The continuous silence by President Muhammadu Buhari over the jaw-dropping revelations of monumental corruption, financial recklessness and mismanagement in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), though hardly surprising, is scandalous and unacceptable, given that Nigeria’s diverse and growing security challenges are partly rooted in widespread poverty, which in turn, are outcomes of pervasive corruption. At the just ended cabinet retreat during which his ministers reviewed their first-year performances, Buhari was upbeat that his administration has shown accountability and probity in its war against corruption. Nigerians are not amused by the self-adulation of a president who seems fixated on his own self-assessment against the reality of corruption in the country under his watch. The president’s self-righteousness is another blight on the image of Nigeria and a reflection of the dismal failure and sad inability of the government to tackle corruption and deploy Nigeria’s wealth to the socio-economic betterment of its citizens. Buhari must understand that progress and credibility in the fight against corruption can only be won through concrete, well-thought-out policies, not cheap self-eulogizing slogans.
The Senate and House investigation of the NDDC revealed malfeasance on a scale never imagined before. After open and public hearings during which shocked Nigerians and the international community were treated to an odious and arrogant display of corrupt entitlement by the directors of the NDDC Interim Management Committee (IMC) led by its Acting Managing Director, Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei and Acting Executive Director of projects, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, Buhari’s inaction cannot be for want of evidence, which have been amply provided by the main actors in this gory saga; and revelations by whistle-blowing anti-corruption civil society organizations such as the Act for Positive Transformation Initiative (ACTI).
The Senate and House investigations have laid out fraudulent and questionable payments to the tune of N81.5 billion by the IMC under the supervision of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio. The Senate which concluded its investigations in July was unequivocal when it ordered the IMC to refund N4.923 billion that was criminally spent; and that those involved be prosecuted for fraud. While Prof. Pondei who feigned “passing out” to avoid questioning during the Senate hearing disclose how the IMC shared out a whooping N1.3 billion among staff, including himself, as bonuses for the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Ojougboh in various newspaper interviews, not only justified this outrageous expenditure but said it was standard practice under the Buhari administration.
Between February and May when the IMC under Pondei was appointed, the IMC members paid themselves N302 million as tour duty allowances at a time much of the country, including NDDC offices, were in lockdown on account of the Coronavirus pandemic! The NDDC account statements from the CBN showed that between October 2019 and May 2020, the IMC approved and disbursed: N1.12 billion for publicity, N1.3 billion for community relations, and N475 million to buy hand sanitizers and face masks for the police. In his testimony, Pondei said the IMC paid themselves and staff Covid-19 “palliative allowance” of N1.3 billion despite receiving their normal salaries and allowances! In the same period, Pondei and Ojougboh took home N51 million and N18 million respectively as monthly allowances. The talkative Ojougboh has been having a field day making provocative statements ornamented with insulting grandiloquence; telling one newspaper that if the full extent of the disgraceful rot and stench in the NDDC is exposed to the public, Nigeria will explode in flames. She even justified Pondei’s N51 million monthly allowance, as impress to feed the 100 policemen attached to him!
Despite the towering criticism and public uproar that greeted the cavalier manner in which the IMC spent N81.5 billion between February 2019 and May 2020 without commissioning any new project, the IMC is proving incorrigible in its wrongdoing. On Monday, September 7, 2020, ACTI in a statement titled: “Stop the Looting in NDDC, Freeze Commission’s Accounts Now” detailed how since the close of the Senate investigation in July, the IMC has squandered another N9 billion in corrupt and unbudgeted expenditures with crass impunity through fraudulent and fictitious contracts, even without an approved 2020 budget.
According to ACTI, the illegal and fraudulent payments include: “reckless spending of N5.8bn on fraudulent emergency desilting on 29th July, 2020, alone when the nation was on holidays. They were so much in a hurry that they moved out the same amount purportedly for different locations and different scopes of job. i.e Emergency clearing and desilting of Ipinle Ajenrela creek, Igbokoda (lot 3) –N634,761,500.00, Emergency clearing and desilting of Akaibiri creek, Yenagoa – N634,761,500.00; Emergency clearing and desilting of Ilar Creek, Igbokoda (lot 2) – N634,761,500.00, Emergency clearing and desilting of Temetan Creek, Igbokoda (Lot 1) – N634,761,500.00. Others include: Emergency clearing and desilting of blocked canal from Ilaje High School Naval Base fishing Terminal, Igbokoda (Lot1) – N634,761,500.00, Emergency clearing and desilting of Yewa Creek, Okitipupa (Lot1) – N634,761,500.00, Emergency clearing and desilting of Ipinle Koforawe Creek, Igbokoda (lot 2) –N634,761,500.00. The last on the roll on that same day: urgent clear desilting of blocked sections of Ibelebiri waterways, Ogbia (lot 2) – N739,071,500.00.”
Continuing, the statement said it was outrageous that: “Despite the outcry against the ‘N1.3bn palliative to take care of themselves,’ the commission abused the nation further by paying self another N340 million for “emergency intervention against the spread of Coronavirus among commission’s workforce” on 8th August.” It is worth-noting that all these ongoing monumental fraud and corruption in the NDDC is being supervised by Minister Akpabio. It is also interesting that ACTI, which blew the whistle that led to the Senate and House investigations between May and July, said they have the details of all the companies involved in these scams and rackets; which they are willing to make available to the anti-graft agencies upon request. But the deafening presidential silence in the face of overwhelming evidence is the most offending action of the Buhari administration. A greater tragedy is when Buhari uses the opportunity of the cabinet retreat to play the ostrich and be in denial of the patently obvious; instead of a solemn resolve to do something about the rot and the stench oozing out of the NDDC.
The point must however be stressed that corruption is a serious socio-economic and political issue that soldiers, including Buhari used as justification for overthrowing elected civilian governments in the past and therefore remains a veritable source of instability in the nation. The time has come for Buhari to tackle this challenge headlong. There is need to articulate a national strategy, which must begin with exemplary conduct of the President, who must claim the moral high ground by making sure Prof Pondei and his IMC co-travellers should not remain in office a day longer. Corruption, apart from being systemic is also partly a question of character failure, and the presidency being pre-eminently a place for moral leadership, Buhari must raise the stakes.
What the times call for is a grand strategy with the anti-graft agencies on the frontlines. Firstly, those involved in the NDDC scandal should be investigated by the EFCC for corruption and should be speedily and openly tried and, if found guilty, punished to deter others from treading the same path. Until Pondei and co are conclusively prosecuted without delay, lessons are neither taught nor learnt. Rather than wait for instructions from Aso Rock which might never come, the EFCC and other anti-graft agencies should shake off their indolence, which appears to be their signature now and work earnestly for the dream of a corruption-free Nigeria to come true. In addition, a “naming and shaming” process should form part of the strategy. Corrupt public officials like Pondei and Ojougboh must not only be identified and put on trial. They should be publicly stigmatized and kept on an Eternal Hall of Shame, because corruption is driven partly by the absence of a sense of shame. Attitudes must change.
Now is the time to break from the past because presidential dilatoriness only crystallizes into tacit endorsement of corruption as has been seen time and time again with this administration. Every leader must lead by example and Buhari owes himself the duty of not being an exception. So far, he has been. The President has the ultimate and unique responsibility to build the confidence that politics and public offices are not primarily a special-purpose vehicle to steal the nation blind. Buhari must take the lead in saving Nigeria from corruption. This is necessary to keep the future of Nigeria away from the claws of corruption even as the battle goes on to wrestle its present from its jaws.
