Oguejiofor: Who wants an incorruptible leader?

TO be incorruptible is to be scarcely swayed by the lure of lucre. It is the personal attribute of a man who realises, unlike most of us, that it does not take millions (more like billions now) and the oft-vicious struggle to acquire them, to satisfy human needs, even wants. Supporters of General Muhammadu Buhari, the APC presidential hopeful, routinely crow about how he would allegedly accept only N2.5 million of the hefty N25 million annual pension due to him as a former head of state, as evidence that the man is the best person to fight corruption in Nigeria if elected president. Which may well be true. Except that being personally incorruptible does not exactly translate to the incorruptibility of all persons on a leader’s team, as Buhari’s leadership history has clearly shown.

  We will give a few examples to back our claims. But before then, permit me to say that the word corruption has become so thoroughly abused that wittingly or unwittingly, we seem to have invested it with a rather invincible persona, one that we can’t even begin to scratch, but which, in reality, it does not possess. While corruption is hydra-headed evil afflicting the Nigerian system that must be fought tooth and nail, I hold the view that incompetence, or what Dr. Douglas Anele of University of Lagos has described as lack of emotional intelligence, is worse than corruption. For, if a man is incorruptible but does not have the competence to properly utilise the resources available to him (that is, what is left after corruption has taken its toll) to achieve good governance, or cannot effectively put members of his team on leash so they don’t eat the bone hanging on their necks, he is worse than the corrupt; but competent man who, in spite of corruption, is able to properly apply the little resources at his disposal to achieve some laudable governance objectives. 

   There was once a prince of the Yoruba nation who governed Lagos State. Confronted with the near total collapse of the road infrastructure in Lagos, the prince at a loss as to what to do simply developed an alibi. His ready excuse for doing practically nothing about the pathetic state of Lagos roads then was that there was no bitumen with which to surface the roads. Lagosians complained and cursed but the prince obviously was ‘clueless’. Either because of his obvious incompetence or in spite of it, the prince was removed and in was brought another prince, this time from Adamawa. In less than three months of Mohammed Buba Marwa’s posting to Lagos, residents witnessed remarkable transformation. By the time Marwa’s military administration in Lagos ended in May 1999, he had set a pace that the civilian administration of Ahmed Bola Tinubu had to struggle to beat. Let’s face it: in spite of corruption, governments in Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Cross River, Rivers, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Bayelsa, Ondo and several others, have performed creditably. At the federal level, Jonathan has performed beyond expectation. Yet, every time you read newspaper, or listen to radio, commentaries, you would think nothing positive at all is happening in the country because of corruption.

  The point, then, is this: Muhammadu Buhari may be incorruptible, but he has proved over time that he is not particularly a good leader. A lot has been said about his clannishness and religious bigotry (as head of state in 1985, he voted for a Nigerien Fulani Muslim to become OAU Secretary General over and above Nigeria’s Peter Onu, a northerner like Buhari who only happened to be a Christian) but that is not the issue in contention here. What should worry every discerning Nigerian is that on several occasions in the past, opportunities had presented themselves for the APC presidential hopeful to prove his mettle as an effective leader but on each occasion, he had failed to live up to expectations. Consider a few examples:

   As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum Resources, Buhari was in charge of NNPC. While he held sway at the Corporation, a whopping $2.8 billion was illegally transferred from NNPC’s Midland Bank account in London to a private account. Miss Vera Ifudu who reported the scam was ignominiously dismissed by the NTA. While it may be true that Buhari did not personally misappropriate the fund, many agree that a more effective manager would never have allowed such a colossal loss of public money under his watch.

   Buhari’s tour of duty as the Executive Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund was not exactly a stellar outing for an incorruptible man. Obasanjo, judge, jury and prosecutor all at once, may have absolved the APC presidential hopeful of any personal wrong doing as PTF Chairman, but it is instructive that the executive summary of the report of the interim management committee set up by President  Obasanjo’s government to examine the books of PTF showed that some N25 billion could not be properly accounted for by the PTF management.

    A lot has also been said about the unchecked 53 suitcases brought in by the former Emir of Gwandu during the currency change programme of 1984, but it bears re-emphasis because it is also at the core of our argument here. The point to note is that the suitcases were allowed to pass unchecked through Customs by Buhari’s aid-de-camp, then Major Jokolo. And it is just possible that Buhari did not know about this incident. But, it says a lot about the personality of the man.

   Other examples abound – of how several other serious cases of suspected corruption took place under General Buhari’s watch as military head of state but he could do nothing about them. Indeed, it is estimated that over $8 billion was spent by Buhari’s PTF without commensurate impact on the socio-economic landscape of the country. Or, can any one still point to any standing legacy of the Petroleum Trust Fund, which this nation can use as a testimony to Muhammadu Buhari’s frugality and managerial acumen as a leader?

   On the other hand, between 2011 and now, Jonathan whom they unjustifiably label ‘corrupt’ has significantly changed the country’s development narrative, whether it is in the field of agricultural production, which has more than tripled; youth and women empowerment through entrepreneurship, education, roads construction and reconstruction, rail transport and the like. Yet, they would not give him credit for anything.

   I repeat that competence and sound knowledge and understanding of development issues are more important than a leader’s so-called incorruptibility. We don’t need a leader who is incorruptible but members of his team stink with financial malfeasance. We don’t need an incorruptible leader who does not understand what the development issues in the modern era are. A 72- year old leader who cancelled a modern rail project just to punish a section of the country when he was still young and vibrant at 42, cannot be trusted to understand the challenges of development in an era of globalization. 

   So, it is not just enough that Muhammadu Buhari is incorruptible. The problem is that he simply does not have what it takes – sound knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of modern development, the vibrancy and dynamism that modern leadership demands and the temperament and humility to work with others as a team – to move the country to the next level. In all honesty, Goodluck Jonathan has proved that he has all these and more. 

• Oguejiofor lives in Lagos.