Every Hand In The
Pocket
By
Eziuche Ubani
culled from THIS
DAY, March 24, 2005
When the House of
Representatives gave the marching orders to its member, Dr. Haruna Yerima, for
alleged unparliamentary remarks about its integrity, little did it know it had
shot the National Assembly on the foot. Yerima’s offence were the charges that
the National Assembly was wasting tax payer’s money, and time-pretending to be
engaged in the business of legislation, when all it did was not better than beer
parlour debate.
The second charge put a huge question on the integrity of the parliament.
Members received recharge cards not less than seven thousand naira monthly from
a GSM operator which he suggested may be reason why the parliament asked no
questions about the quality of the company’s services. Yerima knew more. He had
information that members of the education committees of the two chambers of the
National Assembly demanded bribes to increase the budget of the Education
Ministry.
To ensure he does not continue to embarrass the National Assembly, the House of
Representatives, in a unanimous resolution, suspended him. Not one member
defended him. But something happened. He had shared this information with the
executive of the Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU). ASUU in turn
shared this information with some people in the media, before Yerima made it
available to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The result is
the current scandal, perhaps, the worst to hit Obasanjo’s administration since
the National Identity Card scam.
A lot of people are going to interprete this development in several ways and
according to several perspectives. For President Olusegun Obasanjo, this is one
more evidence of his often-spoken gradual but steady fight against corruption.
He must have enjoyed the delicious feeling of triumph over his critics at
Transparency International in Germany, who were his host when the scandal broke
last week.
Yet there are others who see in this scandal, a confirmation that official
corruption exists in the highest offices of government. Transparency
International may also claim, from this development, an affirmation,
(confirmation) of its conclusions that Nigeria is the third most corrupt country
in the world. After all, since the raucous and angry reactions by government
against the rating, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun has been
sacked. Now, a minister, top ministry officials and legislators are to follow.
Whatever the interpretation, the more plausible conclusion is that this very sad
incident reveals the depth of official corruption, which can only be captured by
the graphic illustration that in Nigeria, the hand of everybody is in the pocket
of another. It is a checkpoint mentality. Pastors on Sunday ambush their flock,
and using false promises of prosperity, make them part with their money,
sometimes one that has not been earned. Police ambush criminals and
complainants, and extort whatever they can. Ministers twist the arms of
contractors and persons seeking approval for one thing or another and collect
their share. Legislators in turn ambush ministers and make them pay for whatever
– confirmation, oversight of their ministries, penance for perceived insult, and
monthly budget.
Why are we shouting? Why are people pretending to be shocked by this
revelation?. Where do they think is the source of the unexpected and unmerited
comfort that assaults them wherever they turn? If anyone is in shock, it must be
rather a show of pretence than a genuine reaction to something revolting. Let he
who has not been victim of this monster step forward. A permanent secretary told
me last year about the frustrations of his ministry.The reason? Officials of the
Finance Ministry and Office of the Accountant-General refused to release the
ministry’s funds. This had nothing to do with paucity of funds. As he put it,
officials of these offices have erected a checkpoint and their demands was all
too clear. If you want your money, you have to part with a percentage.
This is not the only case, while I worked in the National Assembly; I often was
made to listen to the agonies of finance officers in the National Assembly, who
return empty-handed from the Office of the Accountant-General because they will
not part with a percentage of the monies allocated to the National Assembly. It
is not only this, there is hardly any government office that does not encounter
this problem.
This represents a dangerous mutation of corruption, even in the face of the
so-called effort to eradicate it. In the past, government officials took bribes
from the private sector and persons outside of government. Now government
officials take bribes from officials of other departments of the same
government. It must be added as one of the landmark legacies of the Obasanjo
administration.
