January 21, 2010
Under fire from French anti-corruption watchdog groups, Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, recently authorized the mayors of French cities where he is alleged to own properties to sell off whatever they find and donate the proceeds to charity. President Wade was definitive, detailed, and daring in his denial. He claimed that he owns only one flat in Paris, his residence when he spent many years in political exile as an opposition leader – long before he became president. Audacious move. It could backfire spectacularly or shut his accusers up. But it is a rare maneuver for an African leader.
Wade’s French accusers will either call his bluff or back off. They could unleash the evidence of his alleged property ownership or, lacking a smoking gun, move on to a different target. Either way, the symbolic significance of Wade’s pronouncement should reverberate beyond the narrow circumstances of his situation.
Getting ahead of the story of his rumored property acquisitions was Wade’s tactic of damage control. But it was also a move meant to demonstrate his attention to the Senegalese public’s disapproval of corruption. Whatever one thinks of Wade’s strategy of crisis management (and time will tell if he was merely grandstanding), he did something noteworthy: he responded directly, pointedly, and in great detail to the allegations of corruption against him.
This is not a typical response of Africa’s officialdoms to allegations and rumors of ethical violations. The familiar template is to greet such allegations with a contemptuous silence. The principle is that silence starves the allegation of oxygen and kills it eventually without the accused public official having to defend his integrity.
When was the last time a Nigerian public official denied allegations of corruption with the clarity and declarative force of Wade’s denial? Our politicians have a familiar, tired script for responding to their ethical problems: their political enemies are behind allegations that they have helped themselves to the public till. They never deny the allegations unequivocally or use the opportunity of “their enemies’ attacks” to declare what they own or don’t own and how and when they acquired their most valuable assets. Where clarity is desired they respond with evasion.
Good stewardship is about accounting for public funds entrusted into one’s care. A good steward would be insulted by allegations of corruption, so insulted as to be moved almost impulsively to be totally transparent with the details of his personal finances.
Transparent, unambiguous denial is the answer to corruption allegations, not suspicious silence. It puts the burden right back on the accuser. For the Nigerian public official though, transparency is the enemy; his irrational fear is that denial only invites more scrutiny, which is true only if the denial is loaded with empty rhetoric calculated to obscure and distract rather than illuminate. Why should a politician with a clean record and an uncompromised conscience dread public scrutiny? When a politician issues a denial statement that is steeped in officious, legalistic lingo and fails to directly confront the allegation against him, the public will rightly generate more probing questions for him, not less.
Because Nigerian public officials are, by and large, poor stewards of public resources, and because they usually have tainted consciences and unlawfully acquired bank accounts, they balk at disclosure, fearing it might open their dark sides and expose them to more damage.
A morally secure official should seek to conclusively put any potentially damaging allegations to rest with a detailed denial and a challenge to the accusers to come forward with evidence. Many Nigerian officials prefer the stonewalling technique. They go to court to obtain fraudulent injunctions to avoid having to enter a plea one way or the other.
The game is perversely brilliant in its simplicity: if you don’t deny or confirm you don’t open yourself up for more humiliating allegations. But this violates and disregards the public’s right to know.
The roll call of sloppy denials is long in recent Nigerian politics. James Ibori is not the only master of obfuscation and non-denial denials. He takes the cake, of course, because some evidences of his wrongdoing are strewn over the public space. Some are even settled public facts, like his alleged double criminal conviction in the United Kingdom in his pre-governorship life.
Michael Aondoakaa is the subject of many credible corruption allegations. He neither denies nor confirms the allegations; he simply lets them run out of steam with arrogant silence. The gamble is that the news cycle is so dynamic that every allegation would eventually be overtaken by events unless one responds to it.
Even Farida Waziri has not definitively responded to any of the allegations of corruption and criminal complicity that have dogged her tenure so far. Her denials have been so vague and lame that they serve to aggravate the outrage that the allegations inspire.
Nigerian public officials don’t get the point of responding to allegations and inquiries. They don’t recognize that failing to disclose one’s position to the public on an allegation constitutes an abuse of public trust. They don’t get the principle. They prefer to hide in the disputed details.
My American friends are fond of saying that sometimes an outrage is not about the details but the principle. Even Malam Nasir el-Rufai, who claims not to fit the mold of the typical Nigerian politician, does not get this.
el-Rufai recently sought to correct what he sees as the incorrect statistics of the wasted investments in the power sector during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime. He claims that the amount spent is not $10 Billion or $17 Billion but $5 billion. No denial of the allegation of corruption and waste. No explanation of how the spending of $5 billion (if in fact this is the correct figure) was justified or how it transformed the power sector. Just arrogant bluster spiced with a dubious, distracting game of figures. That’s the Nigerian politician’s generic response to allegations of waste and corruption.
el-Rufai fails to grasp the philosophical overtone of the anger that the power probe revelations provoked: that if a government spends public money – even if it is $500 – the public has a right to expect to see something in return, a benefit along the lines of which the money was appropriated.
And while we are on this subject, is it not the height of elitist detachment to trivialise $5 billion and proceed from that figure to minimize the cesspool of waste that the power sector was under Obasanjo? el-Rufai’s logic is analogous to a rapist who has savaged the feminine dignity of his victim defending himself by claiming that he only raped her once, not trice as alleged. Who the hell cares if it’s $5 Billion, $10 Billion or $17 Billion? It’s still a reckless waste of our money! Again, it’s about the principle, not the disputed details.
