6
Federalism and the campaign against corruption
p. 112-137
Texte intégral
Introduction
1Our discussions on the limitations of the Nigerian fight against corruption under the Obasanjo regime have so far centred on the poor capacities of the anti-corruption agencies, the ICPC and EFCC, set up to advance the fight against corruption. As we have seen, insufficient capacity, limited commitment of the political leadership to the independence of these bodies – as seen in the apparent willingness of the former President to employ these institutions as tools to undermine his political rivals – and of course, the inefficiency of the Nigerian judicial system were not helpful to these bodies. Yet these explanations are only part of the story. Other factors equally left their own negative impact on Nigeria’s campaign against corruption in the Fourth Republic. One of the most important of these factors is perhaps Nigeria’s federal structure of government, adopted, ironically, to facilitate good governance in one of Africa’s most diverse countries. How did federalism scupper Nigeria’s latest quest to promote good governance?
2The Obasanjo-led anti-corruption campaign was, to all intents and purposes, a policy of one level of government, whereas the country, being a federal state, is made up of three levels of government, each relatively autonomous. Any successful implementation of a national policy, such as the anti-corruption campaign, clearly requires the active support of all the three levels of government, a large challenge in such a huge and diverse country as Nigeria. During the era of military rule, finding such support would never have posed any problem. The military logic of strong centralisation of power and espirit de corps had often ensured that national policies were more often than not decided by the central government and imposed on states and local governments, without provoking arguments or open resistance from the heads of these sub-national authorities, who were usually appointed by the central authorities. Under a supposedly democratic regime, complete with a federal constitution, the question arises: To what extent can a national policy, such as the Obasanjo-initiated anti-corruption policy, be imposed on all of Nigeria’s 36 states and 774 local councils? If the states and their local authorities withhold support for the programme, can such a policy ever succeed?
3In this chapter, we will try to show that the implementation of the Obasanjo-led anti-corruption policy in Nigeria failed partly because various sub-national authorities were not fully committed to its success and took many steps to ensure its failure. It is true that the level of resistance to the anti-corruption fight varied from one state to another, depending on several factors, such as the level of resources available locally, the leadership in each of the states (the personality of the state governor), and the character and level of local pressures for change or transparency. On the whole, however, Nigerian states demonstrated not only a very strong aversion to the anti-corruption agenda of the central government, but also a common unwillingness to initiate their own local anti-corruption measures that would have strengthened the drive against corruption.
4When the war against corruption began, it was widely promoted as a national struggle enjoying the support of all segments of Nigerian society. However, as the anti-corruption drive moved from the realm of official rhetoric in mid-1999 to the domain of practical implementation in the year 2000 and beyond, two tendencies became immediately observable among Nigerian states. On the one hand, some states refused absolutely to appropriate the policy of the federal government by putting in place the equivalents in their states and hid behind the ‘federal system’ to challenge every attempt from ‘above’ destined to control corruption by local officials. Oil-rich Bayelsa State led this group. At the other end of the spectrum, other states openly supported the anti-corruption policy for strategic political reasons (electoral gains), even if they had no genuine intention to fight corruption in their respective states. A good example of this second group was Zamfara State, which pioneered the Shari’ah legal code in 1999 – in part to check corruption among citizens of the state – but showed little zeal to implement its most important anti-corruption provisions. First, we will take a look at the collective responses of the states, as a whole, to the federal anti-corruption agenda, before turning the searchlight on the unwillingness of the states to implement local anti-corruption measures.
A federal anti-corruption policy and the revolt of federating states
5The Obasanjo-led anti-corruption policy was launched amid promises that the reforms would be felt in every nook and cranny of the federation. Yet, when designing his anti-corruption programme, there was hardly any evidence to suggest that President Obasanjo held any prior consultation with the 36 state governors – or indeed with the 774 local government chairmen which the 1999 Constitution had effectively placed under the governors – on his proposed anti-corruption drive. Perhaps President Obasanjo was swayed by the popular assumption that, given the damage corruption had done to the nation’s quest to develop and the pressures for change being heaped daily on the incoming civilian leaders, everybody would be in full support of his declared anti-corruption war. The fallacy in this thinking soon became apparent when the governors and their state legislatures began to voice strong opposition and even took several successful measures against some of the actions taken by the central government in its quest to fight corruption. The role of Nigerian states and their local government councils in undermining the anti-corruption campaign championed by Obasanjo, however, was most clearly observable in their reactions to the enactment of new national anti-corruption legislation and subsequently in their reactions to the establishment of national anti-graft agencies, notably the ICPC and EFCC.1
Reactions of state governments to national anti-corruption legislation
6During the civilian administration of President Obasanjo, Nigerian states reacted strongly to virtually all laws proposed by the federal government which they consider potentially ‘intrusive’. But their reaction to the passage by the National Assembly of the national anti-corruption law in July 2000 was unprecedented. The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, which came into effect on 13 July 2000, contained several important provisions, among which was the one establishing the ICPC, charged with the responsibility of investigating and prosecuting corrupt public officials at all levels of government.2 Immediately the law was passed, a constitutional conflict between the federal government and most of the states of the federation ensued. Regardless of the fact that a great majority of the states were under the control of the same political party (PDP) as Obasanjo, this conflict culminated in a challenge before the Supreme Court at the initiative of 32 of the 36 states of the federation. The position of the aggrieved states, which were not against an anti-corruption fight in principle, was that the federal government, according to the 1999 Constitution, had no power to adopt or implement an anti-corruption law across the whole federation as anticipated by the ICPC Act. For these governors, the federal government could make laws only to punish corrupt practices committed at the federal level of government and not in the states or local governments.
7The idea that the enactment of national anti-corruption legislation was a violation of Nigeria’s federal constitution was shared not only by Nigeria’s powerful state governors. It also found strong support in certain institutions of the civil society, notably cultural and ethnic associations. The position taken by the Middle Belt Forum – a socio-political association which supposedly represented all the ethnic minorities of the Middle Belt or North-Central region3 – over the conflict between the EFCC and the leadership of Plateau State, over allegations of corruption against the latter, illustrated this fact. During the crisis, this association took a very critical position against the EFCC, which was seeking to prosecute the then Plateau State governor, Joshua Dariye, and some of his aides for corrupt practices. From the point of view of this association, the EFCC Act of 2004, upon which this anti-corruption agency relied to investigate the alleged corrupt practices of the Plateau government, constituted some kind of “meddlesomeness in the affairs of states in a Federal system, which guarantees the rights of states as federating units … (and which) is gradually returning the nation to the unitary system which Nigerians rejected and discarded in the 1960s” (ThisDay, 11 October 2006).
