All well-meaning Nigerians agree that the war against corruption is justified and holds the key to every other battle or war that can be fought, won or lost in this nation.
It is the root of the success or failure of every other activity in this country be it the insurgency threat (terrorism/insecurity), the economic recession or depression, infrastructural deficits across the nation, unemployment, the supply of darkness instead of light, the rot in the education sector and the decay and stench in the oil industry.
If President Buhari forgot anything in the state house for which he contested three or four times to come back, it must have been to cleanse this augean stable of corruption and indiscipline which he began in 1984 and our countrymen and women will remember him for good.
Therefore Buhari has no reason to waver in this anti-graft war. It is the singular reason Jonathan failed and the APC won the 2015 general election. Hence, the recent statement credited to the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo that Buhari is under pressure to slow down or even abandon the anti-corruption war must be dismissed as unwanted and unacceptable to patriotic Nigerians.
Over the years fingers of corruption have been pointing mostly at policemen, politicians and executive office holders ignoring the virus and the vectors of these chains of corrupt practices.
Just as we accuse some judges, lawyers and policemen of aiding and abetting criminality in society because they are the ones who show the bad eggs the escape routes when the long arm of the law catches them so we know that some civil servants, infact public servants are the ones who show office holders the tricks of stealing money from government coffers.
The celebrated cases in NNPC, missing oil money, the notorious pension scam in the police, the excess crude oil money, the Abacha loot that ended up in private pockets after their recovery from foreign bank accounts, and recently the 2016budget scam and the $2.1billion arms gate are few of the big frauds in the nation’s history. None of these cases took place without active connivance of civil/public servants.
They are the ones who know how to pad or load budget provisions, tinkering with the heads and subheads, burying huge amounts under hidden subheads and resurrecting them at the appropriate time, retrieving some when alarm blows and doctoring figures when the searchlight is beamed on any arm of the ministry or government.
They are the ones who teach Governor’s and Presidents, local government chairmen and heads of parastatals how to maneouver accounts allocations and figures during auditing and accounting process, how to inflate contracts and how to share the loots (spoils of the dirty wars).
They are the bosses of the National Union of Ghost and Allied Workers, a non-existent union but which is so powerfully operative in real sense. It is a magical union, of invisible employees who receive monthly salaries and allowances which are funneled or channeled to the accounts of mafia groups.
Despite technological advances in data processing, data basing, and biometrics, these voodoo specialists circumvent the oracles and computer networking to inject and eject names and figures, manipulate transactions and obstructions in order to fleet away millions from public funds.
The federal government is presently battling with the discovery of 23, 306 civil servants in a salary scam who are ghost workers. Those civil servants who remotely control these ghost accounts work hand in hand with bank workers who themselves shield these crooks.
When we recall that almost every quarter of the year, the Lagos State Government which operates the most sophisticated integrated computer data network for her workers and activities popularly known as the oracle still does not trust it hence it carries out periodic checks on the teaching population where most of the ghost workers had been discovered in the past. The forensic audits carried out by different regimes and agencies in this country could not prevent or even expose frauds in various sectors of the economy.
Today we have ghost workers, ghost contractors, ghost fuel tanker drivers and trucks, ghost teachers and students, ghost employers and employees, and ghost everything. Once a group of civil servants or public officers agree with other collaborators on the ratio of sharing the loot (usually 50-50 or 60 – 40) a syndicate is formed. They soon become a mafia group, powerful, untouchable rich and influential. They are seen in every sector including religious circles, academics, business, professional group’s, private sector and government etc. No wonder some call them the hydra headed monsters or the octopus.
I sympathise with Buhari. If only he had the golden opportunity of resurrecting his erstwhile partner the late Tunde Idiagbon for this second missionary journey he has embarked upon, his chances of success would have been greater. Indeed he has a huge and herculean task with the EFCC and the hitherto dormant ICPC.
But if the APC which swept to power in a most glorious with fashion the slogan of “change” can get its acts together and truly stand by this president, purge itself and its members first and face squarely the anti-graft war, success will surely come to this nation.
If this administration can control corruption, defeat the terrorists (ensure security), give the nation affordable electricity and not forcing us to pay more for supplying darkness, then give us roads mass transportation, this nation can take care of the rest. We will see how productive Nigerians can be to privately create mega jobs and the economy will bounce back. Even in the education and health sectors, things will begin to fall in place.
Let Buhari take four cardinal agenda and pursue them vigorously. His name will be written in gold instead of chasing too many targets at a time and miss all like past leaders have experienced.