Corruption as a Nigerian Factor

By Sam Onimisi
The social virus called the ‘Nigerian factor’ is a killer-disease that has arrested growth and development, and murdered talents and creativity for so long that there is little hope left as to whether the country has the slimmest chance of survival, not to talk of development or growth. The ‘Naija’ factor first killed individual initiative in public office, unless such a move creates enough room for ‘chop’; because, according to a popular parlance, ‘man must whack’. The whole of the country’s annual budget is reputed to be predicated on the ‘chop or whack’ concept, and here is how. If, for instance, N200 billion is needed for provision of portable water in some rural areas of the country, those with the duty to prepare or propose the budget would rather ask for N600 billion.
Now, everyone knows that the budget will go through some process by which several institutions of state will make inputs. Before the budget gets to the Presidency, all manners of exigent scenarios would have been built into the budget to make it iron cast, if not sacrosanct. The objective is to present the Presidency with a fait accompli such that there would be some irreconcilable lacunas if the budget is tampered with as proposed. I am not saying that the Presidency does not provide for exigencies of its own. Of course, it could order or advise the budget department to make room for certain fancies in the proposed budget. However, the public office holder who proposes and implement public budget is the ubiquitous civil servant in the Ministries and so, looking into the concept of ‘chop or whack’, there is no use looking elsewhere but to start with the directors and permanent secretaries or directors-general.
Once the President has presented the budget, the battle ground shifts to the National Assembly where the House and the Senate Committee on Annual Budgets are waiting for their pounds of flesh. Who is not familiar with their scarecrow tactics? First, they would discover a missing loop which must be explained and next, they would uncover a lump that must be disentangled and then go ahead to drill holes in the rationale for the figures allocated to the various sub-heads of the budget. If they are only exercising their oversight functions, it would be understandable. What we are talking about is beyond any oversight responsibility. The thing is like asking: “where is the provision for my chop, or shouldn’t I whack?” Negotiations beings in earnest some parts of which are not meant for public consumption. You see, in spite of the moral decadence of our society, the question of ‘chops’ and ‘whacks’ are often wrapped in utmost secrecy and what is publicly disclosed is for the purpose of our hoodwink, for man must whack!
The general public often blames the ‘politician’ for their woes, for corruption or incompetence. Unknown to them, the politician is more or less co-opted into the corrupt script by the civil servant; but because the loquacious elected representative is the one permitted to speak to the public, he is often held responsible for what is actually the fault of the civil servant. Remember, the civil servant is to be seen and not to be heard. At the end of all debates, everyone would have been ‘settled’ except the public. The water project would now be N500 billion and you would be made to believe that N100 billion has been saved. Whereas, what has been lost to the leaches in public service amounts to N300 billion! That may not be the total loss because; there are some rats along the long chain of officials who would need to be taken care of. The contractors will be left with that burden and so, the actual value of the water project which ordinarily would have cost tax payers N200 billion, will now cost them N500 billion while the practical value may just be about N150 billion!
If our reasoning is correct, it means that the menace of ghost workers is actually the idea of a broad spectrum of the civil service and everyone that should know are aware that there are more ghosts in the public service of the country than humans with flesh and blood. What matters to our civil servants is what accrues to them at the end of the month. (Don’t be daft; we are not talking about their salaries). The ghosts are unlike the living; once an agreement is reached, the ghosts are quick to deliver and they do so either to the coded accounts of their living collaborators, or hire people with flesh and blood to collect the cash on their behalf. Someone out there is talking about the ICPC and the EFCC watching the ghosts to swindle our treasury without reaction. Mumu!!
The EFCC and the ICPC were established some ten years back and we are talking about a phenomenon that is about 30 years old, if not older. What it means is that the practice of ‘chop’, ‘whack’, ‘settlement’ and budgeting for ghosts are part of the ingredients with which those bodies were established! Moreover, it is not in the mandate of the anti-graft agencies to scrutinize or approve budgets. Their scanners – if they have any – are incapable of detecting ghosts and even if they could, their own ghosts within will ensure that it fails – for ghosts don’t fight ghosts! “Ok then, why not go to court and ensure that all budgets are examined or at least are queried before their approval?” When I sought to know who asked the question, I found him to be a recent deportee from the United States for forged visa offence!
If I were to go to court, I would have to hire a lawyer at a fee at my own expense. The attorney and the Judge are lawyers playing different roles in the script of justice. The courts are not known to possess equipments for detecting inflated budgets, but they have the prerogative to ask me to prove my case beyond reasonable doubt. The judge is no doubt a human being but when ghosts are involved, the judge would require from me some specimen of ghosts as evidence to prove my allegations. Pray, where will I go to obtain one or two ghosts as my witness? If the judiciary prepares budgets, it means that there is the possibility of ghost judges in the service of the courts, and if one of them is the presiding judge, my case will not be decided in the open court but at the judge’s chambers, with my lawyer in attendance. Since you are neither at the Bar nor in the Bench, the judgment in the chambers cannot have your inputs as only your attorney or solicitor is qualified to be there. After all, the only learnered people or ghosts on earth are men/women of the Bar and the Bench! At the end, your lawyer will settle with the ghost judge and when he returns to you, he would advise you to let go the matter and warn or remind you that one day, you would be a mementomori. Case closed? Oh y-e-s! C-o-u-r-t!!
“Excuse me sir. I disagree with you that there are ghost workers feeding fat on ghost budgets. We have auditors-general whose duty is to authenticate budgets, costs, expenditures, taxes etc, and there is no reason to believe they are not doing their jobs?” Someone behind me volunteered to answer this question and I obliged him. He said that auditors-general and accountants-general are both civil servants holding one end of the budget rod or the other. He asked to be told or reminded of an incidence of disagreement between the two public officers in the last 30years. He sought to know the role played by the auditor-general in the trillion naira petroleum subsidy scandal or in the billions Naira Police Pension Fund and other jumbo thievery in the civil service. He concluded by calling the asker of that question a mumumu!! I beg to review that judgment and I reduce the sentence to mumu only. However, why can’t we insist on a return to the 1970’s when each government department has a staff list published for public use? With it, we are sure to cut the tail of corruption in public service.