In a new article published yesterday which examines the anti-corruption
fight of President Buhari, International business magazine, The
Economist, described Nigeria as Africa's most Famously corrupt country
and that Nigeria may through its fight against corruption, teach others
about transparency. Read the
full article titled "How Nigeria is fighting corruption" after the cut...
"Nigerians know what to expect when they approach police checkpoints.
“How can you appreciate me?” ask officers, AK-47s dangling languidly
from their shoulders. “Happy weekend!” say security guards from the
early hours of Friday morning.
Or simply: “What do you have for me?” Nigeria, as
David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, pointed out, is
“fantastically corrupt”. In Transparency International’s Corruption
Perceptions Index, it is 31st from the bottom. Nigeria’s president,
Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, wants to change this. How is
he doing?
Few doubt Mr Buhari’s intent. But the task he has set himself is
Herculean. Successive military and civilian governments have siphoned
money from the vast revenues of their oil industry. Many locals think
the problem reached unprecedented heights under the previous
administration of Goodluck Jonathan. In March an official audit found
that the state-owned oil company withheld over $25 billion from the
public purse between 2011 and 2015. Meanwhile cartels involving
government officials, militants and oil employees stole tens of
thousands of barrels of crude each day. A savings account was drained,
although oil prices were high for most Mr Jonathan’s tenure. And money
which was supposed to arm soldiers against Boko Haram insurgents was
squandered: the vice-president recently estimated that the previous
regime diverted $15 billion through dodgy arms contracts.
Since Mr Buhari came to power in May 2015, dozens of public officials
and their cronies have been arrested by a beefed-up Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The most famous of those, the former
national security adviser Sambo Dasuki, is charged with dishing out $2
billion worth of fake contracts for helicopters, aeroplanes and
ammunition. Under new management, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation has grown slightly less opaque: it now publishes monthly
financial reports. Shady “swap” contracts which trade crude oil for
refined petrol have been renegotiated and the worst of the last regime’s
oil deals are under scrutiny. The chairman of one local company,
Atlantic Energy, was arrested last year, shortly after the ex-petroleum
minister was arrested in London. In all, the government claims to be
recovering about $10 billion of stolen assets (though most of those will
be tied up in court for years). It has also cancelled a fuel-subsidy
racket which, at its peak, cost Nigerians $14 billion a year.
Mr Buhari’s government has been learning from other crusading countries,
such as Georgia. But not everyone is impressed. His political
opponents, who ruled Nigeria for 16 years until 2015, call the campaign a
witch-hunt. There are reasons to doubt the capacity of the
anti-corruption agency—and of the courts—to hold the powerful to
account. The EFCC is yet to send down any of its most influential
adversaries, though it is splurging on training for prosecutors. Most
government agencies, including the one that collects taxes, do not make
their budgets public. Nor do most state and local governments, which
suck up about half of public revenues. In an effort to fix this, a
tenacious finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, has told skint governors that
they must make their finances public before they receive a second
federal bailout. She has struck thousands of ghost workers off the
public payroll. Her “treasury single account” may be the biggest coup of
all. It replaced a labyrinth of government piggy banks, giving Nigeria
more control of its earnings. Financiers reckon that it could serve as a
lesson to others in West Africa as well. The continent’s most famously
corrupt country might yet teach others a thing or two about
transparency.
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