EDITORIAL: Confronting the odious bribery of Nigeria’s public officials

The fight against corruption is not up to scratch just yet, as evidenced in the report on a survey, which showed that a staggering sum of N721 billion was paid as bribes to Nigerian public officials in 2023. This amount translates to $1.26 billion. It is intriguing that the state authorities appear not to be getting the message beyond the accustomed jejune rhetoric that follows this sort of revelation.

On this sleaze plum are 17 categories of public officials, and those in the judiciary grabbed the dubious distinction of being the highest beneficiaries. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) conducted the survey in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) between October and November last year, with the report titled, “Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends.”

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)

Judges and magistrates are said to have received the highest bribes in cash, followed by officials of the Customs and Immigrations services, then members of the Armed Forces, Land Registry and Police officers. Prosecutors topped the ranking of officials who collected bribes, at 67 per cent; Land registry officials at 58 per cent; Customs/Immigrations officers, 54 per cent; and Judges/magistrates, 52 per cent. Teachers/lecturers, medical doctors, nurses, midwives and other health personnel were all found out to be partakers in the sleaze, coming in the rear of the aforementioned public officials.

The bribes were reported as having been paid in offices and on the streets, especially during public procurements, employment exercises, the processing of international passports, promotion/retirement documentation, payroll preparation, clearing goods at sea ports/land borders and at checkpoints, among other places.

Taming the scourge is the remit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and law enforcement generally. But from the look of things, these institutions are undoubtedly overwhelmed.

EFCC Nigeria

This could be inferred from the lamentation of the EFCC Chairman, Olu Olukeyede, when he recently received officials of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in his office. He said, “When I look at the case files and see humongous amount of money stolen, I wonder how we are still surviving. If you see some case files, you will weep. The way they move unspent budget allocations to private accounts in commercial banks before midnight at the end of budget cycle, you will wonder what kind of spirit drives us as Nigerians.” The scenario is incredible.

Yet, unbelievably, those involved are rarely brought to book. Even the very few put on trial use the wealth they had amassed to stifle the course of justice or ultimately escape sanction. Politicians, such as ex-governors and ministers, are adept at doing this. Routinely, they procure perpetual court injunctions, which restrain the EFCC from investigating, prosecuting or even inviting them for questioning.

The hope of any redemption is fast fading, as underscored by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi’s disappointment, three weeks ago, that the judiciary is no longer the hope of the common man but, “It is…majorly now the last hope of the big shots.” This, coming in the wake of the NBS/UNODC report, is highly unsettling.

So rife is the criminality that many retiring Justices of the Supreme Court routinely use their valedictory speeches to echo the concern. “It has been in the public space that court officials and judges are easily bribed by litigants to obviate delays and or obtain favourable judgments,” Justice Mohammad Dattijo agonisingly said last November.

Supreme Court of Nigeria

Many before him had poignantly said so too. Justice Samson Uwaifo of the same apex court had warned in 2003 that, “A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amuck with a dagger in a crowded street.” Dattijo was so miffed by official aloofness to earlier suggestions for reforms that he had wanted to bow out of service quietly. But family members and friends had to persuade him on the valediction for record purposes.

It is a fact that a good number of judges have been removed due to the abuse of their offices. There are specific cases of soliciting bribes. But no corrupt judge has been convicted and sent to jail to serve as a deterrent to others, unlike what happens in other jurisdictions like the US and UK. The National Judicial Council (NJC) is to blame for this; with the slap on the wrist, it metes out to delinquent judicial officials who are found out, by way of compulsory retirement, with all their entitlements paid. This does not inject sanity into the system.

Whether these rogue elements are judges, politically exposed persons or top bureaucrats, what is obvious is that no government has yet demonstrated the sorely needed political will to fight corruption in Nigeria. The brazenness with which the atrocity is carried out is imponderable. Nigeria’s present ranking of 145 out of 180 nations in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index appallingly tells the story clearer. President Muhammadu Buhari’s indiscreet release of two former governors from prison without them completing their jail terms, after being convicted of treasury looting, was a serious setback to the national drive dealing with the conundrum.

Public officials who loot funds, as was in the case of a former Accountant General of the Federation’s N109 billion heist and some ex-governors’ N100 billion pillage, are fittingly mass murderers. Many citizens may have died as a result of the lack of funds to provide quality healthcare, education and good roads and other essential services that enhance the public good.

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Being a systemic problem, therefore, it requires a paradigm shift in the efforts at tackling it. Our present jurisprudence gives much protection to suspects who use their ill-gotten billions of naira to obfuscate their trials, hire the best lawyers, corrupt the judicial process, and bribe their way to freedom. The country can no longer condone this. The UK, despite being light years ahead in socio-economic development, in comparison to Nigeria, has enacted a law – Unexplained Wealth Orders, which transfers the onus of proof of innocence to a suspect with more than £50,000 in cash, or assets.

Our corpus of laws should be reviewed for greater effectiveness of the anti-graft crusade. We denounce the move by the Federal Capital Territory administration to build retirement residences for serving heads of Court Divisions in Abuja. The action is clearly an act of judicial corruption. The Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, who disclosed the plan recently, said President Bola Tinubu has given his approval to it. The president, without delay, should withdraw his imprimatur on this scheme at suborning judicial officials.

In Africa, Botswana, Seychelles, Rwanda, Namibia and South Africa are making headways in facing the plague; not to talk of Switzerland, Canada, Singapore, and Sweden, among others. Corruption is a towering binding constraint to development in Nigeria.

Consequently, the anti-graft agencies must stay ahead of the rogue elements in the public service, crack high-profile corruption cases, secure convictions in this regard, and recover those unspent budgets moved into private bank accounts at midnight. Otherwise, all the efforts will be tantamount to the oxymoron of all motion without movement.