Nigeria takes action to name and shame corrupt politicians
In his famous 1983 book The Trouble with Nigeria, Chinua Achebe writes: “There is basically nothing wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility… of true leadership.”
It is worth considering that not all corruption is the same. Demands for fees by junior employees of the state, who have failed to receive their salary cheque, is rather more forgivable than corruption by senior politicians who are doing it out of pure greed. One of the most important ways of tackling corruption by politicians is to publish and name and shame them. In Kenya, the now-former anti-corruption czar has fled to the UK and published a very insightful paper on the Anglo Leasing scandal. This is the case where government contracts were being issued to an English company, Anglo Leasing. The problem is that Companies House, the government agency which registers companies in England and Wales, had not registered such a company, and all the government money given to this ‘company’ ended up in Swiss bank accounts. Money that could have benefited the people of Kenya has been lost.
So it’s good to see that on Thursday, Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said that it is going to publish lists of past and present Nigerian leaders who had looted treasury coffers.
According to the chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu (pictured, right, with President Obasanjo, left). “Over $400 billion of oil money has been stolen by bad leaders. We are going to trace the activities of past and present leaders and publish the names of those leaders who have laundered money, their accounts and the names of the banks where the money is being kept. We will also close the accounts of those politicians who have laundered money and converted it for their political ambitions. This will stop bad people from coming into power.”
“Over 80 percent of Nigeria’s money has gone to waste. This is a country with massive resources but people are suffering simply because we have poor management.”
“We respect people but there is no reason why people should respect a thief. If the leaders reduce themselves to cheap goat, we will discipline them,” he said.