Between Terrorism and Corruption – Implications for Nigeria
(Draft for Discussion)
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
Protocols
Introduction
I am pleased to be with the Silver Knights this afternoon to share my
thoughts about two issues that confront our nation – terrorism and
corruption. As a well-known opposition figure, I want to state clearly
that the views expressed here are mine, and not of the political party I
belong to – the Congress for Progressive Change. Secondly, my opinions
are based on my interpretation of facts on the ground and research done
by others, and not driven by politics.
At the crossroads that we have found ourselves as a nation, where a
sitting government has shown no capacity and competence to confront
these two challenges, we must be blunt in evaluating what has gone wrong
– perhaps the moral outrage that results will be the basis for action
to change things for the better. There are some preconceived and utterly
wrong notions of where we are, how we got to this point and who to hold
accountable that need to be questioned. There are narratives that are
biased and not serving the nation well that need to be stated openly and
sterilized. This is a duty beyond politics and partisanship, founded on
respect for facts and logic. I will do my best to present some of these
as a basis for our engagement. I thank you again for inviting me.
Terrorism and corruption are two words that now dominate our headline
news more than any others. Domestic terrorism has now joined corruption
as defining characteristics of our nation. It is sad that while other
countries grapple with rebuilding their financial systems, upgrading
their physical infrastructure and human capital, and adopting
leapfrogging technologies to enhance their global competitiveness, our
sensibilities are daily affronted by news of stolen trillions, multiple
bombings and hapless leaders.
Terrorism
Terrorism is simply the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of
political goals. While to many, it appears to be a recent phenomenon in
Nigeria, looking at it closely shows it has been with us in various
degrees. What else do most of our political parties do other than use
violence and intimidation in pursuit of political goals? Who else
exemplifies these characteristics more than the ruling party? In the
context of this definition, where would you place what OPC and Egbesu
Boys were doing in the 1990s? What have the militants of the Niger Delta
and their umbrella organization called MEND been doing for years? Now
there is no dispute as to whether the anarchist Boko Haram is a
terrorist organization or not. The truth is that one’s freedom fighter
is the terrorist in the eyes of another.
Even with the activities of these fringe ethnic and regional
groupings, Nigeria did not enter the map of terrorism-prone nations
until recently. Maplecroft, a British risk analysis and mapping firm
that publishes the Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) ranked our country 19th
and at “extreme risk” of terrorism in 2011, ahead of Israel (20th) but
safer than Yemen, South Sudan and India among others. With the
escalation of attacks by Boko Haram in the north, and resumption of
threats and hostilities by MEND in the Niger Delta, Nigeria is likely to
jump to near the top of the TRI soon, unless something concrete is
done.
Our nation and citizens are in grave danger. Our unity in diversity
is at the highest levels of risk since independence. The possible
break-up of Nigeria is being discussed openly not only in the Villa, but
in various regional and cultural association meetings. Our democracy is
in danger, and its desirable end canvassed by young people in social
media. The state no longer has monopoly of violence, and no longer in
exclusive control of our maritime borders. We are increasingly
resembling a failed state with confused and corrupt persons at the helm
of affairs who seem concerned only about enriching themselves and their
coteries of choristers. How did we get to this point of near
helplessness so fast?
Corruption
Corruption on the other hand refers to dishonest or fraudulent conduct
by people vested with authority, and usually involves bribery or
gratification. I think corruption is something Nigerians are
sufficiently familiar with, so we do not need to spend a lot of time
defining it. We all know it when we see it, and we see it often. For
those in public office, I think the best way to determine whether that
innocuous end-of-the-year gift amounts to a bribe, the question posed by
Islamic jurists is appropriate – “Will this thing of value be offered
to me by the person in question if I am not holding this public office?”
If the answer to the question is not an immediate and unhesitant “Yes”,
then the gift is a bribe, and should therefore be rejected.
