How workable is the Anti Corruption Crusade in Nigeria?

A Paper Presented By Chief (Dr.) George N. Moghalu, National Auditor of the All Progressives Congress (APC), at The 2015 National Summit On Anti – Corruption Success Strategies For General Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration on Thursday, 7th May 2015 At The Transcorp Hilton, Abuja

INTRODUCTION
Corruption in the administration of public services and resources is the single largest threat to the continued existence of the Nigerian state. It is a cancer that has burrowed deep into the body polity and continues still to spread, with increasing intensity and a voracity that should trouble all of us who wish this great country well. Corruption has attained a cultural status. In one form or another it is manifest across the land, in every region, every tribe, every strata and tier of government. We speak the common language of corruption and practice it with an impunity that is limited only by the extent of the spoils available for grabs.
We are a nation of approximately 180 million people with cultures and languages as diverse as the ocean. Too often, the strength of our diversity is undercut by parochial considerations and the pursuit of narrow sectarian interests. Nevertheless, across this land we are united by two things: our ability to continually complain about the terrible consequences of public corruption whilst turning a blind eye to corrupt practices when doing so serves our personal or group interest.

If a poll were to be taken in this room today, or on the streets of any city or state in the country, the majority of respondents will aver that corruption is the biggest problem we face as a country. The question then is why despite universal agreement that this is a pressing issue are we still stymied in our attempts to eradicate this scourge from our land?

In this paper, I have outlined a number of reasons why this is the case and I have tried to articulate a series of policy remedies that we ought to consider as we begin the necessary, yet long overdue task of redefining the nature of public service and restoring public faith in government and the Nigerian state.

THE CONSEQUENCES
In the Foreward to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, Dr. Kofi Annan wrote that “Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.” To this, I will add that corruption distorts our sense of morality, it redefines the expectations we have of ourselves as citizens and it severs the relationship of trust and accountability that ought to exist between the leaders and the people they lead.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Nigerian state has lost nearly US$ 400 billion between 1960 to 1999 to misappropriation and outright embezzlement. Most of these funds were siphoned out of the country and stashed in foreign accounts in Europe and other locations. Consider this, in the fiscal year 2014, the Federal Government of Nigeria budgeted the sum of N340,332,339,871 (Three Hundred and Forty Billion, Three Hundred and Thirty Two Million, Three Hundred and Thirty Nine Thousand and Eight Hundred and Seventy One Naira) in total expenditure for the Ministry of Defence. For the Ministry of Education, the government provided the sum of N495,283,130,268 (Four Hundred and ninety Five Billion, Two Hundred and Eighty Three Million, One Hundred and Thirty Thousand and Two Hundred and Sixty Eight Naira). At this rate of expenditure, the sum of US$ 400 billion will cover the joint budgets of these two critical ministries for the next 95years.
As corruption spreads, foreign investment either dries up, or is driven away. Poverty deepens, and public discontent increases. This in turn makes our society even more vulnerable to bad governance, crime and poverty. Millions of Nigerian children who will never be able to achieve the highest aspirations of their human spirit because they have been deprived a quality education; thousands of kilometres of roads that were never built; hospitals that are not fit for purpose; millions of jobs that were never created because our infrastructure is too inadequate to encourage investment and commerce; millions of Nigerians sleeping rough on the streets of every major city; our young sons selling Chinese sunglasses and packets of chewing gum to make a living on the streets of Abuja; our daughters, sold on the streets of Lagos, Rome and Napoli; our territorial integrity challenged by a ragtag militia of marauding murderers; the hopes of a generation destroyed and our nation’s promise deferred indefinitely. Ladies and gentlemen this is the price we have paid and are still paying for public corruption.