It is hard not to feel sorry for Professor Fabian Osujii, who has been
humiliated out of office for falling to the arm-twisting tactics of the
legislators. The heart may be very deceitful but the minister does not strike
one as a patently materialistic man in the mould of those experts of extortion
at the National Assembly. Though all the facts of the case are not in yet, it is
clear he did not agree to sex up his budget for his own benefit. He may be a
victim now but he appears to have given in due to frustrations. How, in your
view, does one resolve the dilemma he had to face? Last year, the National
Assembly cut the ministry’s budget proposals and at the end of the day, there
was a shortfall of 1.5 billion naira. It turned out that that was the salaries
of teachers of unity schools. For the first time in recent memory, teachers of
unity schools went on strike. Also the same shortfall in the recurrent budget
led to a strike by junior workers of the ministry last year. Peace was only
returned through the intervention of the President, who approved additional
funds outside of the budget. The way it is told, it was not an oversight by the
ministry. The minister and his directors were out of favour because they did not
smoothen the budgetary process by playing ball. Faced with the same dilemma,
Osuji must have been confronted with a choice between playing tough and being
seen as incompetent, and playing ball to secure what he required to get results.
Perhaps, he should have told his boss. But it is hard to discount the dilemma of
the minister. This is not a defence, but he is a victim of the extortion and
racketeering of the National Assembly.
But all these make a statement on the so-called partnership between the National
Assembly and the executive. As many events show, it is more of collaboration
than cooperation. And that has always been the point of those who have
criticized the present relationship between the two arms. The assumption of
rancor-free relationship is that there is a common purpose that drives the
process of governance. It should have meant that government business will be
easier because the two can agree on what to do and how to do it. But this
relationship appears to be a conspiracy to undermine the interest of the
electorate. When legislators distort the budget by harassing ministers to bribe
them, they are not working for the people. When they collect money and close
their eyes to corruption, they lose their powers to represent the people. Right
now, there is nothing to take away from the cynicism of those who insist that
the anti-corruption drive is either a high rhetoric or a fancy of the President
which neither his aides nor his party members believe in.
In this matter, legislators deserve harsh criticism. What they have perfected –
legislating by check-point – is a monumental corruption of the legislative
process. We can freely question the sanctity of the laws they make as well as
the resolutions they pass. To think about it, if they can collect money to
manipulate the budget, what stops them from taking same from corporate
organizations to do their biddings? Again, what happened defies norms of
legislative privilege. In the past, legislators got things for their people
through the pork-barrel system. Members, for instance, will ask the Minister of
Water Resources to sink boreholes in their constituencies for a favourable
allocation to his ministry. That is the convention all over the world. But from
what we see now, that process has been corrupted. Rather than ask for projects,
legislators now ask for cash, recharge cards and other ridiculous demands. One
committee of the House of Representatives went to the ridiculous extent of
writing to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to allocate oil for
it to sell for cash.
In some cases, some of the projects in the budget have no economic value. They
are introduced by arrangement between the ministries and the legislators to
accommodate the pecuniary interests of the lawmakers, whom the constitution,
assumed will be honourable men and gave them power to approve expenditures. This
is not to say that all legislators are corrupt. Far from that, there are some
serious-minded, hardworking and hounourable legislators. The fact is that they
are overwhelmed by the activities of some of their members, who have transferred
their 419 shops to the chambers of the National Assembly. These are the experts
in the business of shaking whoever approaches the National Assembly checkpoint
to ‘drop something’.
This matter calls for deeper reflection. It reminds of the distortion in our
government process, which allows any one who occupies any office to exploit it
for direct wealth. It is not just at the top. Even those in lower positions use
their offices to extort money from those they encounter, and it is so brazen and
so open that those who resist it do so at the risk of unmitigated frustration.
Osuji and his aides must have a story to tell. The worst is that after Minister
Nasir El-Rufai’s failure to prove he was ambushed by Ibrahim Mantu and Jonathan
Zwingina, people who find themselves in such circumstances find it hard to come
forward.
The question is: will anything change? Nothing, in my view. As you read this,
somebody is arm-twisting or blackmailing or extorting something from somebody at
the checkpoint, courts, hospitals, ministries, and everywhere. Some of these
people are even trusted aides of the President and those on whom he relies on to
fight corruption. Our situation remains that everyman’s hand is in another’s
pocket. And the show goes on.