8This type of state/civil society alliance was perhaps explained by the fact that many of these ethnic associations and movements were financed directly or indirectly by the state governors. However, some more or less independent voices also opposed the idea of an application of the federal anti-corruption policy in the 36 states. The constitutional status of Nigeria’s anti-graft legislation and its negative implications for federal practice in Nigeria were also a source of great concern to many leading legal luminaries. In this category were Rotimi Williams (now deceased) and Ben Nwabueze. While the former was essentially concerned with the limited powers of the federal government (National Assembly) imposed by the 1999 Constitution (ThisDay, 6 July 2000), for the latter, it was more a question of a grave infraction on the theory and practice of federalism. According to Nwabueze, who authored several newspaper articles denouncing the legislation, particularly the ICPC Act:
More than being an infraction of the constitution, it is subversive of one of the foundation pillars of Nigeria’s governmental system, federalism, whose two cardinal principles it totally disregards, namely, the principles of the autonomy of the state government vis-à-vis the federal government and the exclusiveness of the power of each over certain matters as demarcated in the constitution … President Obasanjo’s anti-corruption crusade deserves our applause and full support, but not at the expense of the cardinal principles of our federal system on which depends, to a considerable extent, the stability and unity of the country. (The Guardian, 1 August 2000)
9Owing to the legal and political challenges mounted by the state governments, the ICPC could not commence full operation after it was inaugurated in September 2000, even as public criticism mounted. It remained in limbo until 7 July 2001. On that date the power of the federal authorities to enact an anti-corruption law which is applicable to the entire federation was upheld by a landmark Supreme Court judgment. Ironically, this did little to alter the hostile and antagonistic behaviour of state governments vis-à-vis the anti-corruption campaign. After the Supreme Court judgment, the states simply doubled their determination to challenge any extension of the federal government’s anti-corruption crusade to their states and local government councils.
10Indeed, the frustration of these sub-national authorities was compounded by the decision of the federal government to roll out more anti-corruption legislation and proposals, such as a proposal to reform Nigeria’s 774 local government councils in 2003 and the adoption of the Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Governments Act in 2005. The local government reform was conceived to improve efficiency and accountability within the 774 local governments, while the adoption of the Monitoring of Revenue Allocation Act was intended to punish state governors and their finance commissioners (equivalent to the Minister of Finance at the federal level), who were frequently associated with massive diversion of local government allocations. The local government reform was killed by the combined political opposition of the 36 state governors, who insisted on their undivided constitutional powers to control and monitor these highly corrupt political units (The Guardian, 30 June 2003). The Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Governments Act, on the other hand, was challenged by three states: Abia, Lagos, and Delta. In 2005 these states, with the tacit approval of many others, jointly launched a legal challenge against the federal government at the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the Act. In their challenge, they averred that “having regard to the provisions of Section 7 and 128 of the Constitution … (the Federal Government) cannot by the ‘Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Governments Act’, 2005 or any other Act of the National Assembly exercise oversight functions over Local Government administration in any State of the Federation” (ThisDay, 15 November 2005).
11During their conflict with the central government, the states also received the endorsement of other critical segments of their communities, notably their various Houses of Assembly. Thus, while the decision of the Supreme Court was being awaited, the chairman of the Conference of Speakers of State Houses of Assembly (a body which unites the heads of all the 36 State Houses of Assembly), Rotimi Amaechi, issued a statement on behalf of his colleagues to the effect that:
The recent policy adopted by the Federal Government to fund (i.e. monitor) the local councils directly was a gross negation of the provisions of the Constitution and disrespect for the rule of law … If care was not taken the decision would make the councils not only more inept in responding to the yearnings of the people, but corrupt and undisciplined. This policy is also capable of breeding anarchy and weakening our democratic process … the Conference had resolved to tackle the matter maturely even under provocation ... Our respective governors have pledged to handle the issue with the President or challenge the policy in court. (ThisDay, 23 June 2005)
12This struggle came to a climax in July 2006, when the Supreme Court invalidated the Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Governments Act (The Guardian, 7 July 2006). The nullification of the revenue monitoring legislation probably brought some temporary improvement in the relations between the federal and state governments, but one important question was left open. If the mere enactment of anti-corruption legislation could provoke such outrage and strong negative reactions among state governments, would the implementation of the contents of any of such laws – particularly the establishment of implementation agencies such as the ICPC and the EFCC to fight corruption across the nation – not lead to a systemic breakdown?
State governments’ reactions to national anti-corruption agencies
13Of course, if state governments had been angered by the mere enactment of national anti-corruption legislation, surely the establishment of anti-corruption agencies to implement provisions of the contentious anti-corruption laws could only result in a showdown between the two most important levels of governments. This was exactly what happened. After the creation of the ICPC and EFCC in 2000 and 2004 respectively, several state governors began launching all kinds of verbal assaults on these institutions, which many of them immediately dismissed as “illegal” and “intrusive”. One such governor, Ibrahim Turaki of Jigawa State, went as far as describing them in the following terms: “What is EFCC? What is ICPC? They are not even in the constitution. I think Nuhu Ribadu (chairman of the EFCC) is going beyond his brief” (Daily Trust, 9 July 2004). Another governor, Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State, was even less diplomatic, describing the EFCC as a “chicken without a head … (a) body which was set up to chase people all over the place” (Vanguard, 4 October 2006).
14This perception of anti-graft bodies as an unnecessary distraction in governance and a threat that must be dealt with at all costs was not a phenomenon that was limited to a few disgruntled state governors. It was a widely shared perception among Nigeria’s 36 state governors. At the beginning of his tenure as chairman of the ICPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi4 wrote letters to all 36 state governors soliciting their cooperation for his new organization. Justice Akanbi’s letters, however, did not raise the enthusiasm of their intended beneficiaries. Many of the governors promised to respond later but never did. Some governors who did respond claimed that the ICPC was an “illegal” or “unconstitutional” body. Many others simply ignored the ICPC’s letter completely (Vanguard, 24 May 2002). At the end of the day, only four governors promised to support the institution (ThisDay, 4 April 2005).
15Apparently not satisfied with merely criticising and contesting before the courts the legality of the anti-corruption bodies set up by the federal government, actions that had so far produced limited results, state governors soon began to take other more concrete steps aimed at undermining the effectiveness of the anti-corruption policy in their respective states and beyond. While a considerable number of the governors generally remained discrete in their battle with the agencies, there were a few who could not hide their disgust towards these institutions, openly banning their officials from all cooperation with the two national anti-corruption agencies. According to their directives, their officials were not to answer to the invitations of these agencies for the purpose of investigations or offer any information whatsoever, including official documents and materials which could facilitate investigations.
16Abia State, in the south-eastern part of the country, was one of the most hostile of the states. In June 2004, following the receipt of a petition alleging the illegal diversion of federal allocations meant for local government councils in Abia State, the EFCC launched an investigation of the financial activities of the state government. Rather than cooperate with the EFCC, the government of Abia State went to court and obtained a temporary injunction restraining the EFCC from commencing any investigation of the financial activities of local governments in the state. Before going to court, the governor of the state, Orji Uzor Kalu, warned his officials against any form of cooperation with the anti-graft body (Tell Magazine, 29 November 2004). In the end, the state managed to prevail over the EFCC. Thus, two years after he began his open battle, on 7 July 2006 Governor Kalu won a final and conclusive legal victory against the EFCC, when the Supreme Court invalidated the Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Governments Act of 2005, upon which the EFCC relied to conduct its investigations (The Guardian, 7 July 2006). This victory was felt very far beyond the borders of Abia State. It had a chilling effect on the effectiveness of the EFCC and greatly emboldened other states to openly challenge its authority.
17Similar challenges were encountered by the ICPC. This fact was laid bare during its battle with Ondo State, in the southwest. The ICPC’s struggle with Ondo State began in 2001, when the state, without prompting from outside, launched an investigation against one of its commissioners, who was accused of fraudulently inflating the price of a public contract from N12 million to N35 million. The said official was later brought before a local court, Ondo State Chief Magistrate Court. Some three days after his arraignment, other senior officials of the same government, including a director-general and two other directors of a public parastatal, Owena Mass Transport Corporation (OMTC), were indicted by an official inquiry for various corrupt practices leading to the effective collapse of their parastatal. The accused officials were subsequently ordered to refund a total sum of N8.7million, N230,000, and N100,000 respectively to the state (The Punch, 2 September 2001). Coincidentally, these incidents came at a time when the Supreme Court was adjudicating on a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the ICPC Act, brought by all of the 36 state governments. When the ICPC indicated its interest in the files, the Ondo government refused to release them or cooperate in any way with the anti-corruption agency. To top matters off, the state government banned the agency from setting foot in its territory (ibid.).