You will notice I have carefully avoided referring to legislation,
legal maxims and decided cases in defining either terrorism or
corruption. It is not just because we have little by way of convictions
for terrorism and corruption in our case law, but because many Nigerians
have lost confidence in our justice system in its effort to deal with
these terrible phenomena. For years, our nation has struggled with the
reputation of being one of the world’s most corrupt nations. In 2002 we
were amongst the bottom three, but with the emergence of EFCC and the
implementation of several governance reforms between 2003 and 2007, we
were out of the bottom thirty by the time the Obasanjo administration
left office.
Under Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC charged eleven former governors for
corruption and money laundering. With the exception of Lucky
Igbinedion’s ‘plea bargain’ arranged by Farida Waziri, none of the cases
have moved forward since then. Several of them now sit in the senate
and chair powerful committees. Our justice system has been lax and
ambivalent about dealing with cases of grand corruption, as evidenced by
the recent conviction of James Ibori in London after a federal high
court in Asaba had dismissed over 100 counts of money laundering and
corruption against him. It is not surprising that we are now back to
nearer the bottom of the corruption league table.
According to Human Rights Watch (2007), the endemic nature of
corruption in Nigeria has led to the loss of US $380 billion between
independence and 1999. A Global Financial Integrity Initiative report
dated January 2011 estimated that US $130 billion worth of illicit
financial flows occurred between 2000 to 2008. Adding these numbers to
the loss of nearly $7 billion to the fuel subsidy racket alone brings
our national loss due to corruption to something in the region of US
$600 billion from independence to end of 2011!
In 2008, Afrobarometer reported that 57% of respondents surveyed
considered the Yar’Adua government as handling the anti-corruption war
badly. The same survey revealed that 30% of respondents did not trust
political parties. Transparency International’s Global Corruption
Barometer 2010 painted a similar picture with 40% of household
respondents judging the government’s war against corruption as
ineffective, while political parties and the national assembly were
perceived to be amongst the most corrupt bodies in Nigeria, side by side
with the Nigeria Police.
This finding – that political parties, the legislature and the Police
are the least trusted is not surprising because corruption takes many
forms. Indeed, I am of the view that rigging elections is the foundation
of all corruption because it confers power without legitimacy, and
without responsibility. And in Nigeria’s fourth republic in particular,
it has birthed not only financial corruption, but immorality, violent
crimes and terrorism.
The scale and scope of corruption in Nigeria have moved from
irritating road-side demands and under-the-table payments worth billions
of naira per annum captured by officials to a multi-trillion naira
business under Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Everywhere we bother to check,
billions and trillions are being wasted or stolen – fuel subsidy,
pension funds, inflated and unexecuted contracts, goods and services
paid for that are never supplied, taxes collected but not remitted,
illegal allowances and benefits collected by officials, and entire
budgets for security diverted to private pockets. How did we get to this
point of near hopelessness so fast?
The Unholy Trinity
Violent crimes, corruption and terrorism were referred to as the unholy
trinity that would confront citizens and countries in the twenty first
century by Shelley (2005). These constitute Siamese triplets that often
go together. Some commentators like Sarup (2005) insist that corruption
increases terrorism. Contributing at a debate about corruption in India,
a judge, Justice Santosh Hegde opined that “terrorism is caused by a
disease called greed.” He went to observe that “politics was public
service, now it is business.” Do these sound familiar? Do these opinions
apply to us in Nigeria in 2012?
In my humble opinion, our own version of the unholy trinity has roots
in toxic politics, rigged elections and bad governance. Political
‘God-Fatherism’, transactional leadership and social injustice are the
key manifestations of this trinity. They are a toxic cocktail that would
bring down any community, nation or government sooner or later. We got
to where we are because due to years of practicing a brand of politics
that is neither democratic nor meritocratic, with elections that are
mostly rigged in many parts of the country, and political parties that
are capriciously controlled by a few people.
Undemocratic politics is based on the deployment of money, violent
thugs and coercive powers of state machinery. In many states,
politicians and parties have armies of “youths” that are fed with cheap
drugs and then armed with machetes, swords and guns to attend political
rallies and attack any perceived opponents of the party and candidate.
