Monday 14 January 2013

Pat Utomi: Between corruption and impunity

by Pat Utomi

What continues to bother me is whether the elite in Nigeria do not really realise the devastating consequence of corruption for all, because of the temporary advantage it confers on them when in the so-called lucrative positions?
It appears the jury is still out on the trouble with Nigeria. Years ago, Prof. Chinua Achebe made what seemed to be the definitive statement. The trouble with Nigeria, he had declared, was leadership. In some ways, many of the other pronouncements have been derivatives of the leadership question. Many say it is corruption. Recently, I heard someone argue that impunity was a greater assault on progress. The question for the day is which is more pernicious, corruption or impunity?
While I intend to reflect here on both of these phenomena, and their debilitating effects on development, I wish to state up front that my view of both, what drives and what retards human progress, is that they have multiple and interdependent drivers. My book on why nations are poor reflect that in the Growth Drivers Framework which tries to capture how policy choice, institutions, culture, leadership, human capital  and entrepreneurship are interdependent and shape growth and development.
Back to corruption and impunity, which are subsets of culture. How much damage does corruption do to Nigeria? From the way people expect gratification for most service, you would think they received notice that corruption is a benign thing. Bismark Rewane has, in the face of incompetent governance, joked that it is better to be a little corrupt and competent than incompetent and clean as a whistle. I guess the real question is why not competent and clean?
But corruption manifests itself everyday all around us with costly and deadly consequences that are not only the moral but real equivalence of mass murder. Before I read the Kempe Ronald Hope Snr. and Bornwell Chukulo volume on Corruption and Development in Africa, I had come face to face with the issue of corruption in Nigeria, laughed first but took a bruising later. It was up against one of America’s true investigative reporting legends, Mike Wallace.
In 1996, while I was on a sabbatical leave in the United States, CBS News flagship, 60 Minutes, aired an interview in which Mike Wallace confronted Louis Farrakan, leader of the Nation of Islam. One of the accusations against him was visiting ‘the most corrupt country’ in the world’, Nigeria. I took umbrage at so sweeping a statement and fired off a fax to the TV station. I said in it that I thought Wallace was a thoroughbred. To make a mistake that Journalism 101 warns the cub reporter about, the use of superlatives without evidence, I thought, was unpardonable.    They must have been quite embarrassed at the station because Wallace called me the very next day. He tried to explain how you sometimes turn to hyperbole when you are frustrated, saying Nigeria was such great hope that disappointed, referring to his 1970 interview with General Yakubu  Gowon that led to predictions of an emerging power.
On my part, I asserted that I could not be among the best of Nigerians but I could stand on top of the World Trade Centre and dare anybody I had ever asked for a bribe to come forward and no human would be able to come forward. I assured him I had served in government at a Presidential advisory level, in Business as senior executive of a multinational and as a small business operator, and in the academia, and social enterprise. Finally, I advertised myself as a member of the board of trustees of Transparency International, Nigeria.
The laugh on me would come six months later when Transparency International published its first corruption index and Nigeria lived up to the Wallace billing by being named the most corrupt country in the world. I certainly felt worse when the Hope and Chukulo book opened with a statement about the incidence of corruption varying in Africa from rare, in Botswana, to widespread in Ghana, and systemic in Nigeria.
What continues to bother me is whether the elite in Nigeria do not really realise the devastating consequence of corruption for all, because of the temporary advantage it confers on them when in the so-called lucrative positions? The depth of the rot includes what the executive pay the legislature to get budgets passed, agencies of government pays to others to get approvals and votes of budget released; the extortion from politicians by the judiciary in election petition cases, among others. It partially explains why billions of dollars went into the power sector for years yet darkness reigned until recent improvements, even though I would blame project management failure and incompetence as much as I would corruption.
Some have actually confronted me with the gain from never asking a bribe, after all I have suffered calumny many times from people who had raised spurious gossip. My response had been that if your conscience was clear they would eventually feel small from how history showed up their lie. I am reminded of this by a conversation with the wife of a former Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority. She wanted to know about Opus Dei because a friend’s daughter had joined and she was told I would be able to tell her something. When I used how Opus Dei members and friends who may not even be Christians raised money to implement projects that advance the common good she froze. I thought they said it was money you made from Volkswagen of Nigeria that was used to set it up? I laughed so loud you could feel she was near tears. I explained to her that when I left VW, I did not have up to N100,000 anywhere and that when I had to buy a 17kVA generator for my modest Dolphin Estate residence, finances by a mortgage loan from an Insurance company I turned to a finance company whose MD was so embarrassed when I told him the generator had been delivered without my seeing the payment plan, simply chuckled and said it was his contribution to preventing people from knowing the state of my finances. I assured him there was no reason for me to feel shame about my finances and thanked him for the generosity of paying for the generator.
I even heard worse very recently. The fortune of a bank was said to have been affected by how much from it went to my political campaign. A gentleman from Nsukka who was told that in Abuja was so distressed he called me and only got laughter from my end. I consoled him by telling him that anybody who went to school and could not glean that the cost of my entire campaign which was less than what most spend for council elections does not deserve his having a conversation with. Besides the fact of the bank and fellow directors not contributing a dime to this budget of less than N30m, excepting two executive directors who each gave a few hundred thousand naira from their pockets, how could a person who thinks, believe the fortunes of a bank would be affected by such? The entire campaign budget was less than the cost of one board meeting in many banks. That such a laughable talk can come is no reason to think that doing right is not desirable.
But some say impunity, which assures the big man never pays the price of wrong doing is the greater culprit. Impunity is the reason the presidential fleet is turned into a kabukabu for those near power, a governor can take away your land without honourably invoking the laws of eminent domain; the security vote is ballooning as sanctioned pool for stealing or siphoning without accountability. Impunity is the reason VIP movement risks lives of air passengers so frequently. Impunity is the big man privatising the commonwealth. Which really is worse?
YNaija.com

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