I take solace however in the knowledge that the Nigerian people have begun the fight back against this cancer. The March 28 poll is an indication of our desire to demand more than we have gotten, it is evidence that we the people are now ready to call time on this culture of impunity. For the incoming administration, it creates opportunities and challenges. Opportunities because there is a greater acceptance by the public that we must make the hard choices and pursue inconvenient solutions if we are to win the war against corruption and challenges because if we fail, we may be the first generation of political leaders called to answer for the sins of our forbearers before a righteously indignant public possessed by an indiscriminate and vengeful anger.
Allow me then to make the argument that winning the war against corruption is not merely a socially responsible project, it is essential to protecting the lives, property and continued well-being of many of us in this room today. If we are not motivated by the public good, let us be motivated by the consideration of our own interests. For our sakes, we must review every law, empower every relevant institution, and leave no stone unturned if we intend to win this fight.

THE ANTI – CORRUPTION AGENCIES
There are no penalties to be paid for public corruption in Nigeria. In fact it is a highly profitable venture that rewards practitioners with great wealth and power beyond the reach of most. That this statement can be made despite the fact that we have in existence multiple federal anti-corruption agencies empowered by law to investigate, prosecute and secure convictions against persons engaged in the misappropriation, embezzlement and mismanagement of public resources is evidence that there has been a systemic institutional failure.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were established in the year 2000 and 2004 respectively to provide the dedicated institutional manpower necessary to effectively wage battle against corruption. The EFCC, at inception recorded tremendous success in fighting the scourge of corruption. A series of successful high profile prosecutions helped establish the reputation of the Commission and soon enough, put the fear of God in public officials across the length and breadth of the country. Soon, the Commission was at the time considered the most successful anti-corruption agency in Africa.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the sister agency of the EFCC was established with a similar mandate but with a particular emphasis on corruption in the public sector. The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 which was the establishing act empowered the Commission to prohibit and prescribe punishment for corrupt practices including bribery of public officers and abuse of position. The Act also mandates the Commission to examine practices, systems and procedures of public bodies which may have the effect of facilitating corruption and in such cases supervise and review as well as direct instruct and assist officers of such agencies and parastatals on ways of eliminating and or minimizing corruption. Of particular importance, the Act conferred on the Commission the duty of educating the public about the consequences of corrupt practices on our society and the penalties against the individuals who engage in corrupt practices.
Both of these agencies, despite the huge sums expended on them have in recent times become a part of the problem rather than the solution as previously envisaged. They both have decent track records of securing convictions against petty white collar criminals whilst public officials who embezzle huge sums are able to exploit technicalities in the law and procedure to delay and circumvent the judicial process. In the rare instances that such big fish are convicted, they still find ways to get away with penalties that make a mockery of the entire process. This is how we end up with a situation where a Nigerian Governor is given a clean bill of health by a Nigerian court, only to be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced by a British court of mind blowing charges of public corruption relying on the same set of evidence.

Both agencies have laid the blame for the inefficiencies in the disposal of criminal cases instituted against corrupt officials at the feet of the Judiciary, whilst senior members of the Judiciary are on record blaming them in return for stymieing their own prosecutions in any number of ways including through unnecessary requests for adjournments, shoddy investigative practices and ill thought out prosecution strategies. Both sides are correct in their diagnoses of failures by the other party. However the cross trading of accusations ignores a deeper truth which is that the very structure within which both agencies operate, represents the biggest threat to the successful prosecution of the war against corruption. It follows therefore that any such attempts to reposition in the war against corruption must begin with a thorough reform of the prosecuting agencies as well as a re-examination of the procedures through which public corruption offences are prosecuted.
The existence of two anti-corruption agencies, tasked with essentially the same responsibilities represents an unnecessary duplication of functions. The result being that the agencies will often find themselves working at cross purposes with one another. The attendant duplication of resources in turn means that neither agency has sufficient resource to develop their internal capabilities, recruit specialist staff and provide them with the tools and resources necessary to be effective in the fight against corruption. This is the time to take another look at the possibility of collapsing both agencies into one central, properly funded anti-corruption agency with responsibility for investigating and prosecuting all charges of money laundering and corruption in the management of public resources. Those responsibilities of the EFCC that deal with other forms of white collar criminality can be passed along to already existing bodies, better positioned to handle them. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can in addition to existing statutory responsibilities, be given the authority to investigate and prosecute maladministration within publicly traded organisations, the National Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC) can retain responsibilities for conduct within the banking industry, whilst other forms of fraud and white collar criminality will be left to the jurisdiction of other responsible agencies including the Nigerian Police.
We must consider passage of a Corruption in Public Office Act (CIPSA) which will seek to do the following:
i. Create a separate and distinct class of Public Corruption offences, with minimum penalties in the event of successful prosecution. Minimum penalties must be stringent enough to pose a real threat. The prospect of a minimum of five years in prison for any conviction for public corruption will redefine the way public servants see the offices they occupy

