By Godwin Onyeacholem
For corruption, this time is usually so special across the world. No other reason for this than once again, this is the week that traditionally holds a day of global focus with a defined theme on what has become one of the world’s most distressing menaces. It is the period when activities hung upon imaginative sub-themes around the subject of corruption bustle in sundry venues across locations on earth.
As always, Nigeria is not left out. Motivated by genuine interest, civil society patrons of good governance and their counterparts in state agencies have been organizing events since the preceding week to honour the International Anti-Corruption Day observed annually on December 9 since 2003. They’ve been exchanging frank appraisals of the status of corruption in Nigeria, checking out the performances of control mechanisms now in place and sharing ideas on policy innovations, and perhaps laws that could potentially loosen the firm grip of corruption in every section of the country’s life. That would be their preoccupation for the entire week for sure.
No doubt there’s still a lot more to be done to crack the solid edifice of corruption in Nigeria. Sadly, the prognosis remains gloomy. The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act which came into effect in 2011 courtesy of the Jonathan administration ought to facilitate citizen access to public records and information, but that has not been the case. The law is being observed more in the breach by public institutions as most citizens who make requests are routinely denied access to records that ordinarily should be available to the public.
Soon after President Muhammadu Buhari – the one widely assumed by many to be the real anti-corruption champion Nigeria sorely needs – assumed office in 2015 and launched an anti-corruption campaign, PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, one of the big four accounting firms, published a report on the impact of corruption on the country’s economy over time and presented it to vice president Yemi Osinbajo.
A key aspect of the report is that by 2030, 37% of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) would be lost to corruption if the issue is not dealt with quickly. The cost equated to around $1000 per person in 2014 and close to $2000 per person by 2030, which is barely five years away and the country still doesn’t seem to be serious in the way it’s been tackling corruption.
Although Buhari’s government introduced a slew of initiatives some of which have since been passed into law like the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Witness Protection and Management Act to strengthen the anti-corruption effort, it seems as though these laws only exist on paper. People are not feeling their impact, and this further reinforces the absolute lack of trust in government because of the general belief that successive governments have failed to summon the will to mount any serious fight against corruption in accordance with the dictates of Section 15(5) of the 1999 Constitution which mandates the state to “abolish all corrupt practices and abusive of power.”
To that extent, hardly will anyone then dismiss the argument that in view of the apparent lip service the state has consistently paid to the fight against corruption, the only agencies fighting corruption in Nigeria today are the civil society, public interest lawyers and the media, especially the non-profit newsrooms whose focus is holding power to account by exposing corruption in high places with their hard-hitting journalism. And these newsrooms can be easily identified by their stand out work.
But by far the staunchest evidence yet that the state has deliberately refused to demonstrate the capacity to confront corruption headlong is the failure to pass the whistleblowing and whistleblower protection bill into law. The bill, an executive bill which was adopted by the Federal Executive Council at its meeting on 16 December 2022, was transmitted to the national assembly but it was not passed before the tenure of that assembly elapsed.
The whistleblowing policy was put together by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) which the Buhari government set up to advise it and help promote the anti-corruption efforts of the government. Although focusing only on addressing endemic corruption in the public institutions, the pronouncement of the policy was the first time a Nigerian government would invite citizens to join the fight against corruption, fully aware the fight cannot be won without the input of citizens.
The policy was designed strictly as an anti-corruption programme with three components—channel of reporting, reward framework and protection. On 21 December 2016, it was announced to the public and domiciled in the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) a unit in the Federal Ministry of Finance. According to the originators, the policy was only meant to last for one year before it transmutes into an instrument with a comprehensive legal protection and seamless coverage that ensures accessible free expression rights for citizens.
Following its unveiling, the policy was hailed by most people as the best anti-corruption strategy ever introduced by any Nigerian government. And it was proving to be just that as government workers embraced it with enthusiasm and tips of looted public assets, financial and material, started arriving at the administrators’ tables in large number and stolen funds and other physical assets were being recovered to the utter excitement of the public.
However, eight years on, it has remained a policy with no legal backing, which again speaks directly to the lack of seriousness on the part of government when it comes to dealing with corruption. Even the eggheads who crafted the policy, more than 70% of them well-known professors in law and criminology for decades, are shocked that the policy has yet to be converted to a legal framework after outliving its prescribed lifespan by almost ten years. A government that is really interested in fighting corruption would on announcement of the policy, rush to the national assembly with a whistleblower protection bill and ask the lawmakers to pass it into law to replace the policy.
The absence of a whistleblower protection legislation has thus created loopholes for all kinds of reprisals against whistleblowers in the public service. For acting in the interest of transparency, accountability and integrity, whistleblowers in employment became targets of threats, suspension, punitive posting, denial of salary and other entitlements such as annual leave and career progression, and some have been dismissed. Even to exercise the right to refuse to participate in corrupt practices and other illegalities in the workplace attracts serious punishment in many offices.
Because it’s a mere policy, the implementation is extremely weak in the most crucial department: protection. Although Section 12 of the policy specifies protection for victimized whistleblowers, no whistleblower has ever benefited from a reprieve through that provision. The anti-corruption agencies themselves usually do not have the nerve to go after the individuals reported for perpetrating fraud even when investigations confirm that they are culpable. Two things here: either they are compromised or they are not independent institutions after all, meaning that they are not free from the control of powerful external forces to make decisions. They have shown this in many cases by abandoning the message and joining in frustrating the messenger.
Otherwise, why is it that the anti-corruption agencies are not able to intervene to protect whistleblowers facing retaliation for making the right call on wrongdoing in their workplace? In the absence of helpful intervention from these agencies, virtually all persecuted whistleblowers in government offices are running to the industrial court for justice.
The continued punishment of workers for reporting wrongdoing has already had a chilling effect on other public servants willing to report corruption and other misconduct. That is why it seems as government has abandoned the whistleblowing policy. No, it hasn’t. It is the workers that are put off by retaliation, which is certain to come where there’s no legal cover.
And that memo in July circulated to government offices by George Akume, secretary to the government of the federation, threatening whistleblowers with jail term has made the fear of retaliation more real than ever. The memo effectively strikes down whistleblowing and the FOI Act as good governance tools in and needs to be withdrawn without delay if there is any serious intention to promote transparency and accountability in Nigeria. Corruption can’t be fought without an insider. So, whistleblowing is the best method of exposing corrupt acts and fostering accountability in the management of institutions, and this claim is attested by the ECOWAS Commission in its protocol on the fight against corruption and supplementary protocol on good governance and democracy.
For Nigeria, it’s still a long, long way to go in this fight. Truth is, the will to tackle corruption has been zero over the years. Maybe President Bola Tinubu can change that, even if fighting corruption was not an issue in his 2023 election campaign.
Onyeacholem works with African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL)