For instance, in Bauchi, Isa Yuguda has his ‘sara-suka’ (attack and
stab), Ali Modu Sheriff in Borno had his ECOMOG, and Gombe’s Danjuma
Goje had his “Yan Kalare”. In Rivers State, Ateke Tom and Asari Dokubo
were similarly trained and armed by the PDP initially to ‘win
elections’.
What then happens after the elections are won and the supply of cash
and drugs end? Society was left with young, bitter and hopeless people
that happen to possess some dangerous weapons. The result – kidnappers
for cash that metamorphosed into militants in the Niger Delta,
kidnappers and armed robbers in the South-East and Area Boys and various
NURTW thugs in the South-West, and Boko Haram in the North-East.
When ‘elected’ officials know for sure that they were not truly
elected, but rigged their way to power, the organic link of
accountability between the leadership and the electorate is broken. The
‘elected’ official panders to the interest groups that got his or her
into office rather than the people – these could be the party
Godfathers, the officials that wrote the results (INEC, Police and the
SSS) or the thugs that snatched ballot boxes and so on. The structure
and composition of these interest groups vary from state to state, but
the overall picture is similar across the board.
Pandering to these narrow interests cost money with the result that
diverting budgets, operating huge security votes and appointing hundreds
of ‘aides’ that do nothing becomes the norm. It is when these interests
are taken care of that the electorate is remembered. The overall
outcome is capricious governance, discretionary application of resources
and transactional mindset in governance. Little can be achieved under
these scenarios, and this is what happens in most of our 36 states, the
FCT and the Federal Government in most of the 13 years of ‘democratic’
governance.
Social and economic injustice is the sum total of these decisions and
actions by the political leadership. Young people that have worked hard
to get an education do not have equal opportunity to compete for jobs,
because only those that are politically-connected get jobs even when
they are the least qualified. The lazy drop-outs of the last few years
have built mansions and drive SUVs because they were ‘youth leaders’ of
the ruling party. Gutsy but brainless people that are willing to dance
to the tune of the state governors end up as local government chairmen
or in national or state assemblies as members earning hefty but illegal
allowances for doing next to nothing.
Unintended Consequences
Our politics and its products completely inverted and reversed the
incentive structure in our society. Merit, honesty and hard work ceased
to be virtues in politics and public service. Sycophancy, servility and
cunning were more useful qualities for getting ahead and succeeding. Our
young men and women – about 4 million of them added every year to the
population – have observed and appeared to internalize these distorted
values. There is little or no sense of community in that generation just
as the concept of social justice is unknown to them. Generally, there
are just two types of young people now. The smart ones that wish to take
advantage of the system and the honest but bitter ones that feel
short-changed by our generation and the system they think we created.
With the exception of a minority of deeply thoughtful ones amongst
them that can see through what is going on, most of our children have
zero idealism. Many are uncouth, rude and abusive to everyone.They have
no respect for their peers and seniors, and using the anonymity of
social media, they vent their anger and frustrations on anyone that they
believe is remotely responsible for their condition. They take no
responsibility to be informed, educated or experienced. Such youths see
everything through ethnic, religious and regional lenses. They only care
about sex, expensive cars, music and European soccer leagues. When I
compare the idealism with which we viewed the world in our younger days
with what I read on Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger these
days, I am worried about the future of our nation (or more precisely,
the lack of it.)
Another unintended consequence of our toxic politics is poverty,
unemployment and income inequality. Nigeria boasts of a rapidly-growing
economy but has 113 million living below the poverty line of a dollar a
day. For an agricultural nation, it is a shame that 41% of Nigerians –
nearly 70 million – are classified as “food poor” in 2010. The zonal
distribution tells a deeper story. Nearly 52% of the people living in
the North-West and North-East, 39% of the North-Central, 41% of
South-East, 36% of South-South and 25% of South-West are hardly able to
feed themselves.
Unemployment is the primary target of every sensible nation’s
economic policy, but our policy makers seem quite content trumpeting our
jobless growth. Nationally, at least one in every five able-bodied
Nigerians willing and able to work has no job. Again, a sample of
different rates for states show a more serious disparity. In Lagos only
about 8% are unemployed, and 9% in Oyo State. In contrast, it is 39% in
Yobe State and 27% in Borno – the birthplace of Boko Haram. Other
states’ indices are Bayelsa (19%), Akwa Ibom (26%), Kaduna (25%), Kano
(26%), Zamfara (33%), Benue (26%), Nasarawa (22%) and Anambra (21%).
Income inequality is another serious problem. According to the NBS,
in 2010 65% of Nigeria’s wealth is owned by just 20% of the population.
This effectively means that 80% of the population share between them
only about one third of the nation’s wealth. This income inequality
manifests itself in conspicuous consumption by a few side by side with
abject poverty experienced by the many. Income inequality, unemployment
and poverty have been shown to correlate strongly with increases in
violent crimes in many societies. This cocktail is what US Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson referred to when
he stated that Nigeria’s Boko Haram was capitalizing on popular
discontent with bad governance in Nigeria in general and the North in
particular. The fact that virtually all indices of development and
progress have been deteriorating from 2007 in spite of being a period of
high oil prices and production should make every thoughtful person to
question what is happening.
Emergence of Boko Haram
In 2007, we had terribly flawed elections that brought Umaru Yar’Adua
and several governors into office. In at least 14 states of the
federation, ballot papers for the presidential election were being
delivered when the results declaring Yar’Adua the winner were announced.
The new president was decent enough to admit that the election that
brought him to power was flawed and established a committee to recommend
remedial measures. The judicial challenges to the various elections
were going through the election tribunals slowly but surely.
The Yar’Adua-Jonathan administration inherited about US $50 billion
in foreign reserves, US $27 billion in the excess crude account, and
only US $3 billion in foreign debt. Yar’Adua inherited a country that
was liquid and had a strong balance sheet, with BB- sovereign credit
rating by both Standard & Poor and Fitch. The economic prospects
were bright if the political economy was managed well. The twin deficits
of electricity and rail transport were being addressed through the
award of contracts to build seven new power stations and the Lagos-Kano
dual-track, standard gauge railway line.
Over the ensuing four years, the federation earned another US $180
billion from oil and gas, import duties and taxes. By 2011, all these
resources had been wasted with little to show for it. The excess crude
account had been run down to less than $1 billion, the reserves drawn
down to about US $35 billion and none of the rail and power
infrastructure projects completed. What is significant is that since
February 2010 when he became acting president, Mr. Jonathan has been
borrowing an average of US $1 billion monthly, mostly by issuing bonds,
thereby doubling our total debt levels to nearly US $42 billion and
counting. The federal government is fast accelerating towards
insolvency!
In April 2007, Sheikh Jaafar was murdered in cold blood while praying
in his mosque in Kano by assailants that years later turned out to be
suspected members of a sect to be known as Boko Haram, operating out of
Bauchi State. However at the time the Sheikh was killed, an attempt was
made to link the murder to the state governor Ibrahim Shekarau. This as
we shall see, became a recurring pattern of behavior by the security
agencies in cases of this nature – the politicization of terrorism.
In July 2009, Yar’Adua deployed the Nigerian Army to “crush” Boko
Haram. The leaders of the sect were captured alive, or arrested from
their homes and extra-judicially executed by the Nigerian Police. The
sect believes that Ali Modu Sheriff, then governor of Borno State and
the Commissioner of Police took the decision to wipe out its leadership,
regrouped and went on what was essentially a revenge mission targeting
the Police, the Borno State Government and other uniformed services of
the Federal Government. That is how Boko Haram evolved from a largely
peaceful, fringe Islamic organization to a vengeful sect and currently
an anarchist threat to the Nigerian nation.
Initially, Boko Haram’s targets were symbols of authority (Police,
Borno State Government, etc.) and limited geographic (Borno State)
scope. The attitude of authorities to the sect’s (Northerners are
killing one another, so we do not care, etc.) activities emboldened
them, and when the first bomb was exploded by MEND in Abuja on October
1, 2010, the sect learnt a thing or two about grabbing national
attention. As the media gave the sect attention, it mainstreamed its
activities to first attack Yobe State then the Federal Capital
Territory.
