Skip to main content

Mixed Metaphors-(The Transformation Edition) By Sonala Olumhense

Having been away from this location since May 29, the inauguration of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, I am pleased to rejoin the political process. As everyone knows, the new ruler calls his a “transformational” leadership.

Having been away from this location since May 29, the inauguration of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, I am pleased to rejoin the political process. As everyone knows, the new ruler calls his a “transformational” leadership.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });

I wish to suggest to Mr. Jonathan that he consider fewer convenient labels, especially borrowed ones.   Far more respectable it is to put in the work and let observers and wordsmiths select the appropriate labels.

This is particularly important as the new leadership is also talking about establishing an “Economic Team.”  As I recall, there was one, once, and it did an excellent job putting together a reform scheme that was known as the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). 

But not only did NEEDS fail to last even one year, it did not even receive a proper burial.  Perhaps the new “Economic Team” will first bury that ghost before it attempts to sell Nigerians a new one.  Alternatively, we can simply return all the NEEDS funds given to us by the international community and rebrand the idea.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });

This seems to be a good point at which to welcome Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is again set to become Nigeria’s Finance Minister.  The former member of the former “Economic Team” returns at a time that the national debt has reportedly climbed up to $37 billion.  Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala was instrumental to Nigeria’s US$18 billion debt relief deal with the Paris Club six years ago. 

But there is some unresolved business from that period, apart from NEEDS, to which I wish to draw her attention: Just weeks after that deal, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, the former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), filed an allegation with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), that a “top government official” received a N60 billion gratification in the negotiations.  Mr. Ogbeh met with the ICPC during its investigation, declaring his readiness to substantiate the allegation.  Now, the top two Nigerian officials involved in the debt negotiations were President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala.  None of them ever challenged Mr. Ogbeh.  Far too often, matters of this nature get buried in Nigeria, but History delicately exhumes them, and I urge Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala not to let the ghost follow her around.  If she must return to her old post, it ought to be with clean hands.  Similarly, if her government is going to be selling Nigerians and the world a new “reform” scheme, it must begin by telling us exactly what happened to the old.

Let me move deeper into the federal government.  Why does Mr. Anyim P. Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, call himself a Senator?  He occupies an appointed office, but a Senator he is not.  The title cannot be bought in a Nigeria traffic jam, and it is certainly not for life.  A Senator in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a member of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.  Anyone else calling himself Senator, including juju musicians and politicians, is a title-hungry 419-er who ought to be arrested. 

Speaking of arrests, where is Inspector General of Police Hafiz Ringim?  On June 15, he bragged about bringing Boko Haram to its knees.  Days later, he was lucky to avoid death in an Abuja bomb blast in which the group brought the battle to him in his own lair at Police Headquarters.  Boko Haram has since then exported its mayhem beyond Borno State, and in other parts of the country, there is a definite upsurge in insecurity.  Is Mr. Ringim, unable to protect Nigerians, and with questions to answer in the bombing of Louis Edet House, in hiding?

Now, then: Attahiru Jega, who chairs the Independent National Electoral Commission.  At a “National Summit on Free and Fair Elections” on March 2, Professor Jega said INEC had found multiple voter registration in his $585million register.  “I must tell you that we have caught some high profile double registrants and we may be able to start with them in terms of prosecution,” he announced.

Three months after the election, he has not published the names of the suspects, let alone taken them to court.  The peril of Jega’s justice—or lack of it—is that in the end, we are sure to find that some of those suspects have risen above the law.  By then, Jega would have taken the spoils of office and vanished into History.

The Presidential Projects Assessment Committee (PPAC), which Mr. Jonathan set up in March 2010, has identified as many as 11,886 uncompleted federal government projects nationwide.    This means that governments, government officials and contractors have colluded to defraud the Nigerian people nearly 12,000 times in recent years, sharing trillions of Naira meant for those projects.  If the history of governance in Nigeria is a guide, the report the PPAC has submitted to Jonathan will end the trail.  He will never commence widespread prosecution, or recovery of funds, or completion of our vital projects.  Instead, he will begin an armada of projects of his own, most of which will not be completed, either.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Jonathan’s government is also drifting towards merging the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission with the so-called ICPC.  The desire of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, to see them brought together under his moustache will end all our anti-corruption pretensions.  If Jonathan were serious with his sanctimonious proclamations, he would know right away that Mr. Adoke is the wrong man for AG.  The way forward, if anyone wants results, is to unbundle those agencies into units that can speedily handle specific assignments, and expand the judiciary.  Most of all, there would have to be genuine independence for such agencies.

Finally, it is fascinating that on July 14, Mr. Jonathan asked the two agencies to probe all federal ministries, departments and agencies, starting from 2007.  He decried corruption as “the monster that we need to confront and defeat,” and pledged that the “war” will start at the centre. 
But it is Jonathan’s government, beginning with his time as Vice-President that has been protecting the bribe takers involved in the Halliburton, Siemens and Wilbros scandals.  His government has protected an umbrella for contractors and officials who looted the treasury while claiming to be implementing everything, including power projects, image-laundering, transportation and security. 

For many years, “war against corruption” has been a convenient cliché for Nigerian rulers.  But everyone knows there is no war, and there has never been one.  What we have had are people who mistake speechmaking for war.  A war demands a commander and clear rules of engagement.  A war involves casualties and injuries and prisoners.   We have a war in the filth that is Nigeria and people are not falling dialing in the hundreds? 

Last week, Mr. Jonathan preached with a straight face.  "A responsive, responsible and accountable government is central to a genuine democracy,” he said. 

The problem is that we have heard these sound bites before.  What we have never got, and what Jonathan could offer, is urgent, determined and unrelenting action.  That is what, elsewhere, sends powerful national figures to jail.   Can Jonathan, for instance, order the immediate prosecution of outstanding corruption cases, beginning with the most powerful and influential Nigerians, beginning this month? 

Last week, he preached, but he said nothing about all the questionable characters he is appointing to high office, or those he is surrounding himself with.  He preached, without once mentioning the most important word: example. 

He preached, but three months after he assumed office, he has failed to publicly declare his assets and signal he believes what he says.

And so we return to the starting point: Example is the most difficult item to find in the toolkit of a Nigerian leader.  That is why, when Jonathan says the word “transformation,” it is so funny.
•    [email protected]

 

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });