry Rawlings of Ghana.  Unfortunately, he cannot: the very corrupt cabal that he ought to punish to send a strong signal that the days of elephantine corruption among the ruling class were over made his Presidency possible. Therefore, President Buhari is in serious dilemma on the issue of corruption. Having deliberately narrowed the extent of his searchlight, he has unwittingly left out some of the most corrupt government officials in Nigerian history. But the fulfilment of his anti-corruption campaign promises depends largely on his capacity to deal with “sacred cows” found guilty of corruption after due process of law.

Now, assuming that Buhari followed scrupulously the dictates of law in probing Jonathan, and was able to identify some perpetrators of corruption during the period, selective prosecution of the war against it would lead to the same problems that bedevilled Obasanjo’s half-hearted anti-graft programme implemented by Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The best option is for President Buhari to empower anti-graft agencies to investigate glaring cases of corruption from 1985 to 2015. By so doing, he would win more public support and trust, and dispel insinuations that he was afraid of probing some past leaders in order to secure his position and avoid revelations that could damage his relatively positive rating in the barometer of anti-corruption.

President Buhari has no choice than to tackle quickly the twin problems of poor electricity supply and inefficiency in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Dr. Goodluck Jonathan tried his best to reduce bottlenecks in the generation and transmission of electricity nationwide. President Buhari can build on the foundation laid by Jonathan by ensuring that on-going power plant projects are completed on schedule, by constructing new ones and by making sure that distribution companies have the capacity to distribute available power efficiently.

The federal government must also tackle the generator-importing monsters sabotaging its efforts to deliver steady power supply, and frequent vandalisation of gas pipelines by undesirable elements. Alternative sources of electricity, especially solar energy, must be encouraged also. Nigerians would not mind how much government spends on electricity, as long as the funds are used prudently and there is noticeable improvement in power supply.