Institutions vs Leadership in Nigeria's fight against corruption

At least two perspectives on fighting corruption have emerged this week from key Nigerian reformers that served together during the Obasanjo era.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, during a BBC interview with Will Ross, passionately emphasized the need for strong institutions and systems to tackle corruption.  To the extent that she was dismissive of the role of whistle-blowers “It is not very sexy to build systems and institutions. It takes time and nobody wants to discuss it. All they want to do is talk about personalities and who blew the whistle…”

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu on the other hand, in his speech at the Nigeria’s Governor’s Forum, stressed the need for leadership by example and sanctioning corrupt officials.  Premium times quoted him as saying  “The money coming to us is ending up in extremely few hands. Corruption must be made unattractive and difficult to commit. When there is transparency, there is less room for direct stealing…where there are sanctions, there will be no impunity. Impunity means failure to punish.”  He urged the State Governors to lead by example.

You can understand why the emphasis is different between the two. One currently has a role in government and the other is in opposition. Yet for Nigeria to effectively tackle corruption it will need to build institutions and have leaders that lead by good example, with no room for impunity. Nigeria needs both good leaders and institutions.  

A Model Manifesto for Tackling Nigeria’s Corruption

Nigeria’s main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress Party (APC) recently presented their draft road map on fighting corruption as part of their manifesto. APC has identified some entry points for tackling corruption in Nigeria- in particular ensuring the independence of anti-corruption agencies through funding them directly from the consolidated revenue fund, speedy trials of corruption cases and placing the burden on person with inexplicable wealth to prove their innocence in corruption cases. Yet the draft APC road map did not go far enough and missed some key areas. Below is my proposed manifesto for tackling corruption in Nigeria:  

1. Tackling Corruption in Oil Industry

Reclaiming Missing Revenues

• Conduct an independent forensic audit of unaccounted oil revenues potentially owed to Federation Account. Make the findings of the report publicly available and establish a repayment plan for any outstanding revenues from NNPC.

Tackling Oil Theft

• Government will put in place three pronged approach to tackle oil theft, addressing security of pipelines, tackling organised crime, and ensuring alternative livelihoods of the poor.

Controlling Fuel Subsidies

• Payments for petrol or kerosene subsidies will only be paid if there is verification that the product has been imported and there is adequate provision for funds in the Federal Budget.

Improving Transparency

• All oil bloc allocations should go through transparent and credible licensing rounds (with no exceptions for “strategic national interest”)
• No more confusion over oil production or revenues. Establish system for metering oil production and oil exports, making data publicly available.
• Terms and conditions of oil contracts to be made publically available.

Improving Accountability

• National oil company (NNPC) and key oil sector institutions to become accountable to all Nigerians. It will be compelled to publish full independently audited accounts annually and required to answer questions from its shareholders the Nigerian People.
• Increase the representation on the board of NNPC and key oil sector institutions (DPR, PPPRA etc) to include a broader range of Nigerians including key oversight institutions (CBN, NEITI, Ministry of Finance, Federal Inland Revenue Service), and representatives of credible CSOs.
• NNPC fast tracked toward commercialisation, with clear governance and oversight established.

2. Tackling Corruption in Public Service

Merit based Recruitment, Promotions and Postings

• While respecting Federal Character principles all public service recruitments, promotions and postings shall be driven solely by merit and not by connections to influential individuals.

Tackling the Ghosts in the System

• Remove all ghost workers and ghost pensioners from public service payrolls and prosecute all perpetrators.

Public Service Conduct and Protection

• Ensure full implementation of asset declaration. All public officials who have not complied with existing rules will be compelled to leave public office.
• Ensure appropriate legislation in place to protect whistle-blowers and encourage culture of reporting corruption.

Transparency in Contract Awards

• Improve transparency in contract awards. Ensuring contracts over N500,000 and the names of companies winning the bids are published transparently on the relevant public agency websites.

3. Tackling Corruption in Political parties

• Clean up political party financing and expenditure. Publish list of all political party donors that donate over N500,000 with exact details of how much was provided. Political parties and candidates will be required to publish all their campaign expenditures.
• All Political Parties will be expected to publish independently audited accounts every year or risk being de-registered.
• Free broadcasting airtime will be provided to political parties to help reduce cost of financing campaigns.
• Empowering INEC to ensure strict adherence to the spending limits for political parties and candidates as stated in the electoral act 2010.

 4. Anti-corruption agencies

• Help guarantee independence of key anti-corruption agencies they will be allowed to retain a percentage of the proceeds of crime to boost their funding and incentivise asset recovery.

5. Empowering citizens in the fight against corruption

• Enforce the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act and take action

6. Presidential Powers

• Presidential pardons will no longer be granted to people convicted of corruption charges.

These are my reflections on what a substantial manifesto for tackling corruption should include. I hope the APC will do some further work on their own draft and that PDP will also consider a comprehensive response as they put together their own. I urge Nigeria’s leaders not to miss the opportunity to make this a key election issue. 2015 needs to be about clear policies not personalities and empty words.

What are Nigerians saying about taxation?

Afrobarometer has just released a report capturing Africans view on taxation. See below some of the views expressed by Nigerians as captured in the report:

82% of Nigerians state that it is very difficult to know how government uses tax revenues.
69% of Nigerians find it difficult to know what taxes are owed to government.
59% of Nigerians say that most tax officials are corrupt while 37% perceive some of them as corrupt.
51% of Nigerians prefer paying higher taxes and receiving more services.
73% of Nigerians say that it is very difficult to avoid paying taxes owed to government.

Link to the full report

Sanusi points to the elephant in the room

Sanusi has done Nigeria a great service by highlighting the unaccounted oil revenues from NNPC. What does the missing $20 billion mean for Nigeria’s 100 million poorest?  Suppose by magic this money could be shared equally by all of Nigeria’s 100 million poor people. The poor would get an additional $200 each. So for those earning less than $1.25 per day (yes these people exist!), it would increase their incomes by 40% for a whole year. Will we continue to allow this elephant in the room to be so careless with our God-given resources?

Sanusi suspended, whistle-blower law urgently needed in Nigeria!

The suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is yet another example of the challenges of whistle blowing in Nigeria. The CBN governor alleged that there was US$20 billion missing from the federation account. It is not surprising that a few weeks after the allegations; he has been suspended from office for blowing the whistle on Nigeria’s missing billions. This shows the need to have a whistle-blower protection law in Nigeria[see previous blog post]. A whistle blower protection law will protect whistle-blowers like the CBN governor from being victimized for speaking out on corruption issues.