By
Muhammad M. Abdul Rahman
Founder & CEO Mo & Associates
The most talked about issue in Nigeria is corruption. What does it really mean? This word makes me ponder as the mouths of Nigerian leaders, workers, students, and all others from all walks of life in Nigeria are awash with it, by it and on it. The political campaigns these days cannot be complete without each politician itemizing how he/she would deal with corruption. Every single leader that has ever been on the reigns of leadership in Nigeria speaks about corruption and how he/she intends to combat it when she/he comes into office.
While Transparency International (TI) defined corruption as “the use of entrusted power for private gain”, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) gave a description rather than a definition and described it “as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon use for the attainment of personal benefit under the guise of official function and/or responsibility”. Even the UNCAC did not provide for a definitive meaning, as it listed a set of attributes to describe the phenomena it regards as corruption. Perhaps that is why we find it difficult to curb it in Nigeria? Personally, I would like to see corruption defined in its English form rather than its contextual meaning. I believe corruption is a derivative of the word “corrupt”. It serves as an adjective when describing a noun, as it would mean having the willingness to act dishonestly for a person, For an object, a state of unreliability due to contamination. Example, in computers; or a state of decay due to contamination when you talk of organic substances such as food. When you look at the word as a verb; it would mean an act, and in this case, a dishonest act, or a deliberate contamination of some sort making what is pure impure by adding some contaminant. But all of this would mean nothing in the context (this discourse) of what we mean by corruption except if the act was done for the purpose of private gain. Be it an act as a noun or an adjective, the activity involves several things or it is an activity or activities that tantamount to the act, or the description of the act. Studies of corruption have shown that corrupt activities are varied and may include any or all the following: bribery, influence peddling and embezzlement. So, for the purpose of this discourse we would term corruption as a form of dishonesty conducted or carried out by an individual or a group of individuals who are entrusted with some authority by the public to personally benefit from such a conduct or act.
Nigeria, like a host of other countries has been bedeviled by corruption. However, Nigeria’s case perhaps being a developing nation look more terrible. Compared to other developing nations and given the wealth the country is endowed with and its potentials, Nigeria’s case stands out even more amongst developing nations. With each passing government in Nigeria there is an increase in corrupt behaviour (cases of corruption related offences); Increase in the value (amounts) of seizures or amounts that goes missing or unaccounted for due to corruption. Do not forget the increase in the number of individuals arrested, interdicted, charged, prosecuted, or at least accused of corrupt practices. As if that is not enough, I also noticed that over the years, agencies that deal with corruption are birthed almost with each new administration with new mandates or extracted mandates from already existing agencies. Or are we talking about new anti-corruption policies of government that are produced virtually with every new government, or is it the geometric increments of the budgetary amounts that go into the funding of such agencies and the policy implementation committees or investigative task forces? The record is endless. Could this be a case of not really understanding what corruption really is (because of a lack in a definite definition) or is it a case of playing the ostrich?
I recently came across two documents, (1) the Nigeria’s implementation of 2014 and 2019 UNCAC review recommendations report and (2) the National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2017-2021 (NACS), with its Actions Plan for implementation. I also read in the pages of newspapers that the NACS and its implementation plan has been extended for another five years. The extension was because of non-implementation of the action plan due to the COVID -19 pandemic and lack of funds. While I found both documents very rich and to a large extend well thought out and written, I can’t help but wonder why COVID-19 and funding would be the reasons for the NACS implementation.
While I can understand the challenge of COVID-19, I cannot see the lack of funds as a constraint, when the strategy has made provisions for funding at the highest level of government in the office of the Attorney-General of the federation. This made me enquire what went wrong? However, I believe it is only right to give the reader a background of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS)to enable the reader to understand my reasons writing this.
The NACS came as a solution to the continued fall in standard and requirements of an effective anti-corruption regime as required by regional and global anti-corruption conventions. Particularly, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) 2003, which Nigeria ratified on the 14th of December 2004. According to the former President, Muhammadu Buhari, “the need for an all-out fight against corruption is more imperative now than ever to save the country from further decay”. Thus, the strategy promotes a new approach, which essentially builds on lessons from past efforts at fighting corruption in the country and a contextual approach that interrogates the problem with a view to designing home grown interventions. It also seeks a shared understanding of what corruption is and what it is not and identifies the restoration of public trust as a potent but indirect way to fight the problem. It was structured to be more holistic in its approach to the fight against corruption and focused on addressing the fundamental gaps found in past anti-corruption policies and regulatory frameworks.
Accordingly, the strategy informed that its broad objective to remove impediments to accountability in governance institutions, strengthen mechanisms and platforms by which citizens can hold public officers to account and strengthen the capacity of anti-corruption and law enforcement institutions for increased deterrence and enforcement of anti-corruption measures. In addressing these objectives, the crafters of the strategy adopted a diagnostic approach to address the factors that accentuate corruption or undermined efforts at controlling it such that it helps improve preventive and enforcement mechanisms while aiding the collective action to reduce the incidence of corruption. The document was very particular in its drive to remove impediments to accountability in governance, strengthening mechanisms and platforms by which citizens can hold public officers to account and strengthening the capacity of anti-corruption and law enforcement institutions such that an increase in deterrence and enforcement of anti-corruption measures can be achieved.
