Eventually, the high level official visitor from the government of the United States of America which Nigerians have long expected has come and gone. Since President Barack Obama visited Ghana last month, Nigerians have debated the omission of their country from the itinerary of the US president on his first official visit to Africa as if without that visit all the millennium development goals set by the country will not be realised.

While the opposition group jubilated that Obama's refusal to visit Nigeria was a vote of no confidence on the nation's political system, the high level of corruption and failure of government to alleviate the suffering of the majority, the government people tried to play down on the relevance or significance of the visit. After all, past American presidents have visited Nigeria while in office. From Jimmy Carter who was the first incumbent American president to visit Nigeria up to the immediate past US president, George Bush (jnr.), Obama would not be the first US president to visit Nigeria, if he eventually does so. Perhaps, the excitement which his candidacy generated in Nigeria during the last electioneering period in the US made the expectation to see him in flesh and blood very important to our countrymen and women.

After the intense debate generated by Obama's visit to Ghana, the US foreign affairs handlers simply decided to 'compensate' the other prominent African countries who felt slighted by their non-inclusion in his itinerary by designing a tour of Africa for the secretary of state, Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton whose husband was also very popular in Nigeria during his tenure as US president. Mr. Clinton had visited Nigeria as president and afterwards. The last visit was in January as a guest of THISDAY in Abuja where he chaired the newspaper's 14th award ceremony.

Mrs. Clinton who arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday held discussions with President Umaru Yar'Adua, representatives of non governmental organisations and other groups. This means that she got both official and unofficial information about the Nigerian situation. However, the highlight of her trip was the robust engagements she had at the Town Hall Meeting held at the Shehu Yar'Adua Centre in Abuja on Wednesday evening. At the meeting, Mrs. Clinton addressed several issues. However, what I consider the clincher is the assessment of the United States government on the performance of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the last two years. Mrs. Clinton helped to underscore the point many Nigerians have known and spoken about to the chagrin of the government. She said: "We want to see the reinstatement of a vigorous corruption commission. The EFCC, which was doing well, has kind of fallen off in the last one year; we will like to see it come back to be able to partner with us."

In essence, Mrs. Clinton was saying the EFCC under Nuhu Ribadu in the pre-2008 years was more vigorous and gave a good scare to corrupt public officials, fraudsters and other economic saboteurs in our shores. Some of us had written or spoken about the fact that though Ribadu may not be indispensable, yet anybody who will fight corruption needs to be as courageous, passionate and determined to make the difference as the now dismissed police assistant inspector general of police (or is it deputy commissioner of police?). Those who accuse Ribadu of all kinds of offences including being used by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to witch-hunt political opponents never said the so-called political opponents did not steal public money. Their argument was always that he was selective.

Now, it is becoming obvious that there are some good aspects to the Ribadu tactics, even though there were obvious lapses. What the Yar'Adua government has now replaced the aggressive pursuit of corrupt people which we witnessed under Ribadu with is a system of 'rule of law' which is only activated when these corrupt people want to escape justice. Rule of law is now about how a prominent politician accused of corruption can exploit the loopholes in the court process to stalemate the trial. The system even emboldens some corrupt judicial officers to give dubious injunctions which can be equated to judicial immunity for accused persons.

Today, the EFCC is a toothless bulldog. It can only announce that certain official would be arraigned in court. After the arraignment, it is almost powerless to pursue the prosecution diligently. The politicians now know that apart from the shame associated with the publicity of being arraigned for corrupt practices, the next thing is just to get a bail from the court. After being released on bail, the case may never get mentioned again.

The only case of a corrupt politician that the EFCC under Mrs Farida Waziri concluded its prosecution ended up with some funny sentence. That is the case of ex-governor Lucky Igbinedion who was sentenced to one month imprisonment with an option of fine. There are several other cases which were investigated by the former administration at EFCC and charged to court, but the trial has not commenced months after.

The verdict on the EFCC's soft stance approach to the anti-graft campaign is a demonstration that you cannot fight a monster thinking you can do it with soft hand gloves. You need a strong iron fist which will deal deadly blows on the beast. A few weeks ago, the newspapers were awash with cases of corruption spanning the federal legislature and executive bodies. The Halliburton and Siemens scandals which have international dimension are also there. Just as Ribadu had warned before he fell out of power, corruption is fighting back after the zealous battle waged against it in the recent past. Under the present dispensation, corruption seems to have seized the initiative from those appointed to fight it. Mrs. Waziri herself recently lamented that the rate of corrupt practices is high in the country now. Though, she blamed the judiciary for the lapses, but one expected the woman to know that what is needed is a change of strategy. This change of method may require getting approval from the president and carrying along other stakeholders in the anti-graft war.

There is no doubt that our public officers have gone back to the business as usual era after they survived the scary era of the EFCC under Ribadu. Since any criticism pointed out at home is usually the handiwork of unpatriotic opposition elements or their sympathisers, the clincher by Mrs. Clinton may be the reminder that the Yar'Adua administration needs to know that it is about to be overwhelmed by corruption.