Corruption on parade - Vanguard

Written by Mobolaji Sanusi
Friday, 30 November 2007
“For a country that has made about half a trillion dollars from oil in less than five decades, a figure that dwarfs that of international aid to the whole of Africa, it is to the public disgust we show to the quality of leadership that got us to this point.”— Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Chairman, EFCC.

EVERY government in the country since independence had one policy thrust or the other that identified it. The immediate past administration and the current government readily come to mind. During President Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight years of mis-rule, the truculence with which transparency and anti-corruption crusades were waged on paper in official circles remain stupefying. President Umaru Yar’Adua has come with his own; unalloyed adherence to the rule of law and the due process. In pursuit of these, the government professed an avowed zero-tolerance for corruption. The antecedents of several governments, especially the immediate past one showed that preaching is different from action. Rather than example, most governments follow precept.

Two recent revelations on men of the immediate past government made mockery of its transparency and anti-corruption crusade. The Siemens bribery scandal involving some top functionaries of the Obasanjo administration and senior civil servants on one hand and the latest N4 billion contract allegedly awarded by Professor Maurice Iwu as INEC chairman to Chris Uba, an acolyte of Obasanjo whose government delighted in vaingloriously trumpeting transparency and anti-corruption crusade. Full Story