Corruption galore: Bringing the story home

In a similar vein, a friend of mine, puked by the sorry state of the Nigerian nation-state; the frightening and gripping insecurity of lives and property, the sectarian and other forms of violence, especially the Boko Haram terrorism phenomenon, and especially the rabid and endemic corruption which has corrode the nation’s body politic, pronounced the […]

In a similar vein, a friend of mine, puked by the sorry state of the Nigerian nation-state; the frightening and gripping insecurity of lives and property, the sectarian and other forms of violence, especially the Boko Haram terrorism phenomenon, and especially the rabid and endemic corruption which has corrode the nation’s body politic, pronounced the nation due for closing down for at least five years for thorough fumigation and cleansing. Obviously, this is a product of despair and despondency, bothering on nihilism. You get to this point about your society, nay, your country, when darkness is the pervasive reality; when the end is nigh and no light is foresee-able, at the long end of the dark tunnel. Are we at the stage of our nation’s life when Samuel Beckett’s ‘endgame’ is the only metaphor that is graphic enough to capture our situation?

Not quite but things are horrifying enough. As we grapple with the horror of terrorism and other acts of violence that have seized the nation’s jugular, revelations of graft and corruption in high places further petrify and mortify normal human beings, making demand for national shut- down sound not as extremist as they may appear to discerning, patriotic minds, after all! What with the raging corruption mess on the land, as symbolized by the on-going probe by the House of Representatives of the activities of the Securities and Exchange Commission. This exercise has produced yet another absurd theatrics that has rubbished the image of, not only our Legislature but the entire nation. It has become a battle of tackles-trading between the Chairman of the House Committee on Capital Market and other Institutions and the embattled Director-General of SEC., Ms Arunma Oteh. Hon. Hembe has thrown grave charges at Ms Oteh, relating to fraud and corrupt engagement of staff, among which are that she was alleged to have spent N30m on hotel accommodation in eight months, blowing N850,000 on feeding in a single day and engaging two serving staffers of the Access Bank to work for her as Consultants. Like a tiger ignited at the tail, Ms Arunma Oteh reacted in a manner that jolted the entire Panel, and the rest of us the on-lookers at the outrageous display going on. She leveled accusations of corrupt practice against the Honorable Chairman whom she alleged to have demanded N44m bribe from her in two separate installments; first the sum of N39m to finance the sitting of the House Panel probing her activities, and when that was not forthcoming, another N5m for personal use. She also accused him of collecting a First Class ticket from the Commission to enable him travel to the Dominican Republic to attend a Seminar—a trip he did not make but held on to the ticket.

Certainly, these bizarre enactments have raised serious moral and integrity problems for the Committee as well as the Director General herself. Hon. Hembe certainly faces a personal moral dilemma. He has a responsibility to clear himself of these grave charges. He has become an accused person and can no longer sit on the probing Chair. His immediate reaction, after recovering from the stunning charge was to ask the EFCC in attendance to probe the allegation by the DG of SEC. EFCC has taken on the challenge and it appears that the table has turned for Hembe who was sitting on the Chair of a probe panel but who may have become an accused to be probed. Oteh has opened a Pandora box of a bribery scandal for which the House of Representatives’ leadership is (must be) justifiably troubled.

Similarly, Ms Oteh has raised the stakes but without actually defending herself against the charges put before her. What one expects, minimally, is that she rises to her own defense in an effort to clear her name and herself from the grave allegations. Many would say that the charges against her pales into insignificance when weighed with mammoth fraud on the land, and especially when compared with the kind of excesses that the National Assembly allows itself to benefit from in open affront to the electorate’s sensibility. As this scenario proceeds, a Senator was robbed at gun point of the sum of N8 million naira kept in his car by his driver! Yet, this does not nullify the charges and she must defend herself, with regard to the collapse of the Nigerian capital market, which she heads. She had arrived in that posh position from an international finance assignment, some would say, with intimidating credentials. Others have said that she was not exactly the round peg in the round hole for a capital market job such as the SEC’s appointment. Be that as it may, will she be yet another woman cut down by corrupt dealings?

As this probe scandal at the Lower House rages, the nation is being further jolted by what many have described as the insane N14.3 billion Pension Fraud. The saga unfolding is dumbfounding. Suspects are said to be making confession without much duress, on how the huge fraud was perpetrated. Civil servants of the ranks of Permanent Secretary and directors are confessing to embezzling between 2 billion and 3 billion of funds meant to pay retirees, some of whom are on their last trips to their graves after serving their nations for numerous years. The suspects have been released on bail and the serving Permanent Secretary and the Director are still sitting, comfortably? at their desk. We are told that rigid Civil Service Regulations make the suspension of serving suspects in high offices undoable (at least in haste)! The investigation is on-going though, and the Permanent Secretary, four Directors, and a Deputy Police Commissioners may stand prosecution. The fact that billions of raw cash are found in houses of men at such high places reeks of the kind of psychosis that characterizes the corruption cancer-worm that has eaten deep into our country’s fabric!

There are aspects of this corruption malaise that the ordinary Nigerian citizens need to be educated about. Do they really understand the material implication of stealing a billion naira? Do they know what a billion naira can do in service and provision for communities where these corrupt individuals come from? Many of these communities from which these alleged rogues hail may not have seen a jot of electricity in their lives. Some of them do not have pipe-borne water. Some communities are not accessible by road in wet seasons. Many of their children cannot go to colleges because their parents have no money to send them. How many bore holes can a billion naira sink in these rural communities such that will bring great relief to their lives? How many children can be sent to school free from a stolen one billion naira? As we seek to come to grips with the social consequences of corruption on the life of the nation, we need to begin to bring the enormity of the crimes to the graspable and palpable consciousness of the ordinary citizens of our nation.  Rather than screaming headlines of the next round of corruption revelations in their billions, the media, civil and rights societies must begin to embark on comprehensible analysis of the social meaning and implications of these huge sums being looted, either by elected officials or civil and public servants. This is the beginning of real sensitization of the people to the depth of crime perpetrated against them by those who should protect them or bring good governance to their door-steps.