Slaying the Lernaean hydra

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi complained three days ago that corruption is eating his country like a termite. Indians should count themselves lucky. In Nigeria here, corruption is eating us like a locust swarm. The termite only sneaks into a log and surreptitiously eats it from the inside out. In contrast, a locust swarm arrives […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi complained three days ago that corruption is eating his country like a termite. Indians should count themselves lucky. In Nigeria here, corruption is eating us like a locust swarm. The termite only sneaks into a log and surreptitiously eats it from the inside out. In contrast, a locust swarm arrives in broad daylight. It is visible to all; the swarm blots out sunlight, then descends on farmlands and vegetation and eats everything including the leaves, flowers, seeds, branches and shoot.
President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to fight corruption head on. Even though his administration is yet to roll out its comprehensive program of governance, we can deduce from the president’s pronouncements since his inauguration two and a half months ago that fighting corruption is his second highest priority, after Boko Haram. It is a good arrangement of priorities, in my opinion, but there are many aspects of the anti-corruption campaign that the president needs to sort out with a public input and a public buy-in.
The battle against corruption can be likened to the slaying of the Lernaean hydra, the second of the epic Twelve Tasks of the mythical Greek-Roman figure Hercules. The Greek mythologists that invented the tale of the Lernaean hydra probably had Nigerian corruption in mind. The Lernaean hydra had a poisonous breath, a virulent blood and many heads. For each head that was cut off, two new ones grew to replace it. Much like Hercules, slaying the hydra-headed monster called corruption is Buhari’s second major task, after Boko Haram. He has budgeted three months to banish Boko Haram. Wisely, he has not set a target date for banishing corruption.
In the past week, torrents of social media criticism trailed the visit of the Abdulsalami Peace Committee to the State House and in particular, comments said to have been made on television by Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah soon after the visit. The two main points of attack were suggestions that the battle to retrieve money from former officials could distract the administration from other pressing issues and also that it should be pursued according to the rules. Many social media warriors alleged that the committee was sent by former president Jonathan to plead on his behalf, a charge the committee denied. One online medium even said that the peace committee was trying to enforce an agreement that it brokered in March, under which Jonathan conceded the election in return for a pledge that his government would not be probed.
Well, well. I have a question to ask here. Could someone tell us if it is true that such a deal was worked out before the concession telephone call? If indeed such a horrible deal was made, those men who brokered it may have a duty to insist on its implementation. Last week, I wrote on this page about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cataclysmic events that forced Japan’s surrender in World War Two. Now, an aspect of the story we did not mention last week was that the US government accepted Japan’s “unconditional surrender” on the condition that the Emperor will be neither be deposed nor prosecuted for war crimes. It was a most unpalatable deal but even when evidence surfaced that Emperor Hirohito partook in, if not spear-headed war crimes, the US government kept its pledge not to depose or prosecute him. If indeed such a deal was made, our social media warriors who want it to be jettisoned remind me of Josef Stalin. When he heard that Japan wanted to surrender on one condition, the Soviet leader advised President Truman to accept the condition, and then jettison it after occupying Japan.
Whether or not there was a deal with Jonathan, corruption should be fought to the end but it is good to remember that corruption here is like the Lernaean hydra; if you cut off one head, two more heads could sprout out in its place.
Beside repeated declarations of intention, President Buhari has not outlined to the public the full scope, methods and agencies of the anti-corruption fight. For now, his focus is to recover the billions and trillions that former Jonathan regime officials were said to have siphoned off from the public till, mostly through the oil industry. It makes senses to start the campaign with the biggest thefts. Buhari said the trial of the suspects would begin in the next few weeks, thereby giving some Nigerians the impression that the money would be quickly retrieved and the culprits will soon be in jail. This is unlikely. Given the hefty sums involved, most of which must be sitting in the vaults of European and Caribbean island banks, it could take years of complicated legal and political action to retrieve them. Buhari has much greater political will than any previous presidents to retrieve this money, which should reduce the time needed. As to jailing the culprits, I suspect that most of them are out of the country right now and it will not be easy to bring them back, but we must try.
Still, it is good if the public knows a bit more about the anti-corruption plan and if it is encouraged to make an input. For example, we should know the scope of this fight. Is it only oil thieves and weapons purchasers or should it extend to all other agencies of government? What about the time span? Some people are already saying that the probes should go back to the Obasanjo era, not just Jonathan’s. My friend in Sokoto said it must go all the way back to the Gowon regime. You can try it, but given what someone recently told me about the state of student academic records he saw in a university registry when he went to get a copy of his transcripts, I wonder what the state of Gowon-era payment vouchers will be in at this time.
Some people will say that without correcting the systems, this fight could be in vain. You may punish the old thieves, only for new ones to step in and do the same thing. Right now, the contract award process in most government agencies is such that almost everyone involved at any level steals something. All checks and balances have collapsed in situations where auditors connive with accountants, civil servants connive with contractors and with politicians, legislative oversight committees connive with Executive agencies; anti-corruption investigators, judges as well as media watchdogs could all be compromised.
How should the staff of corrupt agencies be treated? Already, NNPC has retired many top managers as part of a house cleansing campaign. Trouble is, as General Murtala Mohamed found out, you could end up purging the wrong people and must then appoint a committee [under Colonel Pedro Martins] to review the purges. And then, old civil servants now tell us that Murtala aggravated corruption in the service because his purges destroyed tenure security.
Which agency will spearhead this anti-corruption fight?  Even Hercules had to call upon his nephew Iolaus to help him in the task. In order for this fight to be comprehensive and also sustainable, it needs willing cadres, not just bureaucrats and policemen. For now Buhari looks like an anti-corruption Lone Ranger; can he make it a party program in which APC cadres at all levels will be involved in the campaign and the party will sustain the program beyond Buhari’s presidency?
Hercules finally killed the Lernaean hydra when he cut off its immortal head with a golden sword which he placed under a great rock and dipped his arrows in its poisonous blood. To decapitate Nigerian corruption, Buhari must deal with the larger problem of the structure of Nigerian society and economy. The level of poverty and the high unemployment rate in Nigeria are somewhat cushioned by a social system where millions of citizens informally depend on civil servants and politicians to subsidise their existence. The latter in turn loot the public till allegedly to meet the demands of relatives and constituents. A program of accelerated economic development is the golden sword needed here to stymie the march of corruption. But I agree entirely that given the current level of corruption in Nigerian public life, probably no program of economic development will work.