President Muhammadu Buhari exudes the aura, appeal or magnetism of incorruptibility to many Nigerians, especially since the mid-eighties when he made appearance on the nation’s political landscape as military head of state; after his ouster of the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. That is the magnetism leveraged by the All Progressives Congress—APC– in the first quarter of 2015, to sack the Peoples Democratic Party—PDP—government of Goodluck Jonathan. Nothing has happened yet to diminish the charisma of incorruptibility surrounding the Head of State. Only the slow pace of work and service delivery of the APC government to the people appear to be casting a veil of doubt on the capacity of the dispensation to perform creditably. Until the endorsement and implementation of the 2016 Appropriation Bill, no one can sincerely be making any serious dent on the capacity of the Buhari government of change to deliver. Much less should anyone disparage the intentions of government on account of a yet to be signed and implemented budget proposal.
Nonetheless there are now some developments in the nation’s legislature and judiciary which are of serious concerns to the ruling party, and of curiosity to cerebral commentators and political pundits. The first is the horse-trading in the National Assembly which unsettles the APC government and the annoying thoroughness and scrutiny to which all budget proposals from the executive arm are subjected by the law makers; often exposing shoddy paper work, with embarrassing revelations. Two examples will suffice here. A report carried on the front page of some national newspapers last Thursday exposed the double entries of capital allocation in the 2016 budget proposal of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency— NIMET; proposing a capital allocation of N85 million in Federal Government budget, and another N95 million in Internally Generated Revenue under the same sub-head, bringing the total to the sum on N180 million.
The House Committee on Aviation further discovered that while the agency generated and earned revenue in dollars, it remitted in naira to the Federal government, without disclosing how much was actually earned and at what exchange rate was the remittance done. In another development, the Budget Office is reported to have allegedly reproduced, verbatim, the 2015 budget proposal for the Investment and Securities Tribunal— IST—in the 2016 Appropriation Bill; even though a vital aspect of the 2015 budget had been implemented, and would not require to be budgeted for anymore in the current budget estimates. Two conclusions can be drawn from the legislators’ superb discoveries in budget proposals from agencies of government; all pointing to the same direction—the potent effect of the incorruptibility charisma of the Buhari personage. The first conclusion is that the legislators appear to be rising to the occasion of a no-nonsense, corruption allergic and corruption intolerant regime.
The Buhari incorruptibility magnetism seems to be catching on! The second conclusion which is structurally interconnected with the first is that the national legislature appears to be eager to demonstrate to Nigerians and the rest of the world that corruption flows from the executive arm and infects all other branches of government. In the past, the law makers could raise eyebrows on budgetary double entries and paddings and look the other way if money was ready to exchange hands. Now, it would seem, the legislators are saying: “never,” which is good for the country’s anti-corruption drive. What about developments in the judiciary? What about the slow pace of work in the bench that makes justice delivery a pain in the back of all concerned? How is the Buhari incorruptibility charisma affecting issues in the bench, especially the problem of corrupt judges? The neighboring Ghana just dealt with its corrupt judges summarily in the last couple of weeks. Judges blame the archaic criminal justice system for the slow pace of work and the lack of capacity to prosecute high profile corruption cases successfully.
The Buhari incorruptibility magnetism seems to be catching on! The second conclusion which is structurally interconnected with the first is that the national legislature appears to be eager to demonstrate to Nigerians and the rest of the world that corruption flows from the executive arm and infects all other branches of government. In the past, the law makers could raise eyebrows on budgetary double entries and paddings and look the other way if money was ready to exchange hands. Now, it would seem, the legislators are saying: “never,” which is good for the country’s anti-corruption drive. What about developments in the judiciary? What about the slow pace of work in the bench that makes justice delivery a pain in the back of all concerned? How is the Buhari incorruptibility charisma affecting issues in the bench, especially the problem of corrupt judges? The neighboring Ghana just dealt with its corrupt judges summarily in the last couple of weeks. Judges blame the archaic criminal justice system for the slow pace of work and the lack of capacity to prosecute high profile corruption cases successfully.
Yet, many judges are allegedly allergic to the reform of the criminal justice system, because it pays handsome dividends to stall cases and get rewarded by offenders of the law, the culprits. President Buhari is reported to have complained openly in a recent visit to Ethiopia that his greatest headache is how to contend with a corrupt judiciary. For with a corrupt judiciary, the anti-graft war, one of the high points of his ascension to power, appears dead on arrival. If you cannot prosecute and punish corrupt judges, how can you succeed in tracking down, prosecuting and jailing corrupt politicians and corrupt public officers? That is just one part of a difficult problem. The other part is that in a democracy where power is excessively centralised, where corruption has been entrenched on ethnic and religious pedestals, a Good Samaritan disposition of the judiciary to ensure peace, order and civilized progress may well be misconstrued as corruption-inducement. Men and women of the bench the world over are not given to flippant statements. But their conclusions, call it verdicts, especially at the Supreme Court level, are usually pedantic, methodical, circumspect, and informed by the big picture—the total peace and order of society; often supported, as it were, by very sound, inviolate jurisprudence.
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