By Emmanuel Onwubiko
In 2018, Nigerians got the shocking news of their lives, which in any event, shouldn’t really constitute a shocking development because it is the reality of our situation, existentially. Or is it not true that poverty walks on four legs on Nigerian streets? Is it not true that Nigeria experiences ballooning inflationary trends every time? Is it not true that unemployment amongst our productive youth population has skyrocketed? Is it not true that the fighting capacity of the armed forces has deteriorated due to logistical incapacitating trends such as procurement corruption in the Ministry of Defence? Is it not true that every year, the National Assembly passes the budget but not a quarter of the allocations are utilised for what they were allotted and the principal sum of the cash-backed releases, stolen by politicians including lawmakers and bureaucrats inside the federal government?
And so the news that came out of the blues, or so it seemed, that Nigeria has become the home of World’s poverty because Nigeria now have more poor people than every since country globally, wasn’t that much strange to discerning Nigerians.
It was said in 2018, that Nigeria overtook India as the poverty capital of the World because 133 million Households were declared as multidimensionally poor according to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics.
The reason I said initially that it was a shock is that by right, Nigeria ought not to harbour such insanely high number of poor people given that the country is resource-rich and is the 7th or 8th highest producer of crude oil resources in the World. Nigeria’s solid mineral deposits such as Gold are some of the highest in Africa. The wars going on in the North West and North East are connected to the struggles for the control of Solid Minerals resources by top government officials, military Generals and their foreign partners from far-flung nations such as China who supply the weapons to the hoodlums who work for the godfathers that are diverting the solid minerals. The current Solid mineral minister Dele Alake said as much and said his life is threatened by these dangerous godfathers of armed non-state actors who divert solid minerals resources to their own offshore accounts after selling them in the international black markets.
The thing is that the resources and commonwealth of the nation are siphoned, stolen and diverted to private offshore accounts by all genres of politicians and big men who call the shots in the criminally organised private sector of the economy by those who are inside of the corridors of political power at the centre and the subnations.
So corruption is the genesis of the Nigerian absolute poverty. One time prime minister of Britain who is the foreign secretary under Rishi Sunak’s administration today, Mr Davis Cameron, once stated that NIGERIA IS FANTASTICALLY CORRUPT. This British official’s comment has been validated by no other person than the ranking Senator of the federation Mr Ndume.
The Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, supported my above points when he explained the difference between corruption by politicians and other people.
Ndume said corruption in Nigerian politics is people-driven and should not warrant any serious punishment.
The senator admitted that politicians “steal and share with the people”.
He stated this on Tuesday when he featured on Channels TV Politics Today while speaking on the death penalty as the deterrent for those caught with drugs.
He said when politicians’ corruption is compared to others, it is a “small one’
He stated, “If you compare us, politicians, to all the corruption, it is very small. Our corruption is people-driven. If you steal it, you will go and share it with the people. If you don’t, you are not coming back for four years. There is no reason for stealing.
“I have been to the National Assembly, I can’t say because we are on TV now and not telling the truth. If the death penalty is supposed to be included in corruption, I will support it but you don’t go and kill someone that stole one million or one billion, no. But someone who steals one trillion of government money should be killed.
The senator said he supports death punishment for drug dealers.
“The death penalty is the best deterrent for those being caught for drugs. If you do drugs, you are killing people.
“In fact, that means you have destroyed the lives of so many people and killed so many people,” he said.
Recently, the Senate passed a bill, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024 passed by the Senate.
The bill prescribed death penalty for persons found guilty of trading in hard drugs and narcotics.
This has, however, been debated and faulted by many stakeholders on whether or not President Bola Tinubu should accent the bill.
On Saturday, some legal practitioners expressed different opinions on the debate over the bill. Some of them urged President Bola Tinubu not to assent to the bill passed by the Senate while others pressed for it to be signed into law.
Some of the lawyers stressed that the death penalty was not a solution to drug trafficking and other drug-related offences.
Relatedly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, says it has recovered a total of N70 billion within 100 days, between October 2023 and January 19, 2024.
Details of the recovery were outlined in an EFCC document titled, ‘Operations and Recoveries’.
The document revealed that between October 2023 and January 19, 2024, the EFCC recovered N60,969,047,634.25, $10,522,778.57, £150,002.10, €4,119.90, making a total of N70,556,658,370.5 recovered by the anti-graft commission within the period.
Within the same period, the Commission said it received a total of 3,325 petitions, accepted 2,657 of them and secured the convictions of 747 persons for financial crimes, ranging from money laundering to internet fraud.
A breakdown of the data shows that the EFCC headquarters alone recovered N49,607,391,330.44, $3,900,200.75, £2000, and £110.
