Fighting corrupt people versus fighting corruption

The on ongoing war against corruption did not come to Nigerians as a surprise. It was very much expected. There was apprehension in 2015 that a Buhari government would wage a decisive battle against corruption. That was the popular feeling in the run up to the 2015 general elections. Fear enveloped the polity. In fact, I overheard some big people say that they would leave the country if Buhari won the election. The fear was palpable.

And true to expectation, the Buhari administration has since May 29, 2015, waged a battle against the monster of corruption, which has held Nigeria by the jugular. The battle is still on and no one knows exactly what would be the outcome. There is no doubt that every patriotic Nigerian supports the anti-corruption battle and would like it to succeed.

It is from that angle that I wish to draw attention to two related but dissimilar issues pertaining to corruption. There is the issue of fighting corrupt people as opposed to fighting corruption. The two are not exactly the same and may be confusing. There is need to understand the difference in order to know exactly where is the focus.

Fighting corrupt people has to do with using all the necessary machinery of the law to invite, interrogate, detain, investigate, prosecute, convict and jail persons suspected or indicted in any way with corruption. It is for this purpose that we have such anti-corruption agencies as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), among others.

The job of these agencies is to track all persons involved in corruption be it allegation, accusation, witch-hunting or political victimisation. It is the duty of these bodies to investigate any person so accused or suspected to be involved in corruption and either release or drag the persons to court for prosecution where there is concrete evidence. But these agencies don’t seem to have concrete evidence before dragging people to court, which is why the cases linger. The fight is more dramatised, giving false hope of winning the battle.

So far, the focus is more on corrupt people. I call it “the catch the thief approach.” This approach is ad-hoc and cannot eradicate corruption.The reason is that only those caught are dealt with. Those not caught, or even the big fishes or sacred cows are not touched.There are thousands of corrupt persons who are in this group. Nothing stops those caught, prosecuted and probably convicted from engaging in corruption after their release. Those not caught or prosecuted simply remain calm waiting for the end of the campaign for them to return to the same practices.

Fighting corruption in this way is akin to the proverbial bedbug story. The bedbug, those small blood-sucking insects infested the beddings of an old woman. The woman did not know what to do or how to deal with the problem. One day, she decided to do something – something drastic. She boiled a pot of hot water and poured it on the bedbug infested mattress. It was like an atomic bomb. The mother bedbug called on the children to remain calm, saying that whatever is hot will certainly cool down. Though there were casualties as a result of the hot water but many of the bedbugs hid in the crannies of the mattress. As predicted, the mattress soon cooled down and the surviving bedbugs re-infested it. Soon, it was as if nothing had happened.

Granted that the anti-corruption battle is hot at the moment, the question is how long would the heat last. What happens after the Buhari administration exits and a president who might not be interested this fight takes over? Scores of persons have been arrested, detained, questioned, released, etc, but those prosecuted and convicted are minuscule. There is no deterrence yet. The only thing that would deter people from engaging in corruption is the way and manner the current fight is being waged and the degree of punishment meted out to convicts.

Some countries, China, for example, impose death penalty for corruption. What severe sanction is there to deter people from corruption? The fight, so far, is not leaving any indelible mark that could deter anyone from corruption. It is because the fight is hollow that even the judiciary, which ought to be the people’s vanguard, is getting involved in the same corruption. Like the mother bedbug said, people are just remaining calm and waiting for the fight to end and things would return to the status quo. That would not help Nigeria.

It is from that angle that I believe the second approach, which is “fighting corruption,” is more effective and enduring. Fighting corruption involves plugging all the systemic loopholes that aid corruption and at the same time putting in place strong legal framework to deal with corrupt persons. Unlike the “catch the thief” approach, fighting corruption focuses on the system and not on persons. The entire federation should be involved from the local governments to states and Federal Government. Buhari’s anti corruption is focusing only on the Federal Government, which is incomplete.

Nigeria’s corruption is systemic involving virtually everybody, big and small, men and women in both official and unofficial settings. Therefore, any attempt to deal with corruption should focus on the system, which does not rule out dealing with corrupt persons with concrete evidence. The emphasis should be on instituting measures in all fabrics of society that would make corruption unattractive. Not until corruption is made unattractive would there be headway.

A situation where people who are known to be corrupt are revered, hailed and rewarded with honorary degrees, national honors and chieftaincy titles does not augur well for the country. A situation where corruption is ethicized, where the kits and kin of corrupt public officials shield them from EFCC is inimical to the anti corruption battle. The system has neither been overhauled nor sanitised in this battle.

So far, the only measure that seems to deal with systemic corruption is the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the Buhari administration. As I have said in this column, only those benefiting from the systemic anomie and financial recklessness may oppose it. The TSA, if well implemented, would be the single most effective measure to fight corruption in Nigeria, not the anti-corruption agencies that are often abused and used for political witch-hunting.