While commendable, the corruption war should not slip out of our fingers
There is no doubt that the notion of a war on terror has never stirred as much resonance with Nigerians as it has today. We must be careful, though, that this good thing does not careen out of control.
Part of the sense of justice on corruption derives from the biography of the president, Muhammadu Buhari. That has been reinforced by the plethora of shady dealings committed during the days of Goodluck Jonathan as the chief steward of the country.
No people will or should display any sense of indifference in the light of the mammoth freedom that some persons in and associated with the Jonathan era exercised with tax payers’ money. To stop the investigation or even compromise its tempo will go down as close to treasonous in the popular imagination.
But recently, the Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, reeled out a suite of cases that amount to about N1.3 trillion. This involved not only partisans of the Jonathan administration but harked back to the eras of both Umaru Yar’Adua and Olusegun Obasanjo.
We want, like any fair-minded and patriotic persons and institutions, that all those who betrayed our trust and carted away our patrimony be brought to swift and irremediable justice. But we worry for two reasons.
One, how far can the Buhari administration go with the war on corruption without getting enmeshed in bureaucratic and procedural quagmires and contradictions? If the material facts released by the Information Minister convey the range of the investigation, it means that the search for the nation’s thieves may be open-ended. Would it go even back as far back as the military administration? Or will it end in 1999 when the current republic began?
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not officially responded to the statement from the minister, but the figures are not only staggering but reflect the maggoty depth that the political elite wallowed. For instance, Mohammed announced that over N400billion was squandered by 15 governors dating back in the Obasanjo times.
The experience so far shows that we shall need not only the courts but also an expanded investigative force, including the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission as well as other law enforcement agencies to pursue the cases.
As it is today, the prosecution of the cases of Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Adviser, has triggered legal and judicial challenges. We are not clear about the trajectory of the case, and it seems the judicial process may stall the matter for a while until a resolution comes in the form of a court verdict. We also are witnesses to some other cases that border between moral wrong and legal integrity, as some analysts have seen in the matter of the African Independent Television proprietor Raymond Dokpesi.
We also have seen the theatre associated with the spokesman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh. Other than the charges of corruption that he will face, his histrionics in tearing up an EFCC paper and almost tossing it in his mouth has become another case in itself.
If we have cases that involve more and more persons, we have to be prepared. First, the government must have to devote more resources to the enterprise, which also include highly skilled professionals like lawyers, doctors, law-enforcement specialists, etc.
Because of the possibility of bringing many into the prosecution net, some have suggested that we should go the path of plea bargain. But that also cannot be resolved peremptorily. The courts and lawyers will have to play crucial roles. The rage in the land over this massive fraud has ignited a section of Nigerians to call for the abandonment of the rule of law. They want the alleged fraudsters to be jailed. But how do you jail who you have not prosecuted? How do you punish a person whose scale of offence has not been ascertained, especially when they plead not guilty?
It is important for the Buhari administration to take a wholesale look at the diagnosis and prognosis of the war, the available physical and financial capacity, assess the infrastructure of justice and project a timeline for the resolution of the cases.
It is after this ruthless introspection that the government can determine how far it can go, what cases it can resolve, what cases it cannot and how nimbly it can prosecute them with success. The war on corruption must not be allowed to become a lofty idea that ran amok. Good intentions are not enough to fight a good cause. There must be a system and the structure must be so comprehensive that the process of prosecution earns not only the cooperation but the respect of not only those recruited into the war but the majority of Nigerians.
The rot done over the years has been massive. Stopping it should not be another rot.
Source: http://thenationonlineng.net/under-check/
About The Nigerian Blogger
0 comments :
Post a Comment