As Tinubu bestirs himself

It is not usually wise to jump to conclusions when something jolts the system in our political kingdom. It may raise hope that things are about to change. And it may morph into a bubble and disappoint expectations.

Still, it would not be entirely naive to make some informed guesses as to what the scandal kicked up by Dr Betta Edu, who now wears a new sash as the suspended minister of humanitarian affairs, may portend for the country under the President Bola Tinubu administration.

That this scandal broke this early in the life of the administration owes more to what has become a tradition in our system of government than the minister’s weakness at the sight of money.

This scandal and others inching their way into public focus, are products of our battered and bastardised system in which our public officers have taken impunity to greater heights without the fear of being called to account for what they do and why they do it. Impunity has birthed sacred cows – men and women who cannot be touched or questioned and who thumb their noses at the rest of the country.

This is part of the ambivalent prosecution of the anti-graft war. The current chaos that passes for a system of governance is a huge joke. It insults our collective sense of duty to the fatherland. No nation thrives without some rudiments of national ethos anchored on a system that drives governance at all levels. Nigeria tried to be an exception, but nothing lasts for ever. The sun may be rising for our nation at this point in its history. Am I making too much of this?

In our current system, our public officers make their personal rules. Each man is an emperor, and each woman is an empress in their sacred turfs of public offices. They do not feel bound by the once-sacred public document called financial instructions that provides guidelines for public expenditures by civil servants and public officers. They do not see themselves as guardians of our common treasures with the duty to protect what has been entrusted to them.

They see themselves as the owners of those treasuries with an unquestionable right to do what they will with them. And they indeed do with them what they will. It makes stealing both easy and attractive. It makes corruption a celebrated individual achievement.

Indeed, with individuals pocketing billions of naira from our common treasuries, stealing has attained a new height as looting. Thus, individuals get richer at the expense of the nation and the nation gets poorer by the actions of its public servants turned into looters.

Corruption thrives because the system is so comprehensively battered and bastardised that it has lost its capacity to police itself to meet the basic demands of accountability and good governance. If the current scandal forces Tinubu to undertake a comprehensive repair of the system to end, or at least, reduce the level of impunity and make all public officers accountable for what they do and why do it, we would have Dr Betta Edu to thank for in the near future. Through her, the cans of worms must submit to the can openers and the worms must be let out in the marketplace.

Ours is a cynical nation. Given our recent experiences, it is not entirely unfair to suspect that this too might after all be a bubble – and nothing will change. It had happened again and again. Still, there is a reason to hope that some good will come of the current action of the president. Two developments lead me to this conclusion, naïve as it might be.

One, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs is in the cross hairs of EFCC. It appears to be the leaking water pot in the system. The immediate past minister, Sadiya Umar-Farouk, is telling the Commission what she knows about the laundering of N37,170,855,753.44 by the ministry under her watch. You read that right: N37 billion.

The money is said to have been lodged in a number of banks and operated outside the system. It was all but lost to the nation. It is possible that Edu thought this is the system in the ministry and simply followed the footsteps of her predecessor in office by lodging over half a billion naira in a private bank account.

Two, the government has taken the right step to get to the bottom of this apparently cynical looting of our national treasury by looking well beyond Edu and Umar-Farouk and spreading the dragnet to catch their collaborators outside the system. This is a welcome development in the anti-graft war. Stealing is a collaborative effort. The civil servants are the tutors in the ministries. They know the loopholes and they teach the ministers how to go about stealing and stealing big.

There is no theft of government fund at the national or sub-national levels without the active participation of outside collaborators. The itinerant army of consultants provide the backbone for the looters in the public services. I am sure the dragnet will bring in some of them.

I am encouraged that after what appears to be a disappointing inactivity in an anticipated activist administration pre-occupied with choosing between chasing popularity with the distribution of palliatives and sticking to hard-headed thoughts and actions to lift the nation from the marsh of ineptitude into which it was pushed in its recent history, the Edu scandal has forced the president to bestir himself to face the critical issues that will ultimately define his presidency, to wit, the recovery of our nation from the pit of hell.

His decision was prompt and, as the Americans like to say, right on. If it demonstrates his intolerance for corruption and impunity, we welcome it. If it serves notice of a dawn in nation that appears to be condemned to live in the darkness of its ambivalence and failures, we welcome it.

We will not be wrong to chalk it up as an indication that under his watch, indecisions and dithering will have little room to roam and impair decisive actions/decisions and hold good governance hostage. Perhaps, accountability will now be given a pride of place in governance at the national and sub-national levels.

Perhaps, there will be no sacred cows anymore. All cows must be treated equally. Perhaps, the reports and the recommendations of government probes will not end their lives gathering dust on government shelves anymore.

Two, all administrations dread scandals, especially those that border on corruption. The Betta Edu scandal is a classical case. We do not need to consult the babalawo to know how much it must have embarrassed Tinubu. But it tells him that contrary to his promise, Buhari did not kill corruption. For eight years, the man watched as corruption destroyed almost everything we hold dear.

Tinubu inherited an anti-graft war that had lost its steam through a benign tolerance by Buhari. The president must now put the steam back in the anti-graft war.

Corruption must not be allowed to continue to define our national character. Impunity must not become a badge of honour worn by our public officers. It is my hope that the president will sustain our hope in his capacity to go the distance to renew our nation.