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SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, SUNDAY, 29 MAY 2016 first an n
iv er sary
The Sunday Interview
politics
produced overnight billionaires we tend to assume there is an anti-corruption agenda. Tell me the agenda because what I know as an agenda must have a blueprint, a roadmap, dos and don’ts. What the EFCC, police and government are doing is loot recovery. Because to fight corruption, there must be a modus operandi, there must be templates. We must also examine the causes and weigh the effects. Then, there must be leadership by example, that is, a leader who would say ‘do as I do, not do as I say’. There must be a Nelson Mandela type of leadership. There must be a leadership that must surrender itself to scrutiny and penetrating questioning. There must be a leadership that engages our conscience, talks to us on the ills of corruption day in day out; a leader must be able tell every person who wants to serve in his government if you cross the line and the amber light flashes at you, you would be fired. There must be a change from a system that takes the Central Bank as the ATM of whoever is the President. There must be a leadership that builds institutions which are independent of powers and principalities, institutions that can even challenge them when the need arises. Enduring institutions regulate the holders of public offices and not the other way round. I mean institutions like the Police, Judiciary, EFCC, INEC, ICPC, Immigration, Customs etc. What is happening today is that we are robotising and brainwashing the citizenry. To fight corruption, there must be trust between the government and the governed. There must not be mistrust, because a major problem in our nation today is that most people don’t trust the government any longer. Then for us to fight corruption, government must not rely on propaganda. There must be honesty of purpose, clarity of intention, and then the fear of God. In our bid to fight corruption, we must consciously de-emphasise serving in government as a money making venture. This leads me to the disturbing banner headline of The Sun newspaper of May 21, 2016 titled: “Shocking…Fraud rocks Board appointments- Grade ‘A’ agencies N50m, others N25m, each candidate”. The gist of the cover story is that some top officials in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation are collecting as much as N50,000,000.00 and N25, 000, 000.00 respectively from candidates seeking appointments to Grade A & Grade B parastatals of the Federal Government. To my mind, this is another specie of corruption on the part of the payers and payees, and that when someone pays N50,000,000.00 to get a Board appointment, you are indirectly asking him to come and loot the treasury to recoup his expenses when he gets the appointment. A foremost duty of the police is to prevent corruption and crimes. Ditto for the EFCC. If we have the institutions then they should be able to prevent stealing from the till. Today, we are talking about the Diezeannigate, the Dasukigate. Was the EFCC not there when all these happened? What about the Police? Were they able to pre-empt or forestall them? What point am I making? That there is a difference between the sovereignty of the nation and the sovereignty of those who are in power. Have our institutions been able to confront temporary powers who have been in office since 1999? I think we have to reason together. When you want to fight corruption, you have to do it according to the law; due process must be followed. Anybody who has been found to have corruptly enriched himself, abused the Constitution or his office, should be arraigned in the courts of law and this should be done across board. The anti-corruption war should be prosecuted in a more mature, diligent, sober and discreet manner. The rule of law and Constitution must be adhered to. The point is that
Nepotism is corruption, favouritism is corruption, high handedness is corruption, misgovernance is corruption. What we have been dealing with unfortunately, is one infinitesimal fraction of corruption anyone who is accused shall be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. That is, Section 36 (5) of the Constitution. We are not running an inquisitorial type of criminal jurisprudence. Ours is accusatorial and adversarial. He who asserts must prove. How do you see the precarious condition of the states of the federation? What is your impression about their desirability, and abuse of bailout funds? Now, let us leave politics out of this. If I were to advise President Buhari, I would say my dear President, run an inclusive and not exclusive government. Time is running out on us and we are running out of time. How do I mean? Can our economy accommodate 36 states, each with its own paraphernalia, including a Governor, Parliament, Judiciary etc. Do we need states that will be going cap-in-hand to the Federal Government every month? What do you mean by bailout funds? In the past one year, we have states that have not been able to pay salaries, do we still need to continue deceiving ourselves by parading 36 States when a substantial number of them are not viable? Why can’t we fall back on the recommendations of the National Conference convoked by President Jonathan and make the best use of them? Why can’t we also fall back to regional arrangement of governance? The point I am making is that we don’t need 36 States, and a host of them should be amalgamated. A state that cannot pay salaries can also not reasonably embark on any meaningful capital project, and most Nigerians conversant with history would agree that we were better off under the then four regional governments than now. The Buhari government must not consign the recommendations of the National Conference to the dustbin as government is a continuum. In my opinion, sovereignty of government is contingent on reciprocal responsibility by any government that is able to provide security, employment opportunities, infrastructure, health care delivery, education leverages etc to the citizenry. The citizens in that situation will have total fidelity and commitment to the nation. Today, our youths roam the streets, nobody cares for them and neither do we sympathise with them. Palliatives are no longer available. I often ask myself, where are the good agencies of old like DFFRI, NDE, the Peoples’ Bank? What every successive government appears to be doing is to pretend to be starting on a new slate as if Nigeria never existed. We have to sit up because our youths are very restless. Yesterday we were combatting Boko Haram, today it is IPOB, Niger Delta Avengers and the rest. We also have to devolve the excessive powers which the central government has arrogated to itself over the years, and make Nigeria a truly federal system of government instead of the present hydra-headed unitary government masquerading as a federal government. By creating unviable states and leaving them insolvent, the states become powerless while the federal government is continuously lionised. We also have excess funds at the centre on which looters feed fat. But the nagging question again is, can the present Buhari government do this? Or is it prepared to even do it?
