Muhammadu Buhari

Buhari still has adequate time to turn his fortunes around, but he must be wary of the kind of executive arrogance that undid Jonathan's party and government. — Buhari may still have time to deliver, at least partially, on his electoral promises. But doing so will require a perhaps impossible about-face in strategy.

Robert Carmona-Borjas | Business Insider

Pledging to wipe out corruption starts an intriguing conversation in Washington D.C.

The frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President in the United States, Donald Trump, rails against a “crooked system.” Brazilians are calling for the resignation of their President, Dilma Rousseff, amid allegations of sweetheart deals with state-owned companies and Latin America’s major contribution to the recent global corruption discussion has been temping down the release last month of the Panama Papers, which revealed how many heads of state shelter their wealth.

Looking at headlines today, it seems the zeal to unveil and defeat the abuse of public trust has never been greater.

But when it comes to tackling corruption, it is important to recognize the difference between talk and action. Nigeria provides an excellent illustration.

Last year, President Goodluck Jonathan conceded electoral defeat to General Muhammadu Buhari in a refreshingly peaceful and lawful transfer of power to a nation that has experienced more than its fair share of coup d’états in the last forty years (ironically, Buhari both initially came to and left power as the results of coups in the mid-1980s).

By wielding brooms in mass rallies throughout the country in 2015, Buhari won a mandate to tackle corruption. But what has happened since?

With more than a year in office, Buhari has yet to jail a single former official. This is a radical departure from his tenure as military head of Nigeria in the ’80s when he jailed thousands, often without trial, and publicly horsewhipped government workers he believed were not doing their jobs. And so in 2016, we see a more subdued Buhari, and one who hopefully lays greater faith in the rule of law. But to date, there are very few tangible outputs for all of the promises to “sweep government clean”.

Instead, Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has directed its attention solely on former officials from the Jonathan administration in what appears to be more of a political witch-hunt than a systemic effort to root out and eliminate corruption in Nigeria.

Regardless of what is decided in the cases of those who are targeted, can this explain why millions still struggle beneath the poverty line in what should be Africa’s richest nation?

Systemic corruption has long plagued Nigeria, like so many oil rich countries, such as my own Venezuela. When Buhari’s predecessor came into office in 2010, he too carried great hopes of change. International media praised his efforts to crack down on bribe taking, and he instituted new transparency requirements for state officials and institutions. But questions linger about whether Buhari, by the force of his own personality, can himself overcome ingrained practices that have hobbled Nigeria’s greatness for too long.

Settling political scores is not the same as restoring the people’s trust.

Many of the figures surrounding Buhari have themselves been suspected of high-level corruption, and were the ‘shoe on the other foot’, another political party in power could do precisely the same thing Buhari is doing now – to the same de minimus effect.

Making progress in the fight against corruption thusly requires several things:

First, there must be an independent judiciary that fairly applies the law. At any given time in the United States, Britain or a dozen other countries with long-standing rule of law traditions, we may find former public officials sitting in prison and serving the terms to which they were convicted, based on facts; in a system where the accused had all the benefits of a qualified defense.

Second, the corruption seekers must themselves be independent. Currently, the chair of the EFCC is dependent on the President for his job and can be removed at any moment. This allows politics to pervert the process. Romania’s state anti-corruption agency, for example, provides a better depiction of what the kind of truly independent body ought to look like.

Fighting corruption must be a fully national enterprise, with buy-in from all sectors, not a partisan crusade.

And finally, there needs to be a mechanism for recovering those public funds that were stolen through corrupt practices and returning them to a public purpose. The people must have confidence that winning the war on corruption will improve their quality of life.

As Nigeria teeters on the brink of a financial downturn, the Heritage Foundation still grades its economy “Mostly Unfree.” On this global ranking, Nigeria is only one place ahead of Moldova where, in recent months, citizens have surrounded the government, demanding it return their stolen funds to legitimate public purposes.

Buhari may still have time to deliver, at least partially, on his electoral promises. But doing so will require a perhaps impossible about-face in strategy.