To implement the strategy, the NACS established a committee comprising all ACAs, relevant MDAs, government and private sector entities, faith-based organizations as well as civil society and Nigeria Labor Congress, as the Implementation committee of the strategy with the Federal Ministry of Justice (FMOJ) as the key regulator in the anti-corruption sector to lead the implementation of the Strategy. Where the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF), being a forum of all state governors and where most of the nation’s revenue is channeled so as to reach the general populace and the Association of Local Government Chairmen would serve as observers. This committee is called the National Anti-Corruption Strategy Management Implementation Committee (NACSMIC). The document also considered the implementation at a multi-sectoral, sub-national and non-sate actors’ level, where it required every Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to develop its own strategic plan in line with objectives, principles, and relevant provisions of the NACS as it applies to the agency’s specific mandates. This strategy which will be reviewed by the NACSMIC must include a Result Based Management (RBM) approach that clearly spells out the Mission, Vision, Objectives, Key Performance Indicators, Milestones and Targets for clearly defined periods. In addition, each agency would be required to develop Implementation Plans that clearly define key activities, expected deliverables and timelines for each operating unit of the ACA. These shall constitute the broad Result Based Management framework for each ACA, which gives the ACAs and their external stakeholders the tools to continuously monitor the performance of the ACAs at the outcome level, as well as to address issues of impact. Also, within each ACA, MDA, State and Local Government, a Strategy/Change Management Committee (SMC) will be established to drive the implementation of provisions of the NACS.
Furthermore, the NACSMIC will develop an annual work plan and a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plan, and tools for monitoring and measuring performance. The same applies to each MDA. The strategy also contained a Sanction section where erring ACAs are sanctioned for failure to develop and implement anti-corruption strategies. Such sanctions extend to removal or suspension of the heads of such agencies or recommendations for the removal or suspension of governors in the case of state institution.
As part of the implementing planning process, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice will develop and propose an Anti-corruption Funding Framework (AFF) for this strategy to the Federal Executive Council for ratification. The AFF will set out a four-year indicative budget for implementing the initiatives in this plan; identify those areas of the NACS that are outside the traditional budget of ACAs and thus will require separate funding arrangements; and propose extra-budgetary funding sources/options for a sustained fight against corruption in line with global best practices.
From the above, I sincerely believe, there is no better strategy document that can beat this one in recent Nigeria. The key question for me is: what went wrong? Why has none of this been implemented, leading to an extension of the strategy time frame for another four years? Moreso, no addition or subtraction was made on the strategy, which means there was no review conducted.
Two reasons were given for the lack of implementation, one was the COVID-19 pandemic and the second was lack of funds. I find both excuses inadequate and here are my reasons; First I call them excuses because COVID-19 pandemic came in December 2019, Nigeria and indeed the World was technically on lock-down for the best parts of 2020-2021, let’s just say the whole of 2020 and 2021. That leaves us with 2017, 2018, and 2019! Most interestingly is the fact that the implementation plan timelines for virtually all the activities outlined within the NACS were not meant to end in 2020 and/or 2021. Most, if not all have 2017, 2018 and 2019 as delivery dates. Hhmm….one wonders – Do we really know what we were talking about when drafting the strategy and workplan? And did we really follow-up on the work plan? Or were we just playing lip service???
Secondly, the responsibility of getting funds for the strategy implementation was rested with the Attorney-General of the federation, I find it difficult to believe that the Attorney-General could not secure funding for this no matter how small against the budget years of 2018, 2019 and even 2020, given that COVID-19 came in at the tail end of 2019 and it has not reached the shores of Nigeria until somewhere in March-April of 2020, moreover the 2020 budget was passed by the National Assembly in the first week of December 2019.
I also wonder if some of the responsible agencies are even aware of the existence of the strategy document talk less of the work plan and their different roles and responsibilities in the document. Because as at the time of writing this, I have met a couple of agencies with defined key role in the document that told me that they are not aware of the strategy despite their mentioned within it and some even at the level of membership of the NACSMIC. I also wonder if the NACSMIC has followed-up with the responsible agencies per their obligations as contained in the strategy document, talk less of sanctioning them.
Another issue I found with the work plan was the fact that most of the language used in describing the workplan activities are vague and loosely used. Things like “conduct a system study of” agencies, “adopt reforms at the federal levels”, etc. Unless the responsible agencies further break these activities down to specifics no one can understand or better still implement these activities and monitor and ensure their completion. They seem more of objectives than work plans.
What I am bothered with most now is given the fact that we have failed to implement the 2017-2021 plan, did we fully study the reasons for the failure? Have we generated mitigation measures to counter these factors for the failures and have we incorporated these factors into the plan for the 2022-2026 plan? Personally, I believe that if such issues are not adequately addressed, we may probably end up with an extension again of the 2022-2026 work plan for another four years in 2026 or 2027.
To this end, I wish to suggest the following as an addition to whatever the implementation committee has for the complete implementation of the 2022-2026 strategy.