Fighting corruption  in enduring ways 

THE desperate situation of Nigeria over corruption in all spheres has necessitated a desperate call for the death penalty to be introduced as a way of curbing the menace. But this will hardly help as capital punishment can indeed be counter-productive. What will save Nigeria from corruption is building enduring institutions for prevention, sanctions in cases of infractions and getting the core values of honesty and integrity woven into Nigeria’s human and societal fabric.

Amid recurrent losses of huge amounts of money and resources to corruption in Nigeria, there have been efforts to curb the menace like setting up of anti-corruption agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC).

A few persons accused of corruption have been prosecuted in the law courts. But it is now self-evident that this has hardly served as an effective deterrent to those who are bent on corruptly enriching themselves, especially as they exploit the loopholes in the judicial system to escape justice.

It is on account of the failure of the regular courts to check corruption that there has been a clamour, lately, that a new strategy be adopted to tame the monster. The Nigeria Labour  Congress (NLC), for one, has canvassed the death penalty, even as President Muhammadu Buhari has said that if corruption is not killed, it would kill Nigeria. But, to check corruption, capital punishment is far from the way to go. Capital punishment is fraught with many irredeemable consequences.

The judicial system is super-intended over by imperfect human beings and there could be a miscarriage of justice in which case someone who is unjustly accused and convicted of corruption may be unjustly executed. Moreover, the wealthy would still find a way to circumvent this system and it may only be the poor who would face execution. Indeed, how many people can be executed? And who are the people to determine those to be executed when they may also be just as corrupt?

The desperate situation over corruption has also necessitated the consideration of the option of setting up special courts. But after one government believed to be committed to using such courts for the fight against corruption leaves office, what happens to these special courts? Would they be sustained by its successor in the same principled manner without turning them into instruments for intimidation of political opponents? Thus, to effectively check corruption, there should, first be enduring institutional mechanisms for preventing it. The first step that must be taken is to prevent Nigerian leaders from being exposed to money by also making public offices unattractive to fortune seekers. Only those who want to serve should, therefore, get there and only institutionalised mechanism can do this. Related to this is poverty. Those who want a piece of the national cake from their relations or friends who are in government are often the citizens already impoverished by the system, thus creating a vicious cycle of corruption. There is the need to ensure that a system is in place to cater for the people’s minimal needs and make public office only an avenue for service.

It is true that no human society has been able to totally eliminate corruption. But the scale and the brazenness of it in Nigeria is mind-boggling, especially on account of the low premium placed on good values. There was a time when anybody found guilty of corruption either ostracised himself or herself, or waited for the society to duly impose such on him or her. But now, people steal money from the public purse and when they go home they are given a hero’s welcome. A major reason for this is the collapse of societal values. Those values that sustained a culture of integrity, accountability and transparency have receded, and there is a desperate need for value re-orientation. It is incumbent on the government to restructure the nation’s schools’ syllabi at the primary, secondary and university levels to accommodate the teaching of good values that would redound to integrity of the citizens. The government may also create a special ministry designed for value re-orientation.

Since it is the loopholes in the nation’s laws that are being exploited by corrupt persons to escape justice, there is the need for an overhaul of the legal system. There must be a deliberate effort on the part of the government, the Bench and the Bar to execute such judicial reforms as would eliminate these loopholes. An adequate response to legal impediments such as judges granting perpetual injunctions to those being prosecuted for corruption is needed, and a time limit must be placed on the trial of corruption cases.

As has been shown by the refusal of state governors to publicly declare their assets, President Muhammadu Buhari alone cannot fight corruption. While he has indeed set the tone by making his assets’ declaration public, most public office holders who ought to take a cue from him are not doing so. Thus, for an effective battle against corruption, the president needs to seek and get the consensus of all leaders in the country in politics, the judiciary, civil service, law enforcement agencies, education, business and the general society. The president must involve the three arms of government for the campaign to succeed, while the civil service should be restructured and reformed for there are civil service rules which, if fully implemented, could check corruption.

To effectively tackle the menace, the nation must ultimately come to terms with the necessity for genuine federalism. In a society that is genuinely desirous of development, each generation must be pre-occupied with how to solve a specific problem. The problem of the contemporary generation of Nigerians is corruption and it must be solved now because at the current growth rate of the menace, the next generation may either have no country to call their own or no resources left to run one.