When the then aspirant Muhammadu Buhari launched an audacious fourth bid for the Presidency in 2015, he produced a number of soundbites expressing his readiness to vanquish corruption.

Being the monster that has hobbled Nigeria’s developmental aspirations for over five decades, many Nigerians were in absolute agreement with Buhari that there was a need to confront corruption with all the vehemence that could be mustered. In the heat of the electioneering campaigns, it was not possible to scrutinize the nature of the war, which Buhari the candidate was promising to launch. The very fluid nature of the political discourse ensured that the man, who was soon to become President, signed off no concrete policy position on during the campaign.

The implication was that while a good number of Nigerians ardently believed in the President’s ability to halt the haemorrhage in the system, no one bothered to ask about the methods he was proposing in arresting the madness of corruption.

Sick and tired of the ruins left in the national space by the problem of corruption, citizens merely gave the President a blank cheque to move in and deal a decisive blow to the heart of the problem. The President has now availed himself of the full assurance of a popular mandate to confront corruption. It is on the basis of this overwhelming mandate from citizens that President Buhari immediately got off the blocks by taking the fight to those indicted for graft.

On the day he was sworn in at the Eagles Square on May 29, 2015, the President served a subtle warning to all those who had plundered the nation’s resources, telling them to “fear only the consequences of their actions.”

Swiftly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which had been previously derided in the Jonathan years as a lame duck agency that had become too docile to go after corrupt people, suddenly rediscovered its ability to bite. Jonathan administration officials who had been indicted for plundering the nation’s resources were promptly hauled in for questioning.

At the last count, top politicians, military chiefs, civil servants and other key players from the PDP old guard are being held to account. As if to deflect criticisms about any ethnic or sectional agenda, the first key player in the previous government who was called upon to account for how he handled national resources, specifically monies meant for purchase of arms to fight the insurgency, was Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

By electing to begin the war using a prince from the heart of the North, the Buhari administration neutralised critics who were ready to lob allegations that the anti-corruption war was about a so-called Northern agenda to reclaim ground lost during the Jonathan years. Subsequently, other persons indicted are being made to pass through the judicial process to prove their innocence.

Interestingly, while very little protestations have been heard on the basis of the geo-ethnic composition of those being tried for graft, the debate has shifted to the issue of the lop-sidedness of the anti-graft war on the basis of political parties.

The argument by indicted persons, most of who belong to the defeated PDP, is that only persons of interest within their party are being investigated and prosecuted. To buttress this point, the protestors have loudly been proclaiming that chieftains of the governing party, who are perceived to be corrupt, have received virtually no attention from the anti-graft agencies.

This thesis therefore conveys a feeling of discontent that the ongoing anti-corruption crusade is lopsided and driven by partisan considerations. In the interim, not many of those who have been hauled before the courts have come out to strongly deny their culpability in the plunder of national finances. The core of their riposte by those been prosecuted by anti-graft agencies is that they are not the only ones culpable. They further insist that there are similar looters like themselves in the current governing party, who currently walk free because of the cover they enjoy from being members of the President’s party.

This derisive characterisation of the efforts to bring those who have soiled their hands to book is beginning to gain traction. After allowing those on the opposite side to ingrain this narrative in the minds of citizens, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed attempted to turn the tables against those trying to paint the anti-graft war as a partisan evening of scores. Lai’s line of counter attack is that the government is not investigating the campaign finances of the PDP.

His deft take is that the authorities only launched an inquest into how funds meant for purchase of arms were spent on the watch of some of the persons now facing the courts. He implied that it was only happenstance that government traced those funds to the campaign war chests of the opposition. However, when he was queried as to the sources of the funds his party used to prosecute and win the 2015 elections, the Information Minister lobbed the ball to the court of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The striking thing about Lai Mohammed’s position is that he did not deem it fit to promise that the governing party would voluntarily open its books for public scrutiny.

He merely passed the buck to INEC, leaving many Nigerians to demand why INEC has been so lethargic when it comes to issues of campaign financing. Section 225 of the Constitution empowers INEC to pour through the books in order to be acquainted with the worth of the assets and liabilities of political parties. By the Constitution and the electoral laws of the land, political parties are required to submit to INEC a detailed annual statement and analysis of its sources of funds and other assets together with a similar statement of expenditure in such form as the commission may require.

The entire Sections 225 and 226 of the 1999 Constitution as amended deals with the regulation of finances of political parties by INEC, in such a way that nothing shall be hidden from the public. Knowing the opaque nature of the average politician, the framers of the Constitution obviously put these measures in place to institute transparency.

Unfortunately, INEC has been unwillingly to come to the party. While some stakeholders have identified a lack of the requisite capacity, and the over-burdening of INEC as the factors responsible for the absence of a vigorous push to implement clear campaign finance laws.

Knowing it is better late than never, this is therefore the time for INEC to up its game and begin the inquest into the books of the parties to determine which have run foul of the law. Once that is established, it is expected that the laws of the land should be followed in meting out appropriate sanctions.

Even so, there is another camp, which has characterised the anti-graft campaign as a joke. This group made of prominent public commentators rationalise that what Nigeria needs is to overhaul the current anti-corruption architecture. Their lacerating thesis feeds on the notion that the Nigerian State itself is a fraudulent entity. As such, this school insists that a national entity that was built on specious foundations would never be able to fight the monster of corruption.

The prescription therefore is for a total restructuring of the Nigerian State in order to dismantle the foundational ramparts of corruption. The reality, however, is that while those who advocate the need to restructure the polity as a basis to holistically confront graft may be on firm ground, the misguided idealism that propels the thinking that such an architecture can come into place overnight, is what exposes the soft under belly of their position.

In the face of these disparate narratives of the anti-corruption war, the task belongs to the government and the relevant agencies to ensure there are no sacred cows. All those indicted for acts of corruption across party lines should be brought to justice.

More importantly, the Nigerian people need to take ownership of the anti-corruption war. As it is at the moment, it is still being narrated as Buhari’s fight. The earlier the people become a part of the crusade, the better.

This can only happen through a comprehensive programme of national orientation. The aim would be to get the ordinary people to reject corruption and abuse of office at all levels of government, not just at the federal level.