18This type of hostility and obstructive behaviour was also encountered in several other states. The cumulative effect was to render the work of these anti-corruption institutions difficult if not impossible. The then chairman of the ICPC, Mustapha Akambi, highlighted the effectiveness of the actions of the state governments against the ICPC in the following words: “When we have cases in the States, we find that some of the governors … tend not to make necessary facilities available to us … When we are prosecuting someone in a state, may be the person belongs to the same party with the governor or they relate in a certain way, they make it difficult for us” (ibid.).
19Confrontations between state governments and the various national anti-corruption bodies went beyond mere refusal of the state governors to make necessary facilities available to the anti-graft agencies. In some states of the federation, the activities of both anti-corruption agencies also resulted in varying degrees of physical violence, usually at the instigation of governors accused of corruption. The case of Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State was a good example. Between 4 and 7 December 2005, some officials of the EFCC sent to arrest three close collaborators of this governor – Miss Christabel Bentu,5 a bank chief (the branch manager of All States Trust Bank in Jos), and one of the governor’s younger brothers – all of whom were accused of helping the governor loot over N1.16 billion from the state treasury, were attacked by supporters and employees of the Plateau State government before they could complete their mission (The Punch, 8 December 2005). As a consequence of the attacks, some of the EFCC officials suffered grave bodily injuries, and their vehicles were severely damaged by their attackers. These attacks, which were allegedly directed by the governor with the assistance of his security agents,6 also resulted in the damage of all evidence and the escape of one of the key suspects, the younger brother of the governor (The Guardian, 12 February 2006).
20Why did the federal government prove so impotent in protecting its own officials against aggression by state governments? The obstructive activities of Governor Joshua Dariye and his men represented a gross violation of provisions of both the EFCC and ICPC Acts, which in theory could be punished by imprisonment upon conviction.7 According to Section 38 of the EFCC Act, an obstructive act of such a kind will attract fines of up to N5,000 and/or 5 years’ prison term upon conviction (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004). In reality, however, such provisions were rarely invoked or applied, the reason being that the constitutional immunity against prosecution granted to state governors and their deputies, the initiators of these acts, as well as the limited powers of the federal government imposed by Nigeria’s federal Constitution, had made any such application inconceivable. The devastating consequences on the performances of these agencies can only be imagined. Even though an overwhelming majority of the governors were consistently fingered in several serious cases of corruption, only one governor (Governor Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State) was successfully tried for corruption under the Obasanjo administration. Even then, this was only possible after he was impeached by his state’s legislators.
21Why would these anti-corruption institutions not try to get around their problems with the governors through some other innovative methods? The process of impeachment could have been a short-cut to that goal. Fully aware of its limited powers under a federal constitution, the anti-corruption agencies, especially the EFCC, did on several occasions turn for succour to state legislatures, who can in theory remove corrupt governors from power through the process of impeachment. The problem, however, was that such a political approach can hardly be effective in Nigeria’s clientelist political system. Nigerian state assemblies most of the time sided with their governors – who were more often than not their political godfathers – instead of supporting the war against graft being spearheaded by the federal government. The record of the Plateau State House of Assembly provides yet another illustration.
22As already noted, on 2 September 2004 Governor Joshua Dariye was arrested during a visit to London, by agents of the London Metropolitan Police, who suspected him of laundering the proceeds of corruption. On the basis of information received from the British officials, the EFCC decided to open an investigation into the ‘Dariye affair’, which established the culpability of Mr Dariye. Given his constitutional immunity against arrest and prosecution, the EFCC had no choice but to pass on his file to the Plateau State legislature for further action (The Guardian, 15 December 2005). The alternative was to suspend action on the case until Dariye left office at the end of his tenure on 29 May 2007. In the face of widespread public demand for action against executive banditry on the part of the state governors, such an alternative would have been a public relations’ blunder. As was the case with several other state legislatures which had ignored reports of serious corrupt practices involving their governors, the Plateau lawmakers bluntly refused to take any action. Instead, they offered their unflinching support to the embattled governor, proving again that decentralisation has not been very helpful to Nigeria’s war against corruption.
23But was federalism actually to blame for the collective hostility of Nigerian states to the Obasanjo-led anti-corruption war? The governors often argued that their opposition to Obasanjo’s anti-corruption drive was born out of a genuine quest to protect constitutionally guaranteed fiscal and political autonomy, the hallmarks of federalism. The hollowness of this argument, however, was underlined not only by the massive corruption authored by some of these governors, but also by the refusal of a great majority of states to initiate local measures to check corruption in their states, as well as by the seeming incapacity of those who had announced their own anti-corruption initiatives to go beyond official rhetoric, underlining at the same time their insincerity and their capacity to frustrate the federal anti-corruption policy. The experiences of two states, Zamfara and Bayelsa, can be used to illustrate this fact.
A new era of state-based anti-corruption initiatives? Between local autonomy and electoral gimmick
24In their official pronouncements, state governors regularly declared their intention to combat corruption in their respective states. Yet, in reality, few state governors showed much interest in replicating the various anti-corruption programmes introduced by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration at the national level in their own state, despite overwhelming evidence of corruption. The states, and by extension their local governments, were content with challenging the anti-corruption policy of the federal government. While the majority of the states (Bayelsa State is a leading example) failed to design or implement even a single local anti-corruption initiative, a few states – such as Zamfara – took some symbolic steps in this direction, including passing anti-corruption laws and establishing anti-graft bodies, but demonstrated incapacity or unwillingness to bring corrupt officials to book in practice, thereby encouraging the spread of corruption in the country, especially at the grassroots level. In the remaining sections of this chapter, we will highlight the experiences of Bayelsa and Zamfara states, which in our view represent these two contradictory tendencies among Nigerian states.
Bayelsa State: Anti-corruption war and the ‘Devil’s excrement’
25During the presentation of his 2005 appropriation bill to his State House of Assembly in December 2004, Governor D. S. P. Alamieyeseigha declared that his “government was determined to restructure, re-professionalise and fortify public institutions, eliminate waste, inefficiency and corruption, and ensure greater transparency, accountability and efficiency in the delivery of services” (The Guardian, 20 December 2004). Paradoxically, just twelve months after that speech, Mr Alamieyeseigha was impeached by the same body for “gross misconduct”, corruption, and abuse of power. Alamieyeseigha’s impeachment on 8 December 2005, the very first under the Fourth Republic, followed his arrest and detention in London on 15 September 2005 for money-laundering offences (Newswatch, 12 December 2005). The uproar and international embarrassment which his arrest provoked,8 as well as the covert political pressure and threats emanating from the central government,9 paved the way for his speedy removal and subsequent arraignment before a Lagos High Court on charges of corrupt enrichment (Daily Independent, 24 November 2005).