ii. Establish procedures for the mandatory recovery of assets in the event of a conviction even when such is obtained by a guilty plea or by a plea bargain. Asset recovery is a fundamental principal in the fight against corruption. Plea bargains that save the court’s time will result in reduction of prison time but will do nothing to protect the convicted person from forfeiting their assets as restitution and damages to the state. This will eliminate the practice where public officials return a fraction of stolen resources in exchange for the freedom to keep whatever else they might have accumulated during their time in office.

iii. Establish a Special Public Corruption Tribunal which will serve as a court of first instance for all cases of public corruption brought under the act. Removing public corruption cases from the High court system will allow for greater judicial independence. It will also ensure that the Tribunal judges are able to deal exclusively with the cases of public corruption without being distracted by the myriad other cases on their dockets.

iiii. Stipulate a timeframe within which all cases institute by the prosecuting authority must be concluded. Justice delayed is justice denied. Public officials who abuse the trust of the citizens cannot be allowed to go on enjoying the fruits of their betrayal for years, contesting and winning elections and acquiring even more wealth whilst a criminal prosecution makes its way slowly and not at all steadily through the court system. There are EFCC prosecutions today that have been going through the trial processes for nearly a decade. Note, that in the event of an eventual successful prosecution, the defendants may very well choose to appeal the judgements, beginning another round of judicial rigmarole that may continue for another decade or more. This is not justice.

OPEN GOVERNMENT
Successful democracies can only be built through open societies that share information. Where there is information, there is enlightenment. We must develop new standards of open government and put an end to the practice of conducting government business in secret. The freedoms we enjoy cannot and never will be secure for as long as the transactions of our rulers, conducted in our name can be lawfully concealed from us.
Used properly, the Freedom of Information Act can be a very useful tool for opening up the operations of the government to well-deserved scrutiny by citizens and professionals alike. But for the law to be effective in achieving its stated objectives, agencies of government must be encouraged and their staff trained to be more responsive to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by members of the public. The current situation where FOI requests are treated with extreme prejudice and antagonism goes against both the letter and spirit of the law.
The process by which the National Assembly considers and passes the national budget is too opaque and as such highly susceptible to being hijacked by special interests in pursuit of narrow and often counterproductive short term objectives. Budget proposals should be presented in a timely manner and be subject to public and extensive reviews. When the budgets are brought to the floor for voting, voice votes should be disallowed. Senators and Members of the House of Representatives should be required to cast votes for or against and records of those votes will be kept and made available for review. Legislators must be required to take ownership and responsibility for the votes that they cast. Committees of the National Assembly with responsibility for overseeing the activities of the various agencies of government cannot afford to treat this important assignment with levity. Outside consultants, lawyers and accountants should be engaged to assist in conducting regular and thorough reviews of the agencies and projects under their supervision. These reviews should be published to encourage debate and discussion.

The process by which companies register to be eligible to bid for and participate in the contracting process should be reformed. Where there is an excess of red tape, corruption thrives. A uniform registration system will not only eliminate red tape and as such encourage commerce, it will also eliminate the avenues for the exercise of discretionary authority and the opportunities for graft that often attends such exercise of authority. A central database of all Federal Government registered contractors should be established and records of their ownership and activities on behalf of the government should be made available. The public has a right to know the identities of those who the government contracts and pays huge sums to provide services to the state.

We must take advantage of advancements in technology to limit the incidence of ghost workers and create direct communication channels between citizens and the government. Journalists, researchers and other members of the public who are interested in the conduct of their government should be able to access real-time information on activities, plans and intentions, budgets and expenditure. There is no better check on the abuse of official powers than continuous intervention and monitoring by an informed and engaged citizenry.

THE NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE
It is an unfortunate reality that the Nigerian Police Force, our nation’s premier internal security and peace keeping agency, remains the institution of government most closely linked in the public’s mind with corruption and corrupt practices. This is a legacy of police officers who have turned security checkpoints into informal toll gates, others who engage in illegal arrests and extortion of citizens, and those who assault, rape and kill the very citizens they are engaged to protect and serve. Officers and men of the Nigerian Police Force have become tools in the hands of politicians; useful for rigging elections and imposing the will of the minority on the majority. Across the length and breadth of our land, the police have become an occupying force, a state sanctioned militia, empowered to operate outside the boundaries of law and good conscience. The police force has done more than any other agency of government to sow the seeds of cynicism and contempt for the state amongst our citizens. It follows therefore that if we wish to be taken seriously as agents of change, we must very quickly articulate and prepare to implement a programme of reforms that will alter permanently the nature of policing in Nigeria and begin the process of fixing the broken relationship between the police and the Nigerian public.
Police officers are too often disconnected from the communities they police because officers and men are randomly deployed to locales where they have no existing community ties and relationships. Men and women of the force are encouraged to see themselves as apart from the communities they police. This has so far proved to be an unmitigated disaster and a recipe for ill will and discontent. How does it serve the purpose of effective policing to deploy officers and men to police communities where they have no understanding of the culture and history? It has been said that if you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head but if you speak to him in his language, you speak to his heart. How then can a policeman be expected to build trust and develop the capacity to be effective in times of crises if he can’t communicate to the people in their own language. Community policing, within a federal police structure is achievable. A first step in this regard will be for policemen to police their own locales, where they have relationships with the community, where they can be held accountable by their communities and where hopefully, they will be prevented from engaging in some of the more egregious conduct for which the Nigerian Police has now become infamous.

Independent and external oversight of the Nigerian Police Force is essential to restoring public faith in the police. Citizens must have an avenue for quick redress when they are subject to misbehavior by officers and men of the police force. Secret interrogations have to end and police officers should know that interrogation is not equivalent to torture and brutality. All interrogations of criminal suspects should be conducted in a special interrogation room and recorded for subsequent review. Officers responsible for conducting interrogations must receive special training in the field to ensure that they conduct themselves properly. Our fellow citizens have become convinced that the Nigerian Police can operate beyond the boundaries of the law, that they can inflict pain and suffering without consequence. Correcting this perception must be considered a priority reform objective.
The process by which we recruit and train our policemen and women must be completely revamped. Higher minimum entry requirements should be established and advance testing requirements should be put in place to make sure only the cream of the crop are recruited. Where necessary, outsourcing of police training should be considered to ensure that we are able to tap into international best practices. Our objective should be to build a modern police force that is an attractive career choice for quality psychologists, sociologists, lawyers, engineers, communication specialists. To achieve this, we have a responsibility to improve salaries, wages and entitlements of police officers across the board. Being a policeman should no longer condemn a person to a life of penury. Officers and men of the force should not have to beg to provide decent living standards for themselves and their families. If we ask these men and women to be the bulwark between us and anarchy, we must be ready to provide benefit packages that include full health insurance for policemen and their families, and comprehensive life insurance packages that pay sizable gratuities in the event of death or serious injury. Only then can we legitimately demand the best behavior and retain the moral authority to demand maximum punishment in the event of failure to meet established standards.
We must also consider the pernicious consequences of general duty policing on the force’s ability to maintain quality standards. The training required to be an effective anti-terrorism officer is different from that required for an effective special protection officer. In the same vein, the training required for either of the above duties is not the same as that required for a criminal detective, a member of the fraud unit or a community police officer. That officers from all these units can so easily be interchanged and redeployed is counterproductive to effective policing. Officers should be required to pick and pursue specialization in a particular area of policing where their skillset, temperament and abilities can best be utilized. This is both good policing and effective human resource management.