A famous African proverb tells us that it takes a village to educate a child. True enough. And in the same spirit, it takes a nation – not one man, nor one political party – to overcome corruption.

Nigeria deserves a government that understands this.

Mr. Carmona-Borjas is a Venezuelan attorney and Founder and CEO of the Arcadia Foundation in Washington D.C., which is committed to better governance in developing nations.

Buhari, Obasanjo....President Obasanjo was the only one to rightly expose President Buhari’s negative past records of public accountability. — Buhari, Obasanjo….President Obasanjo was the only one to rightly expose President Buhari’s negative past records of public accountability.

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari’s threats to probe governance affairs of his predecessors has tumbled into a boomeranging breadth, prompting the General to personally send a plea with apologies to the former President and one of the targets of his proposed probe, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, International Guardian reliably gathered. “I didn’t personally know what was said or written, but to my understanding, PMB was only trying to diffuse rumors in the media about Obasanjo being a target of his probe,” a source close to Buhari’s administration explained in a text message.

Chief Obasanjo was already gathering a dossier which included documents linking President Buhari and key allies and colleagues in his administration to major fraud related to various affairs of the government, when he received President Buhari’s “es·prit de corps” plea for a common understanding and restraint. To further appease the aged former leader, President Buhari quickly announced a retraction of his threats, announcing publicly that he would not extend his corruption probe beyond the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

A worried President Buhari specifically indicated through his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Femi Adesina, that he would not waste time in probing the administrations of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdulsalam Abubakar, Sani Abacha, and Ibrahim Babangida. The retraction nonetheless created doubts among critics on the president’s credibility in fighting corruption as he initially swaggered.

President Buhari, it may be recalled, had consistently vowed to investigate and bring to book, all persons who looted the country’s funds. Consequently, he made a threat to arrest and prosecute past ministers and other officials who stole Nigeria’s oil and diverted government’s money to personal accounts.

The President’s request for collaboration with the United States, however, prompted an alleged reaction by President Obasanjo considered as one of Nigeria’s most corrupt past leader by most western countries. The United States has indicated it would help Nigeria’s new leader track down billions of dollars in stolen assets – a move that might expose previous fraudulent engagements in the Obasanjo’s regime.

Atiku was implicated by a US Grand Jury which report detailed his fraudulent involvement with Congressman, William Jefferson to secure a business deal in Nigeria. Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years on November 13, 2009, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery. crumbly economy.

International Guardian gathered that President Buhari’s backtrack from his initial plans for a comprehensive probe of public-fund misappropriation may jeopardize Nigeria’s request to the United States for collaboration on tracing missing funds. The United States government it was gathered, may not oblige to selective investigation of executive fraudsters and may not spare Buhari himself. It may be recalled that as the Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was implicated by a US Grand Jury which reports detailed his fraudulent involvement with Congressman, William Jefferson to secure a business deal in Nigeria. On August 5, 2009, Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of the 16 corruption counts, and was sentenced to 13 years on November 13, 2009, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery.

From fraudulent privatization of state-owned enterprises; filthy oil deals; bribery associated with Halliburton, Siemens, and Transcorp, rushed terminal contracts, to personal loans for his farm business, embezzlement of Excess Crude Account, and Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), Chief Obasanjo’s regime has been considered the most fraudulent in Nigeria’s history. “For Buhari to claim that he would not waste time digging into the far past, simply signals a red flag about his involvement in the whole thing,” confided a source close to Washington.

Last week, International Guardian reported how President Obasanjo was the only one to rightly expose President Buhari’s negative past records of public accountability, revealing his readiness to hit the blogs with documents that would shock the nation. The story also narrated how Buhari as the chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) between 1998-99, failed to account for a missing 25 billion naira, confiscating all related documents and obstructing all investigative channels. Buhari’s alleged plea to Obasanjo, therefore, was timely. “When it comes to being vindictive, you know Baba does not waste time and Buhari should have known better,” a source close to the All Progressives Congress (APC) told our newsroom.

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