26Although the factors that enabled Alamieyeseigha’s impeachment were inseparable from his ordeal in London, the events which culminated in his removal in disgrace from office had their roots at home. Prior to his arrest in London, the governor and several high-ranking officials of his government had figured prominently on the list of corrupt officials being investigated by the two main federal anti-corruption agencies (the ICPC and EFCC) for massive fraud and diversion of billions of naira in public funds into overseas accounts. Just to recap, in one particular case, following from a 2003 investigation initiated by the ICPC, the governor was accused of “approving several dubious contracts and payments totalling N1.7 billion in favour of eight fictitious companies”, in respect of construction projects effected at the site of a new university floated by the state, the Niger Delta University (NDU). The governor was also said to have awarded other contracts totalling N667.3 million to another set of fictitious companies through the Bayelsa State Tenders Board, presided over by him. Despite these flagrant abuses, the ICPC could neither arrest nor arraign Governor Alamieyeseigha before the law courts, thanks to Section 308 of the Nigerian Constitution which grants all 36 state governors and their deputies’ immunity against such legal actions. The EFCC had to adopt a very innovative approach to get around this dilemma, by transferring Alamieyeseigha‘s files to the British authorities. The strategy paid off when the British arrested him while on one of his numerous foreign trips.
27This air of pervasive corruption that reigned in Bayelsa State is perhaps explained by several factors. One of them is certainly Nigeria’s oil-defined political economy, or what is commonly referred to as the “oil curse” and the “Devil’s excrement”, to borrow the expression of a former Venezuelan oil minister and founder of OPEC, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso. Following the persistent demand for local resource control, championed by Nigeria’s oil-bearing states, the adoption of Nigeria’s fourth post-independence constitution, the 1999 Constitution, came with a provision requiring the payment of 13% of all oil revenue to Nigeria’s nine oil-producing states according to their productive capacity (the principle of derivation).10 But rather than serve as a source of prosperity and happiness, the decentralisation of oil wealth only sharpened the greedy appetites of the local power elite in these states, while at the same time serving as a source of incentive for them to oppose the federal anti-corruption campaign.
28Bayelsa State was by all accounts among the worst offenders. Created in October 1996, Bayelsa is a relatively new state in Nigeria. Yet, it is considered one of the richest, accounting for some 30% of Nigeria’s 2.5 million barrels of daily crude oil production. Thanks to the new revenue allocation, the state, along with Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Rivers states, which collectively account for roughly 80% of Nigeria’s crude-oil production, have received huge funds in federal allocations since the democratic experiment began in 1999. Between June 1999 and December 2005, for instance, it received some N300 billion (or $2.5 billion) in federal transfers. In comparative terms, Zamfara State, which has zero oil production, received only a little more than a third of that amount (N80 billion) during the same period (see Table 6.1).
Table 6.1. Federal allocations to Bayelsa and Zamfara (in billions of naira) (1999-2005)
Year | Bayelsa State | Zamfara State |
1999 (May-Dec) 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 | 2,729,569 20,170,579 24,601,106 28,028,005 40,164,821 68,388,398 94,575,383 | 2,470,778 7,383,901 9,401,386 10,252,025 12,757,507 17,673,425 19,027,521 |
Total* | 287,678,678 | 80,872,600 |
* This amount excludes the allocations for the month of May 2002 for both states, which were unavailable at the time the data were being compiled, as well as funds received from the Excess Oil Revenue Accounts (non-anticipated revenue received thanks to rising crude oil prices).
Source: Federal Government of Nigeria (undated).
29But despite this huge windfall, Bayelsa State was characterised by socio-economic backwardness, poverty, and youth unrest. Many of these problems were rooted in corruption and official mismanagement. Governor Alamieyeseigha was later found guilty of diverting over $1 billion in the five years he was in office (The Guardian, 21 December 2005). Most of the $2.5 billion he collected as his state’s share of Nigeria’s oil rents was wasted on white-elephant projects which provided avenues for top officials to siphon off millions of dollars. Social spending was neglected. As a consequence, all socio-economic indicators collected between 1999 and 2005 pointed to a state marked by a high incidence of poverty (see Table 6.2). Not surprisingly, the state also became one of the major theatres of youth violence, with kidnappings and sabotage of oil installations by local people demanding a fair share of the oil wealth as a regular feature of social life (Donnelly 2005). At the same time, widespread poverty engendered a sense of total dependence on the state, which in turn encouraged political clientelism. Attempts to address these problems – many of which are also validly attributable to the many years of criminal neglect and marginalisation by the federal government – through large-scale construction of social amenities and other projects resulted in massive diversion of funds by local officials, particularly in an era of huge influx of oil rents.
30The Bayelsa predicament clearly underlines the difficulty inherent in any attempt to promote accountability and good governance in resource-rich communities (Sachs & Warner 1995; Jacques 2005; La Commission pour l’Afrique 2005) and the resistance this usually provokes. During the period June-July 2005, for instance, an independent and comprehensive evaluation of the state of governance in the 36 states was organized by the National Planning Commission, in collaboration with several international institutions (donors active in Nigeria, such as the World Bank, DFID, EU, and UNDP) and members of civil society. This exercise, the first of its kind since 1999, was based on four measurement indices: (a) policy; (b) fiscal management and budget process; (c) service delivery; and (d) communication and transparency. According to the evaluators, none of the four main oil-producing states (Bayelsa 0%, Delta 45.1%, Rivers 49.8%, and Akwa Ibom 37.6%) figured among the seven best performers (Enugu 62.0%, Ekiti 61.7%, Abuja FCT 55.7%, Kano 55.4%, Lagos 55.3%, Jigawa 51.3%, and Ebonyi 51.0%) (Ekwedike 2005). Ironically, Bayelsa State was the only state that was not evaluated, having refused to submit itself for such an exercise, for reasons undisclosed (ibid.).
Table 6.2. Comparative socio-economic data for Bayelsa and Zamfara states (2004)
| Bayelsa | Zamfara | National |
Population* | 1,703,358 | 3,259,846 | 140,000,000 |
Literacy level (English language) | 59,3 | 10,0 | 44,2 |
Literacy level (Nigerian languages) | 62,8 | 69,2 | 45,2 |
Rate of primary school enrolment | 96,1 | 69,9 | 81,2 |
Access to energy (gas/electricity) | 4,8 | 12,5 | 32,2 |
Access to potable water | 13,2 | 64,9 | 50,5 |
* Federal Government of Nigeria, National Population Commission, Abuja, 2007.
Source: Federal Government of Nigeria (2005).
31The impact of natural resources on good governance in Nigeria was also highlighted by several other works, including a 2002 comparative study of three Nigerian states (Kano, Delta and Ondo), authored by Leonard Wantchekon and Tamar Asadurian, which found that, in general, the “states that are highest recipients of transfers have experienced increased income inequality and poor economic indicators, suggesting that there is little accountability. While states that have benefited the least from oil rents have fared much better” (Wantchekon & Asadurian 2002: 4). The same fact was vividly demonstrated again by statistics published in 2004 by the National Population Commission, showing that apart from its superior attainment in Western education, which is largely explained by historical factors (Aka 2000), Bayelsa State, as shown in Table 6.2, hardly showed any advantage in the area of socio-economic development over states with far slimmer resources or budgetary allocations, such as Zamfara State.
32The style of management of public budget in Bayelsa State under Governor Alamieyeseigha (1999-2005) can provide insight into why the state had little or no real advantage in the area of socio-economic development over states with far slimmer resources or budgetary allocations. By 2004 and early 2005, the usual award of inflated contracts to oneself, relations, and political cronies, which had hitherto characterised politics in Bayelsa gave way to a much more destructive form of neo-patrimonial governance, where budgetary appropriations were systematically exploited to enrich those who were in charge, including the state governor. One way of achieving the latter goal consisted in concentrating huge public expenditures on over-priced white-elephant projects with little or no relevance to public welfare, but which offered unlimited opportunity for officials to line their pockets through kick-backs paid by contractors. Conversely, important social services such as education, health, potable water, and other anti-poverty initiatives, offering far less opportunities for criminal enrichment, were under-funded. An analysis of the state’s 2004 and 2005 budgets reflected this fraud.
