Dangana Ndatsu
17 November 2008
The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) has no doubt made its presence felt in a bold manner. The mere mention of ICPC is said to cause many a top and not so-top civil servant to suffer bouts of cold sweat, whether or not they have engaged in corrupt practices or other related offences.
The almost routine indulgence in one form of official corruption or the other by civil servants has been severely curbed the real and present danger of not just getting caught but getting arrested, detained and publicly prosecuted on well-investigated charges by an ICPC that has somewhat miraculously defied and defeated the hydra-headed Nigerian factor. Several hitherto untouchable political office holders and top bureaucrats who used their ill-gotten wealth to acquire immunity and then proceeded to flaunt flashy limousines and marvelous mansions, have indeed been brought to book-governors have been docked and convicted!
The entire citizenry is in such a frenzy of vengeful expectation that even the ICPC's impressive performance is under constant challenge because there are still a lot of "big thieves" strutting their stuff without let or hindrance. This is the dilemma that the ICPC is facing from the very people who have expressed seemingly unqualified satisfaction with its uncanny knack for dealing with corruption in high places. In one breath, people have accepted the ICPC as the much-awaited talisman against official corruption but in the next, they are exasperated in the face of a pandemic of corruption- real and rumoured- erupting sporadically which dwarf the ICPC's mighty stance. Although it is dreadful to contemplate, the ICPC's investigative and prosecution prowess is not exactly the magic wand that will "eradicate" corruption. Indeed the evidence shows that the corruption cankerworm has eaten so deep into the nation's fabric-like several other related socio-economic maggots like robbery and drug-trafficking-that the so-called war against corruption is turning out to be a perpetual treadmill. While the impact of the ICPC crusade is acknowledged and celebrated, the reality of an entrenched "culture" of corruption is looming larger by the day and it is not far-fetched to suggest that we will need special prisons exclusively reserved for ICPC convicts sooner than later in view of the over-population of existing general purpose prisons and the explosion in the exposure of corrupt persons and practices.
At the risk of sounding alarmist, it is worth pointing out that the ICPC itself would have to somehow metamorphose into an army of occupation in terms of men and munitions in order to realistically meet the near-hysterical perception of corruption by the average man on the street, who is generally poor and frustrated about the provocative inequities of life. If only the wealthy minority were more compassionate about the plight of the impoverished majority, there might be a mitigation of this unsettling prejudice. But in a situation which locks citizens in a rich-get-richer-poor-get-poorer conundrum, it should be understandable that every sign of property and privilege is ominously resented by the have-nots. Consequently, there is a rampant and indiscriminate criminalization of wealth acquisition in the perception of the common folks, regardless of the fact that there are many perfectly legitimate ways and means of making good money. After all, aren't there many people in society whose wealth stems from such innocuous sources as winning lotteries and raffle draws, promotional games of chance, betting, business acumen, good fortune or inheritance? There are a lot of "wealthy" people who made it by pulling off successful confidence tricks or 419 that even the victims cannot dare to report- but this is not on ICPC's turf anyway. It is particularly hazardous for public officers to be wealthy these days because of the orgy of looting of public funds that has been an open secret but is now a harsh reality, and the onus is not so much on the perceived looter to prove the legitimacy of his wealth as the suspicious public would rather expect, nay, demand that the ICPC be driven by the presumption of guilt based on "popular" perception.
On top of this pile of odds stands the Nigerian judiciary which has the final say on the guilt or innocence of suspects arraigned for prosecution. It is particularly disheartening to observe how the integrity of the Nigerian judiciary has plummeted to the level of public odium and disenchantment as a result of the scandalous handling of 2007 election petitions. The Court of Appeal drew so much opprobrium for dishing out conflicting and confounding verdicts widely believed to be the result of "subterranean influences" that the Supreme Court is now the preferred final arbiter of future election petitions. Sad as this is, it is actually the culmination of decades of judicial jingoism, during which judges were disrobed of their cloaks and wigs of sanctimonious immunity from the primitive instincts of the laypeople, as they pandered to the whims and caprices of the powerful and the rich, in civil and criminal cases alike. The ICPC can get no further than the judiciary wants it to get in successful prosecution of evidently corruptly-enriched ex-office holders because, as with the election petitions, it is not the strength of the case but the weakness of the judges that sways the gavel.
From the foregoing, no one should suffer the delusion that the apparent ferocity of the ICPC's anti-corruption crusade, mainly manifested in the arrest and prosecution of prominent suspects, is either the most appropriate or effective means of curbing corruption in our society. We need only recall that even the draconian decrees of the Buhari Regime, which prescribed summary execution and century-jail terms for drug-trafficking and a host of "miscellaneous" offences including corrupt enrichment, never succeeded in eliminating the vices. In fact, the ICPC Act makes no pretence to relying solely on "receiving and investigating" complaints from members of the public on allegations of corrupt practices and in appropriate cases prosecute the offenders which is just one of the six duties assigned to the Commission in Section 6 (a)-(f) of the Act. Other duties include examining the practices, systems and procedures of public bodies and directing and supervising their review to discourage identified lapses capable of aiding corruption. This "systems review" has already made a huge impact by plugging the billions of naira unspent budgeted funds that are not returned to public treasury at the end of the financial year. This addresses the institutional and bureaucratic factors enabling corrupt practices in public offices which obviously constitute a major catalyst. Related to this provision is the duty of ICPC to instruct, advise and assist any officer, agency or parastatal on ways by which fraud or corruption may be eliminated or minimized as well as the provision requiring the Commission to render similar advise to heads of public bodies.
Arguably, it is the last two of the assigned duties of the ICPC which hold the key to any hope of long-term effective solution to the perpetuation of corruption in Nigeria because they focus on the importance of public enlightenment on and against bribery, corruption and related offences and the need to enlist and foster public support in combating corruption. The problem of wrong perception of corruption and understanding what needs to be done to effectively combat it, including the limitations of the ICPC and the involvement of the public through re-orientation and internalization of the essence of the war against corruption must be at the very heart of the campaign which must be sustained throughout the country at all levels. The ICPC therefore needs to brace up to these statutory responsibilities without necessarily impeding its pursuit of the more visible investigation and prosecution of offenders. Its presence needs to be felt in all 36 states and Abuja, not just in the 14 or so states where it has offices today. It needs to be adequately funded to achieve all its assigned objectives and duties and not to suffer the typical epileptic under-funding that plagues most government agencies. Above all, Nigerians must be consciously responsible, individually and collectively, for the ultimate and enduring success of the war against corruption because we are all victims of the situation for as long as the scourge persists.
Ndatsu writes from Mokwa, Niger State.
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