The watershed in the sect’s activities were the June 2011 bombing of
the Police Headquarters and the August 2011 attack on the UN
Headquarters. By these actions the sect established the capacity to
operate in the nation’s capital, outside its original geographic
location thus attracting national and global attention. Sadly, between
2009 and 2012, more than 1,000 people have lost their lives as a result
of Boko Haram’s attacks in Maiduguri, Potiskum, Damaturu, Jos, Kano,
Gombe, Kaduna and Abuja. In 2011 alone, Boko Haram attacked 115 times
with 550 deaths resulting.
Socio-Economic Impact of Terrorism and Corruption
Terrorism raises levels of insecurity and fear among citizens. It
results in movement and travel restrictions and curtailing of human
rights. These have negative impact on investment flows and functioning
of markets. These combine to reduce employment opportunities, wealth
creation and capital formation.
According to the World Investment Report of UNCTAD, the Nigerian
economy recorded a reduction in foreign direct investment from US $8.65
billion in 2009 to US $6.1 billion in 2010 due to the fear of Boko
Haram. The Nigerian tourism sector which is worth some N80 billion
annually has lost more than half of its value due to fear of terrorist
attacks. The domestic air transport industry which generates some N3
billion annually has been hard hit by flight cancellations to
destinations in the north, with nearly half of the revenues lost.
In Borno State, schools have been closed. In other affected parts of
the north, normal social life is unlikely to return soon. In places like
Jos, the city is so neatly divided along ethnic lines that the vibrancy
and inclusion that has been its heartbeat has been lost for a long time
to come. The recent attack on media houses and Bayero University has
opened new areas and targets of the sect that should worry the
authorities.
The north has been the hardest hit with the leading commercial
centre, Kano being under military occupation since January 2012. Kaduna,
a leading industrial centre has also been repeatedly attacked by the
various shades of what is known as Boko Haram. Many of us believe that
there are at least four variants of Boko Haram – the real BH and three
other fakes that use the brand to advance their own narrow,
self-centered agendas. Many in the North see the patent inaction of the
authorities as the advancement of a sinister agenda to destroy an
already near prostate northern economy through occupation,
militarization and disruption of socio-economic activities. The federal
government has done nothing to indicate otherwise, and the state
governments have acquiesced to the cavalier attitude of the Villa.
Way Out of the Quagmire
Terrorism and corruption are big issues with no easy solutions. There
are no silver bullets and no country has been able to eradicate
corruption or be totally immune from domestic terrorism. I will make
some suggestions here as a basis for discussion and way forward.
I do not think our anti-corruption strategy attacks the roots of
corruption. In addition to the unsuccessful ‘arrest-and-charge’ approach
that we have tended to focus on, I believe we must reduce cash
transactions to the barest minimum. If all transactions are electronic,
it will be harder for untraceable, illicit payments to be made. If
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s efforts in cashless banking are complemented with
a national ID system that can identify, monitor and audit every
resident, and his or her financial transactions when a court order is
obtained, it will be harder to take bribes and launder the money.
We also need to strengthen institutions by appointing decent people
to head them, respect their tenures and appoint successors from within
rather than bring in political hacks to do jobs that they are neither
qualified nor trained to do. Our judiciary needs revamping. The last CJN
has done incalculable damage to the the most important arm of
government – because without an honest and decent judiciary, nothing
will ever work in this country.
Terrorism is a harder nut to crack. I am of the view that a
multi-track approach is necessary to increase the chances of its’
success. First, the prevailing narrative in the Jonathan camp must be
discarded. This narrative is what the national security adviser tried to
communicate at the Asaba summit of south-south leaders, but he was
misunderstood by the media. Jonathan and his inner circle believe that
Boko Haram is a northern conspiracy to prevent Jonathan enjoying his
presidency. And northern political leaders like IBB and General Buhari
are the sponsors and financiers of Boko Haram.