33According to figures compiled from the state’s N76 billion (or $560 million) 2005 budget proposal (The Guardian, 20 December 2004), as posted on the state’s official website, the total capital vote for education was only N130 million. According to the breakdown, the state’s secondary schools (managed by the Bayelsa State Post-Primary Schools Board), which numbered 149 in 2004, received N118 million for renovation and maintenance, purchase of learning materials and equipment, etc. For the same purposes in 2004, N106 million was offered. To purchase books (N5 million) and equipment/furniture for libraries in the state, managed by a central agency, Bayelsa State Library Board, a total of only N7 million was on offer. The budget for 2004 was more or less identical. The pattern of expenditure showed little deviation even in the health sector, where the Ministry of Health, charged with running all state health institutions, including 16 newly established hospitals, received a total of N38.5 million as budgetary allocation for capital expenditure in 2005, against the N29.2 million received in 2004. A breakdown shows that N9.5 million was voted for office furniture and equipment, N10.5 million represented funds set aside to equip the new hospitals, while N18.5 million was for medical equipment.
34Other key social services suffered the same fate. For example, water supply, under the supervision of the Bayelsa State Water Board, did not fare any better, with a meagre N20.5 million allocation. Of this amount, N500,000 was voted for office equipment and furniture, while N20 million was for the purchase of reagents/water analysis equipment. The same sum was given in 2004. Electricity supply, under the Bayelsa State Electricity Board, also received scant attention. In 2005, a total of N7 million – N2 million for office equipment and furniture and N5 million for spare parts – was all that was voted. This was even higher than the N2 million spent on the same item in 2004. In order words, all the four critical social sectors, education, health, water supply and electricity, received a combined N196 million, representing only a minute fraction of the state’s N76 billion. But by far the most ridiculous expenditure contained in the 2005 budget drafted by Governor Alamieyeseigha was the N2.9 million offered to a certain “Poverty Eradication Committee”, an institution whose functions were never clearly stated but widely understood to have been created to fight poverty in the state.
35The self-serving inclination of the Bayelsa leadership is not apparent until one considers a list of some carefully crafted expenditures in the same budget, designed to benefit only those in power. Thus, a clinic serving the Office of the Governor was granted a massive N100 million for the year 2005. The same Office of the Governor received another hefty N100 million for office equipment and ‘minor’ repairs, while a further N85 million was expended on unknown expenses, bringing the total expenditure on the governor’s office to N285 million. A total of N145.1 million was set aside for the same expenses in 2004. Even more revealing, the largest chunk of the N76 billion budget was reserved for a number of white-elephant projects, such as the construction of a secretariat for civil servants in the state, which gulped some N1.7 billion (excluding the 400 million expended on the same project in 2004), and the construction of a new official residence for the governor and his deputy at the cost of N1.2 billion. To secure and equip this huge edifice, N800 million and N300 million were voted respectively in the 2005 budget, bringing the total cost of the new government house to N2.5 billion. It should be noted that this sum does not include the N600 million spent on the project in 2004. Thus, while the total capital budget for education, health, water supply and electricity in 2005 was a mere N196 million, the construction and equipment of a single residence for the governor has cost the state close to N3 billion as at 2005. Other independent estimates are even considerably higher (Polgreen 2005).
36Disturbing as this case may be, this pattern of misallocation of funds is in no way unique to Alamieyeseigha’s Bayelsa State. Other oil-producing states were also neck-deep in similar malfeasance, a good example being Rivers State, governed by Peter Odili. In his own 2006 budget, estimated at N160 billion ($1.2 billion), Governor Odili spent N10.7 billion (roughly 6% of the budget) to maintain his office (the Governor’s Office). This sum excluded the N500 million spent on ‘gifts’ and ‘souvenirs’ for his visitors, N4.3 billion used as ‘grants’ and ‘donations’, and a hefty N5 billion in security budget, to be spent according to his discretion. In the same budget, Governor Peter Odili had also reserved another N3 billion (equivalent to $60,000 per day) to take care of his frequent overseas trips (Transport and Travel Allocation), far above even what the President of Nigeria was getting. The 32 members of his state legislature received N690 million (about $5.4 million at the time) for their own travel expenses, of which $2.8 million was earmarked for foreign trips. This is separate from the $2.8 million given to the legislatures as sitting allowance (not salaries). Like Mr Alamieyeseigha in Bayelsa State, Peter Odili was not as generous when it came to vital social services to benefit a greater number of his poor citizens. It suffices to know that a meagre sum of N2.8 billion was all that was given to the state’s Ministry of Health, out of a budget of N160 billion, in spite of its pre-eminent status as a “priority ministry” (Africa Confidential, 21 July 2006).
37One may well ask why Nigeria’s decentralised system proved so incapable of instigating bottom-up pressures for political or financial accountability. The answer perhaps can be found in Nigeria’s unique brand of clientelist politics: Selective distribution of patronage, which served to legitimise what ordinarily would have been considered a criminal breach of public trust. During his reign in office, Governor Alamieyeseigha perfected the well-known strategy of redistributing the dividends from oil rents among top officials and co-opted members of the political class in the state, apparently to stave off demands for greater transparency and accountability. In furtherance of this strategy, for instance, the governor approved and paid N100 million to each of the 24 members of the state legislature in 2005, under the pretext of financing constituency development projects in their respective constituencies, despite the apparent illegal nature of this decision.
38To begin with, the payments were never contained in the original version of the state 2005 budget submitted to the State House of Assembly in December 2004, suggesting that it was an afterthought. Furthermore, the payment was a flagrant violation of the principle of separation of powers, which underlies the presidential system prescribed by the 1999 Constitution. Under a presidential system, such functions are normally reserved only for the executive arm of government. Not surprisingly, the move generated considerable controversy in the state. To make matters worse, Governor Alamieyeseigha regularly purchased and distributed luxury cars to top officials of the state government. These cars became a major distinguishing factor between an affluent and flamboyant politico-bureaucratic elite and a dispossessed population mired in miserable poverty.
39One of the consequences of such high-level waste and corruption by the man charged with the responsibility of steering the ship of the state government was the spread and proliferation of similar malfeasances at the lower levels of administration in the state – that is, in all the 24 ‘local councils’ in the state.11 A clear picture of the extent of decay among these lower levels of government was given by the governor himself, in a February 2000 speech:
The expectation was that the new local government areas would provide a veritable training ground for up-coming leaders. This is in spite of the numerous advantages of decentralising government programmes. In the same vein, the new local government areas were created to check the spate of rural-urban drift, and to provide employment opportunities for our teeming youth population. From our observation, however, most of the people entrusted with the responsibility of administering the new local government areas lacked basic leadership qualities. They were found wanting in probity, transparency, mature judgement and sense of direction. I have learnt to my utmost dismay that some of the former chairmen exhibited financial indiscipline through over-inflation of contract values, frivolous spending and gross mismanagement, among other sharp practices. Some chairmen used their station in the local government councils as conduit-pipes to siphon scarce resources. These vices are not only damnable, but negate the very purp.ose for which the local government areas were created. (Nengi 2001: 173)
40Governor Alamieyeseigha’s lamentations were intended only to fool the Bayelsa public. The governor had no intention of acting to bring these venal local officials to book. Indeed, when complaints against the officials persisted, they were simply replaced (ThisDay, 6 June 2005). None of them was charged or punished for any offence, underlining the governor’s already well-known position on the war against corruption. Just as Governor Alamieyeseigha was unwilling to promote accountability, such attempts from other institutions or individuals were also not tolerated. Indeed, he left no one in doubt about his preparedness to crush any potential rival or state institution seeking to act as a check on his power over Bayelsan oil resources. The governor, who also went by the appellation of the “Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation”, even boasted that no one could challenge him in Bayelsa State (Newswatch, 24 October 2005). Indeed, his desire to monopolise the control and redistribution of oil rents in Bayelsa State was legendary. Throughout his tenure in office, Mr Alamieyeseigha ran a policy requiring that all expenditures (contracts and purchases) by the state or any of its agencies amounting to a million naira and above be conducted with the formal approval of the governor. All challenges to this policy were met by swift and harsh response. One such move in 2002 by the State House of Assembly, in the form of a bill seeking to empower each of the three arms of government (executive, legislature, and judiciary) to control its own budgetary allocations, with a view to insuring their independence vis-à-vis the executive, provoked an epic political battle between the legislators (who were constitutionally charged with overseeing the activities of the executive) and the governor. This conflict ended with the impeachment of the incumbent Speaker of the State House of Assembly and, subsequently, the abandonment of the proposed bill, titled the Self Accounting Bill.12
41The corrupt and wasteful style of the Bayelsa governor, and most especially his patrimonialist style of administration, provoked deep-seated discontent and widespread complaints among the population. But in the absence of any effective institutional checks and balances to executive power, such as the legislative arm of government or an organized and independent civil society, such popular demands for accountability could only amount to mere wishful thinking. Certainly, there were a few courageous moves instituted by concerned citizens seeking to force a change of policies. Unfortunately, however, these efforts either failed or were ignored. In 2001, for instance, a former collaborator of Governor Alamieyeseigha filed a suit against him before an Abuja High Court, alleging widespread mismanagement of resources.13 This complainant specifically requested the court to order the establishment of a “special committee” for the purpose of managing or overseeing the proper utilisation of all available resources for the development of the state, contrary to what obtained under the administration of Mr. Alamieyeseigha (Newswatch, 24 October 2005). Unfortunately, this request, and indeed the entire suit, was rejected by the court. A second suit brought by a group of two indigenes of the state in 2005, seeking to halt payments being made to the state legislatures (in the name of constituency development projects) and all projects already commenced in this respect, also suffered the same fate (The Guardian, 10 August 2005). Having bought the support of other members of civil society (several armed militia groups, NGOs, traditional rulers, cultural movements, etc.), the looting of Bayelsa State resources simply continued uninterrupted until the day the governor was impeached.
42In effect, a local anti-corruption campaign for Bayelsa State was not even an issue to be envisaged. Apart from a 2003 decision to set up the Bayelsa State Project Monitoring and Implementation Committee, allegedly to encourage transparency in public contracts and expenditures (but in actual fact to calm critics of the government), no other anti-corruption measure was adopted or implemented. To further illustrate the state of anti-corruption efforts in Bayelsa State under the administration of Governor Alamieyeseigha, it should be noted that throughout his over six years’ tenure in office as governor, not a single piece of legislation with the potential of controlling corruption was proposed or passed, nor was any individual put on trial for corruption. Even if this had been done, it would almost certainly have amounted to mere window-dressing. As the case of Zamfara clearly shows, states that had no intention of fighting corruption could still pass anti-corruption legislation and even establish anti-graft bodies, while doing nothing to arrest and prosecute corrupt officials.
Fighting corruption in the name of God: Zamfara State and the Shari’ah debacle
43In 2000, two important pieces of legislations entered into force in Zamfara State. These were the Shari’ah Penal Code Law (No. 10) 2000 and the Shari’ah Criminal Procedure Code Law (No. 18) 2000 (Zamfara State of Nigeria 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2001). These laws, in some ways, represented a concretisation of a promise made by the governor, Sani Ahmed, during his election campaign, to reform the state criminal justice system along the lines of the Shari’ah model. Shari’ah-based legislation is not an entirely new phenomenon in Nigeria, despite the controversies and protests that have greeted the adoption of these laws. But before now, Shari’ah was essentially a civil code, adopted to regulate disputes and civil affairs among Muslims in the northern part of the country. The transformation of Shari’ah into a penal code caused many problems, notably bloody inter-ethnic and religious conflicts. Many of these problems have been examined in detail elsewhere and therefore need no further elaboration here (HRW 2004). However, one of the dimensions of Shari’ah implementation in Zamfara that has so far received little or no attention was its effectiveness or ineffectiveness as a tool for curbing corruption. As one of the officials charged with its implementation rightly pointed out, the legislation aimed not only to satisfy religious obligations, but also to help purge society of all forms of corruption:
The first objective of Shari’ah implementation is to make our peace with our creator, to live in the knowledge that we have submitted to His supremacy and accepted Him as the sole law-giver. The second objective is to establish a just, compassionate and fair society bonded in brotherhood. Such type of society however can only be built on the qualities of honesty, transparency, selflessness and piety. It must therefore be part of the mission of a Shari’ah-guided society to promote and inculcate these qualities. This is why the fight with corruption is an integral part of Shari’ah implementation. (Gusau 2002: 1)
44How did the Shari’ah code address the corruption question in Zamfara State? The law, as a matter of fact, did contain several important anti-corruption provisions. Apart from outlawing several forms of social immorality and crimes – theft, fraud, prostitution, fornication and adultery, the possession, sale and consumption of alcohol, rape, sodomy, incest, homosexuality, and murder, all of which would now attract severe punishment (caning, amputation, execution by stoning) – other more ‘secular’ corrupt acts were equally covered. These included illegal diversion of funds by public officials or agents of private institutions (“criminal breach of trust”) and illegal acquisition (for example, through an intermediary) of public assets. These acts were to be punished by 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment. The said assets would also be confiscated, possibly followed by some 40 strokes of the cane to be publicly administered. Other corrupt acts prohibited included the falsification of documents (5-14 years’ imprisonment), giving or acceptance of bribes (5-7 years), and abuse of powers by judicial and police officers (5 years). These offences would also attract between 30 and 50 strokes of the cane.
45Aware of the high level of poverty in the state (Federal Government of Nigeria 2005: 64) and particularly the hostility of the central government to any implementation of Shari’ah as a criminal code, a number of new local institutions were created supposedly to facilitate the implementation of the code. These included the Zamfara State Poverty Alleviation Programme (ZAPA), Zamfara State Hisbah Commission (also known as the Shari’ah Police), Shari’ah Courts, and the Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission (ZSACC). Within the framework of the ZAPA, salaries of civil servants were increased by 60% in 2000 (Salihu 2004: 23), and soft loans to workers to build houses or purchase vehicles were also offered. Others measures taken within the framework of the ZAPA included purchase and distribution of fertiliser and agricultural equipment for farmers, and soft loans to unemployed youths to establish small businesses, such as the purchase of commercial motorbikes.14
46The Zamfara State Hisbah Commission was the second local institution created to help implement Shari’ah. According to its enabling law, the functions of the Commission included measures to “ensure proper compliance with the teachings of Shari’ah throughout the State”, and to “take every measure necessary to sanitize the society of all social vices and whatever vice or crime is prohibited by Shari’ah” (Zamfara State of Nigeria 2003). The phrase “take every measure necessary” seemed to be a kind of carte blanche for this organization to arrest, detain, and prosecute those who contravened the codes of Shari’ah, a move that would certainly bring it into direct confrontation with the central authorities, especially the national police. But this was not the case, as the law in Sections 27-38 also provided that “in exercising its powers … the Commission and all its staff at Local Government Councils and ward levels shall have power to arrest … and thereafter hand over the arrested person(s) to the Police”.
