Anti-corruption war: We must stop doing ‘the needful’

As President Buhari and indeed the majority of Nigerians eagerly await his retirement back to Daura, he has come out publicly to plead for forgiveness from those he has in any way hurt. Pleading for forgiveness has become the trend for leaders who failed in governance. The problem is that those who lost their lives […]

As President Buhari and indeed the majority of Nigerians eagerly await his retirement back to Daura, he has come out publicly to plead for forgiveness from those he has in any way hurt. Pleading for forgiveness has become the trend for leaders who failed in governance. The problem is that those who lost their lives through insurgency, extra-judicial murder, or poverty induced suicides are in no position to forgive!

Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, a stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State said there is little chance that the millions of traumatised Nigerians who are still alive, especially those who have lost loved ones,  can easily forgive. He said “apart from Buhari’s negative policies that have sent millions of Nigerians into the unemployment market, some to their early graves and others into permanent poverty, his administration remains the worst in the history of Nigeria!” 

Regrettably the signs of failure in governance are glaringly evident. To be fair, the collapsed economy cannot be blamed on Buhari because he has never been regarded as particularly cerebral in his understanding of economics and financial matters, and COVID-19 ruined the world economy. However, his regular disregard for constitutionality, or court judgments, together with the lost wars against insecurity and corruption are matters which could have been handled far more successfully. 

Buhari’s victory in 2015 was greeted with jubilation and expectation. Back then people believed that Buhari’s experience as a retired general, and reputation for an aversion to corruption would make it easy for him to win the wars against insecurity and against corruption and place the nation firmly on the road to progress. He was elected because of a now exposed myth about his integrity, zero tolerance for corruption, and military prowess.

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For many Nigerians the kidnap of more than 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State in April 2014, and the massive corruption under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ensured that for the first time in the nation’s history, an incumbent president lost his re-election bid. Quite abhorrently the girls are still in captivity over eight years later. As for the war against corruption, in sharp contrast to his glowing anti-corruption reputation, he failed to block leakages in government expenditure, recover the vast majority of looted funds or mete out appropriate punishment to the culprits.

Particularly galling is the fact that a presidential pardon was granted to the only two imprisoned high-profile politicians jailed for corruption. In truth they have entered Nigeria’s history as by far the most corruption laden. In truth not only did the anti-corruption war fail but under Buhari’s watch corruption increased exponentially and his administration stopped making any pretence at fighting it!

Disappointingly by acts of omission and commission, President Buhari who is supposedly not enamoured by luxury, allowed family members, political associates and sycophants to ostentatiously display ill-gotten wealth, thereby exposing the hypocrisy in his anti-corruption war and making his pronouncements on integrity ring hollow.

As reports of massive ongoing corruption surface daily, financiers of the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano pipeline have pulled out of the project claiming it was over-inflated. They complain that the global cost of high-pressure transmission gas pipelines is approximately $800,000 per kilometre but in Nigeria the cost was placed at $4,560,260 per kilometre, an over-inflation of 570 per cent!

In addition to this, senators complain bitterly that the outgoing administration routinely did nothing when oversight committees repeatedly pointed out that practically every Ministry Department or Agency (MDA) is guilty of infractions of the law, corrupt practices and ignoring public sector accounting requirements.

On a much smaller scale some policemen from Alapere Station in Lagos on an unauthorised raid illegally arrested some youths.  Some of the victims were arrested and handcuffed right in front of their homes! Despite not seeing anything incriminating on them, they were locked in the cell and forced to pay N35,000 cash each. The reason these people were freed was not because they were innocent but because they did the “needful”.

Doing the needful doesn’t mean doing what is morally right, neither does it mean doing what is in the interest of the nation or what is legal. It simply means greasing palms in order to achieve what you want. It is the core of matters surrounding corruption at all levels in Nigeria.

Barely literate secondary students attend special examination centres and end up with 10 credits and gain university admission because they did “the needful”! Politicians are announced as victorious in elections even though they did not receive the highest number of votes or meet the requirements to be declared winner but instead did the needful. In the same manner unqualified contractors obtain government contracts; political appointees obtain appointments; courts dispense atrocious judgments, criminals are released from police arrest, and all manner of corruption thrives because the needful was done.

The truth is that in Nigeria success is not achieved by patriotism, or doing what is right, proper, and moral, what is of primary importance is doing the needful.  

Nigerians can only hope that the incoming president will respect the constitution and its limitations on his authority, tackle insecurity successfully enabling internally displaced persons to return to their homes instead of being routinely massacred in the camps, have a truly discernible distaste for corruption, improve economic prospects and create a nation in which success is guaranteed by honesty, patriotism, hard work and proper qualification, not simply by “doing the needful”.