WHISTLE BLOWER PROTECTION
Throughout history, whistleblowers have often proved a most useful resource in the fight against corruption, misappropriation and mismanagement of public resources. Unfortunately also, these acts of conscience have often been performed at great cost; financial, physical, emotional and professional. Since the early eighties, progressive governments all over the world have sought to correct this imbalance by passing legislation to provide protection and compensation for those bold enough to risk life, limb and professional advancement in the pursuit of a society free from corruption.

The fundamental goal of whistleblower protection laws is to allow employees, contractors and agents to stop, report, testify or provide hard evidence of illegal activities or improper actions that violate public policy by their employers whether they be public sector agencies or private sector operators. To achieve these objectives, whistleblower protection laws provide first an avenue for reporting such violations, as well as providing mechanisms to trigger protection from retaliation as well as compensation where there is actual evidence of retaliation. Some whistleblower protection laws go further by providing immunity protections where the whistleblowers are persons who have previously participated in the prohibited conduct. Other legislations provide for whistle blowers to be rewarded where the state is able to recover funds or other penalties from individuals or organisations involved in prohibited conduct.

For too long, the incentives have gone to those who engage in, promote and benefit from corruption. We must seize the opportunity of this news political settlement to advance laws and practices that will seek to protect, promote and reward those who speak out against corruption. We must make it so that public officials who are tempted to be corrupt can live every day with the possibility that there are those amongst them who are sufficiently incentivized and motivated to report their acts of malfeasance to the lawful authorities and make it possible that they will face the full wrath of our nation’s laws.
In 1996, Michael Ruppert, a retired officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) publicly confronted the director of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing and the supply of narcotics that had for long ravaged the inner cities of the United States of America. In 2003, Courtland Kelly an employee of General Motors after repeated failed attempts to bring about change internally, brought to the attention of the world the fact that the company had been slow to effect necessary safety corrections in the Chevrolet Cavalier and Chevrolet Cobalt line of automobiles. His subsequent lawsuit led to a record $35,000,000.00 (Thirty Five Million Dollar) fine for the company and recall of the affected models. We need these kind of heroes in our country ladies and gentlemen and we have an obligation to encourage these kinds of heroism by every means available.

CONCLUSION
Corruption kills economic growth, by stealing public funds meant for infrastructural developments. It discourages investment and creates obstacles to commerce. This in turn has created a massive national employment deficit. Millions of young people who have no jobs and no access to capital for business are a threat to the Nigerian state. They provide cheap manpower for criminal enterprises and are too easily used as kindling to power periodic insurrections across the country. Creating a conducive environment for new investment in agriculture, agro processing and low tech manufacturing will serve to reduce the unemployment numbers and may in time prove to be the best tool in the government’s arsenal for fighting corruption.
Corruption in our education sector has had its own set of consequences. Today, across the country we have more universities and institutions of higher learning than at any other time in our history. We are spending more money than ever on higher education, yet the quality of our graduates is in a downward spiral, our research capabilities are in free fall and our universities can hardly be described as global centres of academic excellence. Without the capacity to innovate, our country cannot compete in a global economy. Investors want to invest capital in profit generating ventures, they don’t want to spend it correcting basic skill and aptitude deficiencies in potential employees – deficiencies that should have been addressed as part of their formal education. This is the time to review the structure of our federal university system and to pull back from our pronounced overreliance on quantity rather than quality. We short-change ourselves if we continue to ignore the sustained decline of our higher institutions.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Nigerians, the question before us is not if we ought to fight corruption. The question before us is whether we are ready to do so with all our might.
The story of nations is the sum total of the decisions and actions of its elders. If the story of Nigeria so far breaks your heart as it does mine, then you my friend have an obligation to join in this important crusade with conviction and certainty of purpose. The history of the next hundred years will be the sum of the decisions we make and the convictions we pursue today. Apathy has its consequences. Look around you and you will see with your own eyes what has become of our great land. Look and you will see in our present travails the stories of all those good men and women who watched and blamed and did nothing. It must not be said of us too, that given the opportunity to deliver our country and restore our promise, we chose instead to watch and blame and do nothing.

I thank you all for your presence here today. God bless you and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.