The Maiduguri Zonal Command recovered N58,065,870 and $3,370.
Gombe Command recovered N127,323,028.50 and $1,500. Kano Command recovered N141,944,451 and $365.
Makurdi Command recovered N53,228, 325.
Enugu Command recovered N202,117,000 and $1,950.
Uyo Command recovered N25,299,950 and $710.
Port Harcourt Zonal Command recovered N2,412,247,210.05 and $5,714,389.21.
Sokoto Command recovered the sum of N100,696,118.72.
Kaduna Command recovered N331,494,710.81, $912, £50, and €1,610.
The Ilorin Command recovered N80,280,580.86 and $880.
Abuja Zonal Command recovered N825,928,463 and $10,000, while Ibadan Zonal Command recovered N135,519,810, $14517, £280, and €500.
Lagos Zonal Command recovered N6,826,993,798.78, $868,284.61, £147,672.10, and €1899.90.
The EFCC, through its Benin Zonal Command, also recovered N49,515,987.09 and $5,700.
The other national anti-graft institution called the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) also last year stated that it recovered, forfeited, and restrained assets valued at over N454bn from corrupt persons in the past four years.
This was revealed in a presentation by Mr. Jude Okoye, Deputy Director, Planning Research and Statistics, ICPC titled, “Overview of ICPC Achievements from 2019- March 2023” during the recently concluded two-day capacity-building training for reporters covering the activities of the Commission.
Giving a breakdown of the recoveries, the Deputy Director said that out of the N454.808bn, N257.492bn was fund-restrained by ICPC through system studies of government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) while N3.540bn was recovered through tax intervention.
Mr Okoye listed other recoveries to include plots of land and completed buildings; vehicles; cash recovered from domiciliary accounts; rents received from properties forfeited to the government; assets and jewelry valued at N25.361bn, N577.98m, N1.199bn, N25.73m, and N14.83m respectively.
According to him, the Commission “restrained N250.49m and N110.36m through Final Forfeiture and Interim Forfeiture Order; N26.573bn cash through budget tracking and N1.525bn cash in other accounts.”
Apart from the recoveries, other achievements of the Commission highlighted in the report included 4,737 investigations; 90 convictions; 3,422 projects tracked under Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CEPTI).
Other achievements are the assessment of 1,463 MDAs on the Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard; the review of 426 MDAs on Personnel cost; the review of 365 MDAs on Open Portal for Compliance with GIFMIS & TSA; inauguration of 265 ACTUs; 12,569,968 website hits and social media feedback; production and airing of 512 episodes of Corruption Must Go, while 3,012 sensitization sessions were conducted.
Around 26th April 2024, it was reported that the Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Sonny Echono, had faulted claims that he was in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
Echono said this while reacting to the anti-corruption agency’s claim that the education fund’s boss was in its custody.
“The executive secretary of TETFund is here with us. He has been invited for questioning. He is still in custody. He was invited yesterday.” Bakare said.
“He was invited on Thursday. He has not been released. He’s still with us. The investigation is still ongoing,” the ICPC spokesperson, Demola Bakare, told TheCable on Friday, explaining that Echono was invited on Thursday.
But debunking the claims, Echono said he was in his office contrary to the ICPC’s claim.
“I wasn’t detained by the ICPC. I’m currently in my office. One of our directors was invited by the ICPC to tender documents. But the official has since been released,” Echono also told TheCable.
The platform on April 18, 2024, reported how TETfund awarded two contracts to Fides Et Ratio Academy and Pole Global Marketing within two months at the cost of N3.8 billion respectively without the approval of the federal executive council, which is required for the contract size.
The contract was to provide capacity-building courses and learning management systems to about 2 million students across higher institutions in the country.
In a rejoinder, TETFund said it did not award N7.6 billion contracts to two companies without due process.
This last story goes to show that even in the citadel of knowledge, corruption is a hydra-headed monster. In the judiciary, corruption and bribery have overwhelmed the judges. Mr. Peter Obi a former governor of Anambra State and the 2023 presidential candidate of Labour Party said the judiciary in Nigeria has become transactional and that judgements are sold to the highest bidder.
This is factually accurate because as someone who was a senior reporter of The Guardian newspaper in Abuja and covered the court system for 7 years, I have first hand knowledge of this fact of corruption in the topmost echelons of the courts. So primitive corruption pervades all facets of our national life and it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what to do to stem the tides of corruption and restore transparency and accountability in government.
We must never give up or surrender to corruption. We must continue to support efforts made realistically by anti-graft institutions to combat corruption lawfully. Corruption shouldn’t be allowed to overwhelm and swallow Nigeria.
Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA and was a NATIONAL COMMISSIONER of the NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA.