Reps in anti-corruption drive

By Kayode Akinmade

Dimeji Bankola The House of Representatives has played more than a passing role in the current anti-corruption drive. The House has on three occasions demonstrated its zero tolerance for corruption since the current leadership under the Speaker, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, assumed office, the latest being its insistence on probing the allegation by Senator Nuhu Aliyu that the National Assembly is full of fraudsters.

The lawmakers’ determination to stamp out corruption in our body politic must be seen within the context of the havoc it has wreaked on the nation over the years. Only recently, the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNDOC) claimed that over $400billion was lost to corruption between 1960 and 1999 in Nigeria. This has lent credence to the widely held notion that the nation’s oil wealth had been misappropriated.

Ordinarily, oil should be a blessing to us as it is in other countries that have oil but boast of responsible leadership which applies the wealth to aid their nation’s development. Some people argued that corruption had made oil a curse to Nigeria. Bankole actually signposted the direction of the House in reversing the trend when, moments after assuming office, he told his colleagues that they would be held responsible if, by any acts of commission or omission, they disappointed the people.

One of the first assignments carried out by the House under the Bankole leadership is the inauguration of its committee on drugs, narcotics and financial crimes. “In the case of EFCC, I will urge you to note that Nigerians desire an independent financial crimes agency and you have been challenged to quickly review the EFCC enabling Act to enhance the performance of this agency. Ensuring adequate funding of the agency and the ICPC is also your responsibility,” Bankole had told the committee, chaired by Mr. Dave Salako, at the occasion.

Regardless of whatever prism you may choose to view it, many Nigerians agree that EFCC turned out to be one of the most effective tools employed to deal with the problem of corruption in the country. The agency has, for a change, succeeded in driving fear into the minds of corrupt public officials. Yet, there are lapses in the operations of the agency that seem to compromise its independence. Whereas the National Assembly, according to the EFCC Act, must be involved in the appointment of the commission’s chairman, and the commission must render a yearly account of its operations to the federal lawmakers, the chairman directly reports to the president on the day-to-day activities of the EFCC.

Subjecting the agency to near-absolute control of the president as the status-quo ante seems to permit, according to critics, its prone to abuse. Allegations of graft leveled against Vice President Atiku Abubakar sometimes ago could have been purely the initiative of the EFCC.

But the commission’s subordination to the president and the feud that blew open between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku mid-way into their second term led to the insinuation that Obasanjo used the EFCC to fight Atiku. That the focus of the EFCC was on the states rather than on former Federal Government officials, many Nigerians will swear, is because the erstwhile president abused his control of the EFCC to protect his men. The majority of Nigerians would prefer that the anti-graft agency is fully under the control of the National Assembly than the president to ascertain its independence, and give more bite to the war against corruption. It is such independence that the Speaker canvassed at the committee inauguration.

What Bankole is suggesting is not new in the advanced democracies of the world. In the United Kingdom, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) operates under the control of the British Parliament to insulate it from government manipulation. Consequently, the loyalty of the BBC is not to the government of the day but to the British people. As a powerful news medium, the BBC is in the forefront of what the UK stands for in the international arena. We can recreate BBC in Nigeria in the mould of what Bankole has advocated. If we have an EFCC like the one Bankole is recommending, there will be no sacred cow in the campaign to rid Nigeria of corruption. In essence, we will have a clear departure from the past where government voted money for a project and the money ended up in the pockets of government officials.

To achieve this, the House will have to spearhead the campaign for the independence of the EFCC and get the Act of Parliament amended to that effect. Also, lawmakers in the House of Representatives have contributed in no less way to the anti-graft campaign through what they have done with the 2008 budget. For the first time in the history of national budget in Nigeria, an issue is being made out of large sums of money budgeted for under previous financial years but unspent being ploughed back into the budget. The 2008 budget is benefiting to the tune of N450 billion that was not spent under the previous budget.

In a country like ours where the rule rather than the exception is for the public official to be corrupt, chances are high that the money would have gone into private pockets had it not been discovered by the lawmakers. This is a precedent set by the House in collaboration with the Senate that every kobo belonging to the Nigerian people must be accounted for. The National Assembly also returned to the treasury N7 billion being its capital vote under the 2007 budget. The money was released late last year and in the spirit of accountability, the N7 billion was promptly returned to the treasury, just the way it came.

There would have been last-minute award of contracts to accommodate the spending of the money. Or, worse still, the N7 billion would have disappeared into the pockets of the leaders of the parliament. But Bankole and his colleagues’ zero-tolerance for corruption and their Senate counterparts sense of accountability would not allow them to behave in like manner. Beyond these is the issue of immunity clause which analysts say is another contributor to corruption. Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution offers protection to some category of public office holders to prevent them from civil or criminal prosecution while in office.

The intention of the drafters of the constitution is noble to the extent that the category of public officials should not be distracted from their onerous task of serving the people while in office by frivolous litigations, hence, Section 308. But experience has shown that the category of public officials have often abused the trust reposed in them by stealing public funds. The on-going prosecution of some former governors for graft clearly attests to this.Yet, opinions are divided on whether the immunity clause should be removed from the constitution.

President Umaru Yar’Adua joined those canvassing the removal of the clause recently when he said it would aid the war against corruption. The call, coming from such a high office as that of the president, appears significant. It also underscores the popularity of the anti-corruption drive. As the move to review the constitution gets underway shortly, immunity clause will be one of the things to look at. And Bankole and his fellow lawmakers will not only be guided by public opinion on the matter, overriding national interest that emphasises zero-tolerance for corruption will be uppermost in their minds in deciding the fate of the controversial immunity clause.

- Akinmade is Special Adviser (Media) to the Speaker of House of Representatives