This narrative is believed by most Niger Delta leaders because of
their own experience in organizing, training and arming the militants
and providing funding for MEND during the period of ‘resource control’
agitations of the Obasanjo administration. Because theirs was a
conspiracy of the political elite, they think the North must be doing
the same. And they also feel that Boko Haram largely kills northerners
or “parasites” as one presidential aide, Reno Omokri tweeted; so the
more they are killed, the lesser the burden on the ‘oil-rich hosts.’
Another presidential aide actually said these words to an old ex-OPC
friend of his in London in June 2011. With this narrative wired in the
brains of Jonathan’s inner circle, they spent their first year trying to
link some of us in opposition to Boko Haram instead of honestly
tracking the real problems. While wasting time on us, the sect grew
stronger, bolder and better trained. The first step therefore is to
unwind this narrative and honestly ask the right questions.
It is of course disingenuous to believe the narrative, but I assure
you that they believe it. Boko Haram’s first bloody confrontation with
the authorities was under a northern, Muslim president in 2009. And
Obasanjo is not a northerner but governed without Boko Haram. Anyone can
see that it is indeed northerners and Muslims that constitute the bulk
of the victims of the insurgency. And I think the insurgency escalated
not because Jonathan became president by whatever means, but because the
government did not care to address it early enough. Now things have
spiraled out of control.
Secondly, I believe the fundamental roots of the insurgency challenge
– rewarding those who take up arms against the state with the cash
hand-outs called amnesty program has to be reviewed. Any society that
rewards bad behavior with cash creates a moral hazard that may consume
that society. Those giving out the cash should know that they are doing
no favors to anyone. Indeed, they are fostering an entitlement culture
that would ultimately be the undoing of that part of the country. Boko
Haram does not appear to be motivated by money, so those thinking of an
amnesty-like program may need to go back to the drawing board.
Thirdly, the corruption, inequality, poverty and unemployment
cocktail that creates the breeding ground for violent crimes and
terrorism need to be addressed through well-thought out and targeted
programs of investment in education, healthcare, skills development and
training, and infrastructure building that will provide employment
opportunities in various communities. In addition, the authorities must
criminalize the existence of political thugs by whatever name and of
whatever description, and ensure elections are henceforth free, fair and
credible. The political parties need to be reformed, leadership
selection be guided largely by merit, while the electoral institutions
need to be alive to their responsibilities.
Fourthly, as a medium term, structural measure, we must work to restore
our federalism to the broad outlines embedded in the 1963 republican
constitution, devolving more powers and responsibilities to the states
and making the federal government less of a busy body. This would
require that states like Bauchi whose annual internally-generated
revenue is N7 billion should not run a government costing N58 billion
because of monthly hand-outs from Abuja. Each state should learn to live
within its means and seek to actively develop its comparative
endowments. This also means the states would have greater say over their
policing and security, natural resource royalties and taxation. State
governors will then be compelled to use their resources better and not
point fingers at the federal government.
Finally, in addition to reviewing the failed military strategy now in
place and scaling back what has become the militarization of the north,
the government must work with community leaders in Borno, Yobe,
Plateau, Kano and Kaduna States to identify interlocutors that would
enable honest discussions with Boko Haram to establish what they REALLY
want. The arrest and prosecution of those that murdered their leaders
would certainly be one demand, but there may be others that the
government knows but would not want us to know. The Maitatsine sect was
easily defeated in the 1980s because the surrounding communities
despised them and their methods. The current situation in Kano and Borno
States is one in which the military occupiers are killing more innocent
people than Boko Haram, which injustice is tilting sympathy in their
favor and against the Army. Unless the reckless killings of unarmed men,
women and children stop, these communities would revolt sooner or
later.
There is nowhere in the world where insurgencies like Boko Haram have
been defeated purely through military force and occupation – ask the
Americans about Afghanistan and Iraq, or the British about Northern
Ireland. Those saying “crush them” should know that recent history of
the war on terror is not on their side. We want a country that works for
everyone, and this senseless loss of lives must end soon. The
government that has the responsibility for our security must bend over
backwards to deliver it. If they continue to fail in this regard, they
will not be in government for too long.
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