On the night of Wednesday, September 27, 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s phone was particularly busy. Most of the calls were coming from the nation’s state governors.
Hours earlier, Nuhu Ribadu, who chaired the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had done the unthinkable: He had gone to the Senate to present the commission’s annual report, as required by law, and pronounced most of the state governors as having been touched by corruption.
On the night of Wednesday, September 27, 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s phone was particularly busy. Most of the calls were coming from the nation’s state governors.
Hours earlier, Nuhu Ribadu, who chaired the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had done the unthinkable: He had gone to the Senate to present the commission’s annual report, as required by law, and pronounced most of the state governors as having been touched by corruption.
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Those indicted by the EFCC included Uzor Kalu, Abia; Boni Haruna, Adamawa; Chimaroke Nnamani, Enugu; Ayo Fayose, Ekiti, Joshua Dariye, Plateau, Jolly Nyame, Taraba and Ahmad Sani, Zamfara. The governors of Osun, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Borno, Delta, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Edo, Ebonyi, Katsina, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Rivers, Sokoto and Ogun were being investigated for various cases.
Mr. Ribadu characterized many of the governors. A few examples: Kalu of Abia had "privatized” state funds; Chris Ngige of Anambra had diverted funds specifically through one Princess Uzor Okonkwo, and Sani of Zamfara had engaged in “Direct stealing (from the safe); no third party, outright stealing by the governor himself." Ngige and the Anambra State House of Assembly were being investigated for “criminal diversion and misappropriation” of funds.
It was not an all-boys club. He caused quite a few smiles when he told the Senators that the wife of the governor of Bayelsa State, Goodluck Jonathan, was also being investigated for laundering N104 million.
These are some of the stories that reached Obasanjo’s ears that fateful evening in 2006. He immediately dismissed the charges as “spurious,” and asked all those listed in the EFCC report, most of them PDP governors, not to worry.
If you looked closely at the list tendered at the Senate by Mr. Ribadu, two of the governors being “investigated” were those of Katsina and Bayelsa. With Obasanjo’s intervention, those investigations, like the indictments, were buried.
But if you also placed that list next to the history of the period, you would recognize that Obasanjo could not really have been “surprised” by the revelations in the Senate. Three months earlier, the same Ribadu, as chairman of a Joint Task Force (JTF) set up by Obasanjo to “fight corruption,” had recommended the prosecution of 15 governors found to have breached the code of conduct for public officials. They were: James Ibori, Lucky Igbinedion, Ayo Fayose, Boni Haruna, Gbenga Daniel, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Adamu Aliero, Atahiru Bafawara, Saminu Turaki, Ahmad Makarfi, Goodluck Jonathan, Chimaroke Nnamani, Achike Udenwa, Sam Egwu, and Bola Tinubu.
Most of them were indicted for false declaration of assets, acquisition of assets beyond legitimate means, running private businesses while in office, and operating foreign accounts. It was of considerable consternation that just months after he received the damning report of the JTF, Obasanjo picked Mr. Yar’Adua and Mr. Jonathan for the nation’s highest offices. But notably, following their “election,” Jonathan was exceedingly reluctant to declare his assets. The report of the CCB may now explain why he was so shy.
As we all know, Ribadu was soon removed from the EFCC, to be replaced by Mrs. Farida Waziri. And Mrs. Waziri then claimed she had no files on any governors. Curiously, she either dismissed the investigators who had worked on those cases, or dispersed them afield.
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But the indictments and allegations against the governors, many of whom nominally left office in May 2007, remained. Regrettably, many of them grew even more influential in the Yar’Adua setup; government being run by their former. He said he would not separate himself from them because they had been colleagues in the Governor’s Forum. Corruption retained its foothold.
As proof of his toughness, Yar’Adua bragged he had set up a committee under the Inspector-General of Police (Mike Okiro) to investigate the Halliburton scandal locally, and that his government had written to the United States authorities for its report and evidence.
“Once we have a response from the U.S. authorities,” he swore, “We will take action and I promise this nation that…we will take actions and direct that the names should be forwarded to the EFCC and those officials and former officials involved will be arrested and prosecuted.’’
That interview was in April 2009.
What he failed to admit was that one year earlier, in May 2008, “Okiro Report” had been submitted to him. In other words, while he bragged to the country in April 2009, he already had under his pillow the mountain-shaking local report on the Halliburton sleaze.
In mid-April 2010, the report of the United States also emerged, and it told the same story as Nigeria’s. Together, they confirmed that over 80 people, including four former Heads of States and two of their wives; former Governors and Ministers; and senior government officials of all shades, took Halliburton bribes.
Obasanjo. Babangida. Abdusallam Abubakar. Ernest Shonekan. Abubakar Atiku. They all took millions of dollars, and then they stepped aside and let the taking continue down the line. They walked free.
By the time the report of the United States emerged, Yar’Adua had become very sick. As someone who canvassed for Jonathan to assume the presidency, I know that both reports transited into his hands.
When he took control last year, it was with all of the same claims to sainthood, and to the power of Samson as to how he would conquer corruption. Last September, we saw how serious he was about this when he ordered the trial of Halliburton bribe takers. But not any notable, of course: after only one month, on October 13, Jonathan withdrew the charges altogether. All bribe-takers, big and small, were safe.
Now that Jonathan is talking about transforming Nigeria, it is important to re-establish this picture so that we are clear not only about what needs to be transformed, but how it may be done. Both Jonathan and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, are talking about big accomplishments.
That is like trying to build the roof without first building the house. That home cannot be built unless we first excavate the site to establish the foundation. Anyone telling Nigerians he will transform without excavating is a false Christian preaching resurrection without crucifixion. If we do not, or cannot, tackle corruption, it will eat Nigeria up just as it has always done.
This is why it hurts to hear Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala call the WikiLeaks cables about corruption in Nigeria “fiction” because one of them tripped her up.
For his part, Jonathan has dismissed them as “beer parlour gossip.” That is convenient, but understandable. What else would he have said? That he, son of Jonathan, is outraged and would do something?
But even if the WikiLeaks stories were “gossip,” what about the Halliburton Reports, foreign and domestic?
What about the report of the Jonathan’s own Presidential Advisory Committee which last January identified a substantial increase in the level of corruption in the his government?
What about his Presidential Projects Assessment Committee which in June reported at least 11,886 ongoing and abandoned projects nationwide on which the Federal Government has spent N7.78trillion?
What about the billions and billions of missing United States dollars in the power sector?
What about the confession by Mr. Ribadu—on whose credibility the Jonathan household swears—that Obasanjo’s government was more corrupt than that of Sani Abacha?
Beer parlour gossip? The way I see it, we can insult the beer parlour all night, but not the beer. Otherwise we know we must begin by digging up: a gruesome but necessary task every Nigerian leader loathes, for obvious reasons.
That is why, for instance, the Annual Report of the EFCC, which is due this week, will again be ignored this year.
Fighting corruption in Nigeria has become the saddest cliché of all. It is a collusion and cover-up that is bigger than the original crime. We are not developing a democracy; we are perfecting a lootocracy. In Nigeria, anyone who does not wage a frontal war against corruption is consolidating the lootocracy.
You cannot transform that.
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