47Lastly, the Zamfara government also created several Shari’ah courts in different parts of the state to try Muslim offenders only. According to the law, trials had to commence in the Lower Shari’ah Courts and proceed to the Upper Shari’ah Courts, before going to the Shari’ah Courts of Appeal, all administered by the state. But where any of the parties was not satisfied, he or she might proceed to the Federal Courts of Appeal (the nearest being in Kaduna) and possibly to the Supreme Court of Nigeria (in Abuja).
48One major lacuna in the Shari’ah code was probably the decision to exclude non-Muslims from the jurisdiction of these courts,15 a decision that was intended to minimise conflict between the adherents of the two dominant faiths in Nigeria, Christianity and Islam. Even then, this loophole was effectively corrected with the adoption on 15 September 2000 of the Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission (establishment) Law No. 17 2000,16 more-or-less a copy of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, adopted by the federal government only a few months earlier. This law established the Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), a body similar to the ICPC. The ZACC even had powers to arrest and prosecute for corruption in the private sector and could launch an investigation without waiting for formal petitions from members of the public, quite unlike the ICPC. In addition, some offences under the Zamfara Act could attract far more severe punishments, a good example being diversion of public funds or assets, which could attract up to 15 years in jail as against a maximum of 7 years under the ICPC law.
49At face value, the adoption of Shari’ah in Zamfara State showed that this state had gone some way to support the anti-corruption drive of the federal government. In spite of its religious and therefore controversial character, this legislation and indeed some of the institutions created under it had the potential to strengthen or extend the fight against corruption spearheaded by President Obasanjo, if they were faithfully implemented. However, as Daniel Bach has argued, its application, even in its most cruel forms (amputation of hands for stealing), in the end did nothing to check the total impunity enjoyed by local political elites frequently associated with the diversion of huge sums of money (Bach 2003). It could even be argued that fighting elite corruption was never the central question or preoccupation. According to this view, the adoption of Shari’ah by Zamfara, and 11 other states in quick succession, was only a part of internal political struggles and electoral mobilisation (Nouhou 2005: 265). Facts gathered from a close observation of politics and governance in the state between 1999 and 2007 largely support this claim.
50Contrary to frequent claims made by officials of the Zamfara State government that the provisions of Shari’ah had largely been applied (Zamfara State of Nigeria 2004), there was no evidence at the time of our fieldwork pointing to a strict and unbiased application of the code. As a 2004 Human Rights Watch report correctly pointed out, after a few years of Shari’ah, many people in Northern Nigeria had simply become disillusioned with the way Shari’ah was being implemented in their states (HRW 2004). While there was little doubt as to the preparedness of the authorities to apply the most severe sanctions, such as caning, amputation, or even death sentences (ironically, sentences reserved for the most minor infractions, such as petty theft, consumption of alcohol, prostitution, and adultery – whose perpetrators are more often than not the poorest and weakest in the society),17 the principles of equality, generosity, equity, and justice which Shari’ah preaches were routinely ignored. This fact was vividly underlined by one of the journalists in the state we interviewed:
Shari’ah has scored partial success, in the area of social morality, alcoholism, prostitution or prostitutes (who were given financial incentives to leave). Crime such as stealing, robbery, etc. has been checked by the State (Zamfara Agency for Poverty Alleviation) … But for me, Shari’ah have scored only 30% because the governor have a policy to get his supporters into big post to enrich themselves; that is why you see big houses everywhere, even the governor himself encourage it … In the government circles, Shari’ah hardly applies.18
51Only in one rare incident did the application of Shari’ah catch up with a highly placed official. This occurred in January 2002, when a Shari’ah court convicted a serving judge for drunkenness in Kaura Namoda, near the state capital Gasau. He received 80 lashes, administered in a market square by his father-in-law before a crowd of enthusiastic spectators. Otherwise, the determination to implement Shari’ah was never demonstrated concretely with respect to numerous delinquencies by political elites and top public officials, who account for other more serious forms of ‘immorality’, such as diversion of public assets, inflation of public contracts, financial fraud in the accounts’ departments of public institutions, payments of bribes, and the extortion of tribute from peasants by traditional rulers (particularly in the rural areas), to mention but a few.
52The poor attention paid to these issues was confirmed by the records of the ZACC, provided during a personal interview with the leaders of the commission. Notwithstanding their attempt to present the institution as an effective one, by citing some unsubstantiated success in the recovery of diverted funds and assets, large numbers of suspended highly placed officials, and the heightened awareness created about corruption in the state,19 the ineffectiveness of the ZACC was clearly apparent. For example, this institution received around 432 petitions, treated 300, but had won zero convictions as at October 2004. When asked to explain the reasons for such a dismal performance despite the deluge of complaints, the managers of this institution said they considered the large number of petitions from the public as a sign of public confidence in the institution. Probed further on this, they argued that the rarity of convictions was due to the fact that “the accused often accept easily their culpability and commit through legal bargain to return the asset or funds diverted”. According to them, the commission was also seeking to avoid a situation where “innocent people are punished”.
53Despite being sapped by a chronic shortage of manpower and administrative structures,20 the ZACC occasionally made some brave efforts to call influential political figures to account. These efforts were undermined, however, by a lack of political will at the highest level of authority in the state. A very notable example, which became emblematic of the hypocrisy of the ruling elite and the most celebrated corruption scandal in the period 1999-2004, was the case of two commissioners (in charge of the ministries of Education and Scientific Education) and their permanent secretaries, who were officially accused of embezzling public funds. The scandal broke in 2003 following an investigation by the ZACC, which confirmed that these officials had indeed utilised their offices to divert N9 million (or 50% of the funds allocated for the feeding of students in the state’s special secondary schools).
54Under both the Shari’ah code and the anti-corruption Act of 2000 as amended in 2003, all the diverted funds had to be returned and those who were involved immediately suspended from their positions. In the case of conviction, the corrupt officials could receive up to 15 years’ prison term each. But this never came to pass. The Zamfara anti-corruption commission was forced to abandon the case “so as not to create problems” in the state. While we could not confirm if and how much money had been returned by the accused officials, the sanctions recommended by the anti-corruption body were never strictly applied. Rather than 20 months on suspension, or even outright dismissal, the concerned officials received only a paltry 3 months’ suspension,21 at the end of which they were both redeployed to head new ministries (Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Animal Health, respectively).
