Not because Olusegun Obasanjo was scheduled to leave Abuja for Otta on that day. Not because Umaru Yar’Adua was arriving Aso Rock. The excitement was owed to the fact that many state governors were leaving office. That meant they were losing their constitutional immunity to prosecution. That meant they were going to be ordinary citizens subject to the long reach of the law. That meant the EFCC was going to be opening its bulky folders that its Chairman, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, had repeatedly insinuated were loaded with evidence of official malfeasance for which these men were responsible.
29 May 2007. Nigerians could not wait, either. In many states, not much had happened in eight years, largely because of the absence of funds and the political commitment to make things happen. Instead, many governors were openly and cynically looting their state treasuries for personal use. At home and abroad they were buying vast business empires, setting up accounts, and building private estates.
Nigerians knew about the exploits of these governors in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa. Nigerians knew of these governors and their illegal hotels and airlines and oil refineries, real estate and foreign bank accounts.
The Nigerian government knew of them as well. In May 2004, Nenadi Usman, then Minister of State for Finance, told the nation how the Governors were robbing their own people. On a visit to the Debt Management Office in Abuja, she observed that every month, as soon as federal allocations reached the states, the Governors headed for the international airport, stopping only at the foreign exchange market to get rid of the Naira burden in return for convertible currencies. This “revelation” was confirmed by the Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala, who urged Senators to “ask the Governors what they are doing with their (state) funds.”
As we now know, two of those Governors actually got into some legal drama in London with the Metropolitan Police, having been connected with large sums of cash. Back in Nigeria, neither the Nigeria Police nor the EFCC could do anything to those governors, restrained as they were by the constitution of the land. So the Governors continued to pose, to preach and to pamper themselves.
Repeatedly, Mr. Ribadu pointed at the calendar. On 29 May 2007, he said, the immunity clock would have run out on the greedy governors, and he would immediately begin to put the information in the EFCC files to work. The understanding was that he would be arresting those former Governors who had cases to answer, and filing charges against them.
Many new men are in charge in the states now. At the Governors' Forum last week, President Yar’Adua was handing them sympathy cards: "If what I have been hearing from some states is correct, it would seem some of you may spend the next four years managing debt. Such a situation is unacceptable," he told them. In other words, not only are the treasuries empty, the states are in debt.
So, then, what about 29 May 2007? Nearly one month after the famous date, no former Governor has been handcuffed or arrested. None of them has even been referred to as “the accused.” What Nigerians have now found is that they are being invited to the EFCC for discreet, climate-controlled conversations over tea and coffee. While the former Inspector-General of Police was put in chains and was last seen falling out of a Black Maria, these Obasanjo-nurtured fat cats have time to put on their make-up and alligator shoes and neo-Robin Hood aftershave.
Perhaps that is why the EFCC advertised a new line this month: “civilized” procedure. The Commission said it wanted to ensure that things are done in a “civilized” way.
I completely disagree with Mr. Ribadu and the EFCC about this sudden discovery creatively labelled civility. Handcuffs, arrests and detention are not an affront on civility or the rule of law; they are a part of the process. A suspect gets arrested, and is eventually sentenced if he is convicted. Between arrest and conviction, the suspect gets the benefit of the doubt but is expected to confront process that includes the courts, lawyers and prosecution. Beyond this, there is no provision in our law for “civility,” alias privilege. There is no provision in our law for two standards.
I am aware that some of the former governors are said to have been coughing up some of their loot. That is good, but it is immaterial. I do not care if they cough up one trillion Naira each day they have been out of office. They are supposed to refund all the funds they have been trying to hide since the EFCC announced two years ago it was coming for them, but they ought to be doing so in the hot and humid and sweaty confines of a court of law. If they have any deals they wish to propose, they ought to be doing so in the open, in court.
It is wrong of the EFCC to encourage double-standards. This is not what the law provides for, nor what Mr. Ribadu promised. For nine years, these former Governors did whatever they liked, conveniently forgetting that they would one day have to account. What the EFCC is doing is telling them that they can account at their leisure, in a manner that suits their lifestyle, and to an extent that suits their privilege. To that extent, the EFCC is guiltier than the former Governors, and Mr. Ribadu ought to step down for dragging Nigeria to the level of the suspects.
Let us remember: a part of the Nigeria problem is that there is the Big Man, and there are the rest of us. The Big Man makes or implements the law, but does not expect to be governed by it. Apart from the military who robbed the people because they were, well, soldiers, nobody in nearly half a century of our life as an independent nation has demonstrated such duplicity more fervently than some of the governors who took office in 1999. The irony is that this situation became clearer to the EFCC than to anyone else, including the Nigeria Police. Given the chance to remind the country, particularly the politicians that privatizing public wealth is not only wrong but punishable, the EFCC has now elected to become a part of the problem by suddenly and curiously declaring “civility” a legal principle in determining when or whom to prosecute.
This ruse protects the thieves among the former governors, as well as protects forthcoming and practicing thieves with precedence. It is also a reminder that nothing has changed. Under the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo, the ruse took on the form of constitutional immunity, permitting Governors who were mainly of the ruling party to rise from petty thieves to party thieves. Eight years later, under Yar’Adua, the ruse has mutated into a new monster called “civility.”
It is helpful to remember that these men were Yar’Adua’s colleagues in the Governors’ Forum, and that Yar’Adua had expected one of them to become President. It is also worthy of note that so far, he has not done anything to distance himself from them. On the contrary, some of them were reportedly still being considered for ministerial slots in his Cabinet last week. It seems that we are continuing in the same ethical vacuum that these Governors championed, and were a part of for eight years. In that light, the posture of the EFCC is hardly a surprise, nor is Yar’Adua’s failure to take a position on the side of justice.
The obvious danger here is that there is no way the so-called “war against corruption” can move forward if these former governors are not prosecuted. We can still have smoke-and-mirrors, and make plenty of speeches and proclamations, but we will not have such a war. But here is what would really be special: the next generation of governors (members of the Governors’ Forum Yar’Adua addressed last week), would be far worse than those now benefiting from Yar’Adua and Ribadu’s “civility.”
I know that this curious fork on the highway is not why the EFCC was so restless for so long.
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