By Chido Onumah
Those who categorize Nigeria as a
failed state forget to add that it is equally a full-blown criminal enterprise.
It is a reality many people in the country contend with, but few are willing to
accept. For a country acutely deficient in everything that makes a state
functional, the communal violence, bomb blasts, kidnappings, and general
insecurity in the country, are troubling in more ways than one. And we can only
dismiss them at our peril.
We
now know, thanks in part to WikiLeaks, why the new imperialism headed by the
United States of America, had predicted that Nigeria could disintegrate by
2015. All things considered, it is hard to fault this prognosis. But this
article is not about the sordid revelations by WikiLeaks on how Nigeria has
been misruled and the characters responsible. It is about the moral leadership
that is lacking under President Goodluck Jonathan.
We
have about four years to doomsday, presumably. While we wait, perhaps it is
helpful to address some fundamental concerns. If we ignore those who were
focused on ethnicity or religion, we would still find enough people who a few
months ago genuinely believed that Goodluck Jonathan was the man for the job.
They were willing to back him even though he was running on the platform of a
political party that ought to be on trial for its crimes against Nigerians.
They implored us to make a distinction between the man and the party.
A
hundred days on into his second stint as president and almost 500 days after he
first took up that job, it is clear, even for the cheerleaders of the Jonathan
presidency, that there is nothing to cheer about. There is hardly anything to
show that President Jonathan appreciates the enormity of the country’s problems
or the urgency they require.
In
May, during his inaugural speech, President Jonathan promised us a
transformation agenda. Considering what the country had gone through and the
divisiveness that trailed the April polls, the expectation was that before long
there would be concrete effort to address the myriad of problems confronting
the country, including corruption, unemployment, poverty, infrastructural
deficits, and communal violence. Unfortunately, the only transformation we have
witnessed is more violence, sorrow, tears, and blood.
If
not for the cronyism that has become the directive principle of state policy in
Nigeria, there is no reason the Inspector General of Police and the National
Security Adviser should stay a day longer on their jobs. But since he has
refused to act, the president should take full responsibility as
commander-in-chief.
President
Jonathan is a Christian and he must be familiar with the saying that “He that
is faithful in small things will also be faithful in great things”. Nowhere is
this saying more applicable than in the country’s political leadership. Let’s
take the small issue of providing moral leadership. And here, I urge readers to
ignore what anybody has said about the president or for that matter the claims
about the president by WikiLeaks.
President
Jonathan swore to uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He has also said repeatedly that his administration will not spare any official
whose integrity is called to question. Paragraph 3, Part I of the Third
Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides that
the Code of Conduct Bureau shall have power to:
(a)
Receive declarations by public officers made under paragraph 12 of Part I of
the Fifth Schedule to this Constitution;
(b) Examine the declarations in accordance with the requirements of the Code of
Conduct or any law;
(c) Retain custody of such declarations and make them available for inspection
by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly
may prescribe.
Paragraph 11 of Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution provides that:
1)
Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every public officer shall
within three months after the coming into force of this Code of Conduct or
immediately after taking office and thereafter --
(a)
At the end of every four years; and
(b)
At the end of his term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a
written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of
his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.
In
July, the African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) wrote
to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) pursuant to the preceding constitutional
provisions and Section 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2011, (assented to
by President Jonathan on May 28, 2011) which states that “Notwithstanding
anything contained in any other Act, Law or Regulation, the right of any person
to access or request information, whether or not contained in any written form,
which is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or
institution howsoever described, is hereby established”.
The
request was for the CCB to make available the following: the 2007 asset
declaration of President Goodluck Jonathan; the asset declaration of the
president after the end of tenure on May 28, 2011; and the current asset
declaration of the president when he assumed office on May 29, 2011.
The
AFRICMIL submitted the request to CCB not because it wanted to embarrass the
president or score “cheap political point”. It did so in good faith because it
believes what the country so desperately needs now is courageous and moral
leadership. AFRICMIL thought that perhaps if the president had forgotten, the
constitution mandates him to declare his assets.
Two
months later, there has not been any response from the CCB. The closest to a
response we have got was an interview on national television granted by the
chairman of the CCB, Mr. Sam Saba, who told the nation that there was no law
that mandates the president to make public his asset declaration or the CCB to
make public the asset declaration of public officers.
Any
wonder nothing works in Nigeria? How can we progress when you have so-called
public officers who prefer to interpret the law in a restrictive sense or how
it suits them rather than in the interest of the country?
Surprisingly,
in the same interview, Mr. Saba said Nigerians were hampering the work of the
CCB by not giving information to the commission. Talk about speaking out of
both sides of one’s mouth!
Perhaps,
Mr. Saba forgot that four years ago, as vice president, President Jonathan made
public his asset declaration. Never mind it was done after much pressure from
civil society.
Granted
that Mr. Saba does not acknowledge the moral obligation of the president to
publicly declare his assets, he can’t claim ignorance of the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), which compels the CCB and other public institutions to
make available records at their disposal. In line with the provisions of the
FOIA, AFRICMIL plans to seek legal redress against the CCB, but in the meantime
we hope the president will do the right thing.
Mr.
President, there is something called moral authority and it is sorely needed in
public service in Nigeria.
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