A couple of weeks back, a former Prime-Minister of The Republic of Thailand, in the person of Thaksin Shinawatra, was sentenced to two (2) years imprisonment by a Court in the country, on charges of corruption and fraudulent embezzlement of public funds, throwing a wide section of this struggling Asian nation into wide ecstasy and jubilation.

It is noteworthy that ex-PM Shinawatra, who was alleged to have shamelessly looted the treasury of his country, siphoning huge sums of monies abroad, had all along been evading arrest and playing the game of hide and seek, as regards returning back home to answer to these charges. Instead of owning up to his sins, he has preferred to remain in exile in England, where he has continued to live large, throwing money around in reckless extravagance, and at one time even became the owner of topflight English Premier League club side, Manchester City, before he later sold it to the Abu Dhabi Group.

Though Thaksin Shinawatra may have been convicted in absence, however, the Shinawatra's case quickly reminds one of the peculiar corruption in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, and of how many of how leaders have in time past plundered the economy and looted the treasury, and still got away with it. Even though it is not usually unusual for the new governments to quickly institute some phony probe panels and investigative commissions, but the undeniable truth is that they usually fade away as quick as they have come, and only end up been another source of distraction from their real job of governance, deceit, and unnecessary stirring up of the people's hope.

Such is the recent power sector probe panel whose report has since started gathering dust in whatever bin that it may have been dumped. Our country is in her present epileptic state, for no reason but the life sapping corruption and authority stealing (like the legendary Fela once called it), that former leaders have perpetrated in the system, yet, no single one of these characters have been brought to book for their sin against humanity. All we continue to get from our anti-corruption agencies, who unfortunately for the system, are funded by tax payer's money, is their usual calculated delaying tactics of telling the people to come forward with evidence against these people, before they can do their statutory job.

One wonders what the usefulness of an anti-corruption agency is, if it cannot commit itself to an all-round the clock investigation of public officials, who have ceaselessly been alleged to have criminally enriched themselves. It has thus now become glaring that it's all a game of deceit, as these bodies lack the necessary will power to prosecute these supposed "untouchable big men." May be one need to ask whether the Thai Police had to wait for the Thai people to bring evidence before it acted. It is such that our own Police and anti-graft bodies are nothing but a total insult to what those bodies stand for.

After all the hullabaloo by the EFCC under Madam Farida Waziri not having enough evidence to charge former President Olusegun Obasanjo to Court, a Civil Society group, the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), finally submitted a petition to the EFCC, calling on them to investigate the ex-President on the various allegations leveled against him like the illegal acquisition of N200 million shares in Transcorp, the N7 billion Presidential Library project, using public funds to build his University, amongst other of his sins. Nigerians now wait to see if the EFCC will finally have the will to carry out their statutory duty.

It is heartwarming to recall that the EFCC, under the erstwhile Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, did to a reasonable extent, take the corruption fight to the centre-stage, though the bulk of the highly celebrated cases were disappointedly sacrificed on the alter of plea bargaining, however, this same once high flying agency under the present Chairman, is a different story entirely. One would now see that despite all the criticisms leveled at the tenure of Ribadu, one thing that cannot be taken away from that dispensation is the charisma, courage, and fearlessness that was brought to bear on the entire fight against corruption.

One would like to submit that, the challenge before the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies at this precarious time is to take a cue from the Asian example. Notable Asian countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, to mention a few, have all been able to wage a successful war against corruption and other financial crimes solely because of the will and spirit of national consciousness that forms the major ideologies of their anti-graft bodies. That is one lesson we can learn. If Shinawatra, with all his wealth and international connection could be brought to face justice, one sees no reason why living past leaders having a multitude of allegations on their neck, can't be made answerable to their sins.

- Adegbite is a member of the Law Faculty of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.