How, in your opinion can government regain public trust? If I were Mr. President, I will do away with sycophants; I will ask hangers-on to distance themselves from me and I will tell all my ministers, the Vice-President and I have declared our assets, you go and do likewise and anyone who cannot do that, I will ask him to resign. I will tell my aides, look, let us stop singing all these discordant tunes. We should avoid a situation where the Minister of State for Petroleum is saying we are increasing fuel price because of subsidy removal and the National Chairman of the APC is chorusing the same thing, while the respected Vice-President is tying it to the scarcity of forex. I will make deliberate and concerted efforts to ensure that Nigeria joins the Paris-based International Action Against Financial Crimes and Money Laundering and I will direct the Nigeria Police, EFCC and the Central Bank to resolve with immediate effect which out of them would house the Financial Intelligence Unit in order to comply with the necessary provisions and ensure the effective operation of this important organ. I will tell the Police that by virtue of the Constitution, it is their duty to prevent crimes and that henceforth, they must apprehend anyone who sabotages the economy or who is abusing his office either by stealing or looting. As it is now, we are crying over spilt milk after they have looted and gone away with billions. I will give a marching order to the EFCC to activate Section 6 (e) and (f) of the EFCC Act which mandates it to adopt measures which would eradicate the commission of economic and financial crimes, and also put in place coordinated and preventive actions aimed at achieving control techniques for the prevention of financial related crimes. I will, like Babangida did, put in place a robust team of highly successful eminent Nigerians in diverse fields of human endeavour to assist me in re-building the country. In this wise, I will invite a brilliant mind like Prof. Pat Utomi into my government. This is part of making the government inclusive, rather than exclusive. Then I will also be tolerant of opposing views because what we have now in government, and with all respect, some of those who are in government believe that they have the monopoly of knowledge, wisdom and understanding. But it is only God who has these. Some of them believe they are wiser than Solomon and Daniel combined together. They believe that what they do not know does not exist, that what they do not see can never be seen by anyone, what they do not hear can never be comprehended by others. They believe they are islands unto themselves. Where can we make amends? The shoes are definitely pinching; these are hard times. Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture said that Nigeria is broke. To me, that means a lot. It is weighty to say the nation is broke. Investors will be scared. They will be wary. I will expect Mr. President and his aides to be more accommodating, while some aides of the President should sheath their pride. I will also want to advise Mr. Presi-
dent and his political party to stop buckpassing and blaming Jonathan for all the ills of the nation. If Jonathan was doing so well in the estimation of Nigerians, he would not have been voted out and Buhari would not have been voted in. In law, there is this latin maxim – volenti non fit injuria – meaning that a volunteer should not complain. Mr. President chested out to bail Nigerians out, and that was why they voted for him. In my own humble way, that was why I led a team of very eminent and pre-eminent lawyers to defend his several pre-election cases. Any of the cases would have gone either way, but for our humble efforts. Jonathan is gone, allow history to judge him. Jonathan is off the stage and Buhari is the actor who occupies the stage now and dictates the pace. In any event Mr. President and Jonathan I would not condemn President Buhari, but I will urge him to redouble his efforts. In fact, if he was running, now he has to aim at outrunning a Usain Bolt. I will also advise Mr. President to engage competent hands who will be whispering to him expert opinions and advice. It is very important. Like when David Cameron said that Nigeria was fantastically corrupt, a parable like the receiver of stolen goods is as guilty as the one who stole the goods would have sufficed. Some aides should have whispered that to the President. Mr. President has to be more engaging. There are challenges, even right from the time of Jonathan, with the security of the nation. We now have IPOB, Niger Delta Avengers and the remnants of Boko Haram. This is a democratic dispensation and to me it is not a question of saying we are going to crush a particular group. But we have to be more engaging, develop communication and conflict management skills. Furthermore, I will advise Mr. President to put in place a Marshall Plan for Nigeria as America did for Europe after the second World War. Every sector in this country needs to be put under a state-of-emergency. Would you say that President Buhari, in this past one year has lived up to the statement, I belong to nobody, and I belong to everybody’? First, let me give this to Mr. President, that by his antecedents and public standing, he has been able to curb impunity and crass recklessness in government and governance. In respect of whether or not he belongs to nobody and he belongs to everybody, I cannot properly deconstruct that statement. But I would humbly advise that his appointments should be more representative and less lopsided. If Mr. President belongs to everybody, then he should let every section of Nigeria have a sense of belonging in his government. As a person, I have reservations in respect of Mr. President’s appointment of the present INEC Chairman from his own geo-political zone. This is against precedents and unwritten conventions relating to the appointment of our electoral umpire’s Chief Executive, starting from the time of the first Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa up to the time of President Jonathan. I am not saying that the present INEC Chairman is incompetent, but that Mr. President should have picked the Chairman from a different geo-political zone other than his. Again, we must commend the courage of President Jonathan for appointing Prof. Attahiru Jega, a former ASUU President from the North-West as INEC Chairman. I respect Mr. President, but these are my own tokens of advice for the survival of Nigeria and democracy. His second year in office should be a vast improvement on his first year. He should shove politics aside and forget about any imaginary differences between the PDP and APC. Nigeria is one. This is the time to rehabilitate our nation. Time is not on our side and I dare say, we have no time to play with or waste.