55No official explanation was given for this decision. During an interview, however, one journalist provided some insights into the rationale for this soft treatment for corrupt high officials:
The two commissioners were treated kindly because they are part and parcel of the government (Executive) which the anti-corruption commission submitted its report to. They are politically influential … One is even a childhood friend of the governor, who came from the same town (community) with him, attended the same schools, and grew up together.22
56The decision provoked much criticism among the citizenry for months, as almost all the individuals we spoke to expressed some form of disgust and a feeling of betrayal by their governor, who was perceived to have turned to a selective application of sanctions. But surprisingly, a number of citizens in the state at the time of our visit in 2004 continued to express the view that their governor was “someone honest”. This ambivalent feeling was captured by the response of another journalist we interviewed in October 2004:
When Shari’ah was launched, an estimated 2 million people witnessed it … Most of those people hoped it will solve their socio-economic problems. Today, the political system has prevented the economic components of Shari’ah from being actualized. The ANPP, the ruling party here (Zamfara), is not an Islamic party. The political system is characterised by insincerity, main problem of Nigerian democracy, elites looking for their selfish interests. The governor is sincere, but his supporters, allies and others around him don’t share his philosophy in terms of real Shari’ah.23
57Soon, however, this image of personal honesty began to crumble in the face of mounting evidence of wrongdoing by the same governor and his close officials. In mid-2006, for instance, the EFCC announced that it had opened a corruption investigation against the Zamfara governor, Sani Ahmed, and some of his senior officials. The probe followed a petition submitted to the anti-graft body in February 2006 by the chairman of one of the local governments in the state (Gumi local council) alleging the illegal diversion of N700 million belonging to the 14 local government councils in the state. The then EFCC boss, Nuhu Rubadu, described the scandal as “a case of direct stealing” (ThisDay, 28 September 2006). After investigations were concluded, seven of the officials involved were brought to court for diverting public funds. The governor himself was spared only because he enjoyed constitutional immunity against arrest and prosecution.
Conclusion
58Throughout his tenure in office, President Obasanjo did much to create the impression that his much-advertised fight against corruption was a national struggle against a very destructive national affliction. This was not the case, however, as we have seen in this chapter. Many Nigerian states considered his anti-corruption policy as an unnecessary intrusion into or infringement on the affairs on autonomous federal units, which is against the spirit and letter of the federal Constitution of Nigeria. The cases of Bayelsa and Zamfara states, as well as many others cited in this chapter, show clearly that the adoption of a pro-federal posture by Nigerian state governors had little to do with a genuine intention to fight corruption in their respective states or preserve Nigeria’s federal system of government. This also demonstrates that while the presence of federalism may not necessarily condemn Nigeria to a life of endemic corruption (all federal states do not suffer similar levels of corruption), the country’s decentralised system requires that more innovative ways be found to ensure a more effective implementation of its anti-corruption policy in its 36 states and 774 local governments. The question is then, what are these other innovative ways? A growing body of literature has emphasised the crucial role of civil society (Devas & Grant 2003). The extent to which Nigerian civil society promoted President Obasanjo’s war against corruption is the focus of the chapter that follows.
Notes de bas de page
1 Other aspects of Obasanjo’s reforms, including his policy of privatisation and economic liberalisation, reform of the public services, and recovery of looted funds diverted abroad also did not attract any serious attention from the governors.
2 Section 7(3) of the Act provides that the Act shall apply to “all public officers in Nigeria”, defined as “any person employed in any capacity in the public service of the federal, state or local government, public corporations and private company wholly or jointly floated by any government or its agency, including the subsidiary of any such company whether located within or outside Nigeria and including judicial officers and serving magistrates in area/customary courts or tribunals”.
3 The North-Central region comprises the following states: Plateau, Benue, Adamawa, Kwara, Niger, Taraba, Kogi, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Bauchi, and Gombe.
4 Justice Mustapha Akambi was the chairman of the ICPC between September 2000 and August 2005.
5 Miss Christabel Bentu and Governor Dariye were both arrested in London on 2 September 2004 for money-laundering offences. They both escaped to Nigeria, having been granted conditional bail by a British court.
6 Governor Dariye’s violent disposition was later confirmed by a public warning he issued to the EFCC that “enough is enough for EFCC ... I am from Mushere and we eat dogs, my brothers from Pankshin eat dogs also, likewise Anaguta and Berom; if these dogs (EFCC) come from Abuja again, we will eat them. When next they come, they might end up in our pot of soup” (The Guardian, 12 February 2006).
7 For example, Section 41 of the ICPC Act (2000) provides clearly that “any person who refuses any officer of the Commission access to any premises, or fails to submit to a search by a person authorised to search him … assaults, or obstructs any officer of the Commission or any person authorised by the Commission in the execution of his duty … fails to comply with any lawful demand, notice, order or requirements of an officer of the Commission in the execution of his duty … fails to produce to or conceals or attempts to conceal from, an officer of the Commission any book, document, or article, in relation to which such officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting or believing that an offence under this Act or any other law prohibiting corruption has been committed, or which is liable to seizure … shall be guilty of an offence punishable with imprisonment for one (1) year without option of fine”.
8 A few weeks after his arrest, Governor Alamieyeseigha was arraigned before a London Court on charges of laundering funds derived from corruption. Rather than wait for the conclusion of his trial to prove his innocence, Alamieyeseigha, taking advantage of a temporary bail granted him by the presiding judge, fled to Nigeria on 21 November 2005, where he enjoys constitutional immunity against arrest and prosecution.
9 The legislators were allegedly threatened with possible criminal prosecutions for funds they had diverted in the name of “constituency development projects” if they should refuse to impeach the governor.
10 This formula came into effect in the year 2000, even though it had been a constitutional requirement since 29 May 1999.
11 The official number of local governments in Bayelsa State is 8. The additional 16 local councils created by the State government were not recognised by the federal government.
12 This information was given to the author during a personal interview with a member of the state legislature, Nelson Belief, in September 2004. The interview took place in his office at Yenagoa, the state capital.
13 Perekeme Richard Kpodoh, one-time governorship aspirant under the platform of All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, and Director of Operations in the state between 1999 and 2001, said he took his former boss to court because “this restiveness we have been witnessing in the State is as a result of his reckless spending. If our money is judiciously used you will find peace in the State and the youths would be appropriately engaged … When the head is rotten, everybody in the government is rotten … They keep on misbehaving, building houses of their own everywhere, buying flashy cars, while the masses are suffering on the streets” (Newswatch, 24 October 2005).
14 The exact number of motorbike purchases is unknown. However, one journalist during our interview estimated that the state may have spent over N947 million on bikes alone. This was in October 2004.
15 Section 3 of the Code clearly stated: “Every person who professes the Islamic faith and or every other person who voluntarily consents to the exercise of jurisdiction of any Shari’ah Court established under the Shari’ah Courts (Administration of Justice and certain consequential changes) Law, 1999, shall be liable to punishment under the Shari’ah Penal Code for every act or omission contrary to the provisions thereof of which he shall be guilty within the State.”
16 The Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission (Establishment) Law 2000 was later replaced by another Act, the Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission (Establishment) Law, 2003. The latter contains more or less the same provisions associated with the former, except that henceforth one member of the commission must be a lawyer, and that in the exercise of its functions the commission should not be subjected to the control of any other authority.
17 Our investigation in 2004 actually confirmed that there was a dramatic decline in these offences after the implementation of Shari’ah. According to the Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Police, Zamfara, “the minimal level of crime in the state was attributable to its small size and the religious orientation of its inhabitants”. The situation was reinforced by “the fear of Shari’ah”. This information was provided during a personal interview with this police officer on 19 October 2004.
18 This was based on a personal interview with one of the journalists working for The Path newspaper (Sokoto), at Gusau, on 22 October 2004.
19 In October 2004, we conducted several interviews with top officials of the Zamfara State Anti-Corruption Commission, including its chairman.
20 At the time of our visit in October 2004, the chairman of the commission was the only lawyer working in the commission. For trials, the commission must rely on the Ministry of Justice. There was also only one specialist in finance and accounting. This official was on secondment from another agency and was invited to help strengthen the commission.
21 The information was provided by the chairman of the commission during my interview with him on 21 October 2004.
22 The journalist in question was the Gasau correspondent of The Sun newspaper, a local daily with its head-office in Lagos. The interview took place on 23 October 2004.
23 Our interview with this journalist, who works for The Guardian newspaper, took place in the state capital on 23 October 2004.

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