By Tony Osborg
One of the most annoying responses we get from the handlers of President Buhari in recent times is that the president is taking his time to fight corruption, so therefore the economy could wait. Ridiculous as this may sound, it is the new line of defence in the government’s political discourse. Eight months in and the only thing our president has done is to fight corruption!
First, in his bid to recruit ‘incorruptible’ saints as technocrats, he spent three months without a cabinet, only for the technocrats to turn out as the same people we know, and not some angels from the other world; all in the bid to avoid corruption. As if that is not enough, President Buhari has ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to carry out certain embarrassing and ridiculous directives, all in the name of fighting corruption.
The president has vowed to disregard unfavorable court orders; all in the name of fighting corruption. Despite all the cacophony of the ‘anti-corruption’ propaganda, eight months after, not even a single case has been tried successfully and won against corruption. One would begin to wonder that, since when has it become the fiscal responsibility of Mr. President to fight corruption, when there are agencies specifically designed to do just that?
By the way, where in our constitution can we find ‘Fighting Corruption’ as a fiscal responsibility either on the exclusive, concurrent or residual list? Why should fighting corruption be an achievement by a government when it is in fact supposed to be a responsibility of a specific arm of government?
What has President Buhari really done differently in tackling systematic corruption in Nigeria that previous governments before him did not do? The EFCC as it is presently constituted is a defective and reactive institution incapable of reducing corruption. What the EFCC and Mr. President can do is to go after those who have already stolen public funds.
What Nigeria needs is a proactive administrative mechanism that actually stops people from stealing, and not an institution that goes after them when they have already stolen. Unfortunately, the present structure of Nigeria’s federalism is incapable of providing such proactive solutions because Nigeria itself is built on a corrupt, skewed and irreconcilable foundation that only thrives on corruption.
One thing all Nigerians must come to understand is that corruption as it has become in our country is an inevitable byproduct of our defective present system of federalism. Just the way it is natural for goats to eat yam, so it is normal and even legal for Nigerian politicians to steal money under our present skewed ‘feeding bottle’ structure of government.
The present style of Nigeria’s federalism is corruption legalised. Nigeria itself is corruption and if you must fight corruption, you must first discard this skewed, flawed, corrupt, unitary ‘feeding bottle’ federalism that we currently practice and agree to restructure Nigeria into a competitive, efficient, productive, competitive, and locally driven True Fiscal Federalism. Only when President Buhari does this can we then know that he genuinely wishes to fight corruption and put Nigeria on the path to greatness.
By the way, what can President Buhari do in the states and local governments where over 70 percent of the real corruption takes place? Obviously nothing. As long as we continue with the monthly ritual of sharing oil money at Abuja to lazy, redundant, inefficient and unproductive politicians and their states, we cannot fight corruption in Nigeria! We cannot even reduce it, we can only decide whose turn is it to benefit from corruption. This is simply how we roll in Nigeria under our present defective system.
How do we really change things in Nigeria and put an end to systematic corruption?
First, in a country like Nigeria, you cannot fight corruption by relying on the self-restraint of the leaders. We cannot rely alone on the personal integrity of President Buhari to fight corruption. We must establish some sort of administrative constraints on Nigerian officials to the extent that even if we mistakenly elect a crafty thief to become our leader, he will be unable to manifest his ‘skill’ due to the administrative constraints built into institutions.
In order for us to do this and like I have said before, we must first, discard this skewed, flawed, corrupt, unitary ‘feeding bottle’ federalism that we currently practice in Nigeria and agree to restructure Nigeria into a competitive, efficient, productive, competitive, and locally driven True Fiscal Federalism.
What Nigeria truly needs right now is True Fiscal Federalism and not EFCC, APC, PDP, INEC or even a national budget. Restructure Nigeria and you might have used one stone to kill twenty birds! True Fiscal Federalism will eliminate corruption, promote regional integration, reduce ethnic tension and secession demands, unite Nigerians, promote development and put Nigeria on the path to greatness once again.
If the funds recovered from the eight month ‘Fighting Corruption’ Project can be used to fund at least 10 percent of the 2016 budget, then President Buhari should continue with the project, but if not, then he should pay more attention to sourcing for revenue to fund the 2016 budget and fix the entire economy.
The EFCC is only doing its job and it is expected that President Buhari should do his own job by focusing on supervising and saving the Nigerian economy from possible collapse. Nigeria urgently needs diversification and fighting corruption on a daily basis through the media does not diversify the economy.
Osborg (@TonyOsborg) writes for The Federalist Movement of Nigeria (www.truefiscalfederalism.com), Kano City, Nigeria