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Wade’s French accusers will either call his bluff or back off. They could unleash the evidence of his alleged property ownership or, lacking a smoking gun, move on to a different target. Either way, the symbolic significance of Wade’s pronouncement should reverberate beyond the narrow circumstances of his situation.
Getting ahead of the story of his rumored property acquisitions was Wade’s tactic of damage control. But it was also a move meant to demonstrate his attention to the Senegalese public’s disapproval of corruption. Whatever one thinks of Wade’s strategy of crisis management (and time will tell if he was merely grandstanding), he did something noteworthy: he responded directly, pointedly, and in great detail to the allegations of corruption against him.
This is not a typical response of Africa’s officialdoms to allegations and rumors of ethical violations. The familiar template is to greet such allegations with a contemptuous silence. The principle is that silence starves the allegation of oxygen and kills it eventually without the accused public official having to defend his integrity.
When was the last time a Nigerian public official denied allegations of corruption with the clarity and declarative force of Wade’s denial? Our politicians have a familiar, tired script for responding to their ethical problems: their political enemies are behind allegations that they have helped themselves to the public till. They never deny the allegations unequivocally or use the opportunity of “their enemies’ attacks” to declare what they own or don’t own and how and when they acquired their most valuable assets. Where clarity is desired they respond with evasion.
Good stewardship is about accounting for public funds entrusted into one’s care. A good steward would be insulted by allegations of corruption, so insulted as to be moved almost impulsively to be totally transparent with the details of his personal finances.
Transparent, unambiguous denial is the answer to corruption allegations, not suspicious silence. It puts the burden right back on the accuser. For the Nigerian public official though, transparency is the enemy; his irrational fear is that denial only invites more scrutiny, which is true only if the denial is loaded with empty rhetoric calculated to obscure and distract rather than illuminate. Why should a politician with a clean record and an uncompromised conscience dread public scrutiny? When a politician issues a denial statement that is steeped in officious, legalistic lingo and fails to directly confront the allegation against him, the public will rightly generate more probing questions for him, not less.
Because Nigerian public officials are, by and large, poor stewards of public resources, and because they usually have tainted consciences and unlawfully acquired bank accounts, they balk at disclosure, fearing it might open their dark sides and expose them to more damage.
A morally secure official should seek to conclusively put any potentially damaging allegations to rest with a detailed denial and a challenge to the accusers to come forward with evidence. Many Nigerian officials prefer the stonewalling technique. They go to court to obtain fraudulent injunctions to avoid having to enter a plea one way or the other.
The game is perversely brilliant in its simplicity: if you don’t deny or confirm you don’t open yourself up for more humiliating allegations. But this violates and disregards the public’s right to know.
The roll call of sloppy denials is long in recent Nigerian politics. James Ibori is not the only master of obfuscation and non-denial denials. He takes the cake, of course, because some evidences of his wrongdoing are strewn over the public space. Some are even settled public facts, like his alleged double criminal conviction in the United Kingdom in his pre-governorship life.
Michael Aondoakaa is the subject of many credible corruption allegations. He neither denies nor confirms the allegations; he simply lets them run out of steam with arrogant silence. The gamble is that the news cycle is so dynamic that every allegation would eventually be overtaken by events unless one responds to it.
Even Farida Waziri has not definitively responded to any of the allegations of corruption and criminal complicity that have dogged her tenure so far. Her denials have been so vague and lame that they serve to aggravate the outrage that the allegations inspire.
Nigerian public officials don’t get the point of responding to allegations and inquiries. They don’t recognize that failing to disclose one’s position to the public on an allegation constitutes an abuse of public trust. They don’t get the principle. They prefer to hide in the disputed details.
My American friends are fond of saying that sometimes an outrage is not about the details but the principle. Even Malam Nasir el-Rufai, who claims not to fit the mold of the typical Nigerian politician, does not get this.
el-Rufai recently sought to correct what he sees as the incorrect statistics of the wasted investments in the power sector during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime. He claims that the amount spent is not $10 Billion or $17 Billion but $5 billion. No denial of the allegation of corruption and waste. No explanation of how the spending of $5 billion (if in fact this is the correct figure) was justified or how it transformed the power sector. Just arrogant bluster spiced with a dubious, distracting game of figures. That’s the Nigerian politician’s generic response to allegations of waste and corruption.
el-Rufai fails to grasp the philosophical overtone of the anger that the power probe revelations provoked: that if a government spends public money – even if it is $500 – the public has a right to expect to see something in return, a benefit along the lines of which the money was appropriated.
And while we are on this subject, is it not the height of elitist detachment to trivialise $5 billion and proceed from that figure to minimize the cesspool of waste that the power sector was under Obasanjo? el-Rufai’s logic is analogous to a rapist who has savaged the feminine dignity of his victim defending himself by claiming that he only raped her once, not trice as alleged. Who the hell cares if it’s $5 Billion, $10 Billion or $17 Billion? It’s still a reckless waste of our money! Again, it’s about the principle, not the disputed details.
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