Governors, NNPC and the politics of corruption!

Niran Adedokun

There is something about the conduct of Nigerian leaders always which reminds one about the myth of Nero who was said to have fiddled away while Rome burnt. For the proper effect, it is important to do a quick recap of the Nero myth before looking at how it applies to our current circumstance.

The story goes that Nero, who was Emperor in Rome between 64 and 68 AD, loved to play a musical instrument. Although there is no agreement on whether the instrument he liked was the fiddle or some other instrument, what is not in dispute is his love for music. Nero loved music to the extent that he would sometimes abandon his charge to embark on musical expeditions.  According to one account, it was while on one of such adventures that the great fire which consumed Rome in AD 64 started and ravaged the city. At the end of the six-day fire, 70 per cent of the city were said to have been destroyed with half of the city’s population rendered homeless and without hope.

Some of Nero’s subjects believed that he set the fire while others believed that he ordered it especially as he began to rebuild the city in a much grander way that it was before the fire. Faced with this credibility question, Nero embarked on a search for scapegoats. He found his sacrificial lambs in some Christians whom he vigorously persecuted, tortured and executed. None of this however lifted the burden for the fire from Nero shoulders. He was to kill himself as a result of a rebellion against him in 68AD.

Be that as it may, fiddling while Nigeria burns is what I consider most of those that we elected into office since 2011 to have been doing since sometime in 2012. For the better part of the last two years, elected representatives across board have abandoned the responsibility of delivering on the promises that they made to the electorate to boost their chances or that of their ethnic group in 2015. There is no weapon that they have not employed in seeing to it that their individual or class interest is protected in the next general election while abandoning those who elected them.  As our leaders bicker without care over who gets what in 2015, thousands of citizens are succumbing to hunger, disease, poverty and avoidable death while they transport themselves, spouses and children to choice hospitals anywhere in the world just to treat their stomach upsets, knee injuries and wounds from rubber bullets.  The most disgusting part of the leadership crisis that we currently face in Nigeria is the refusal of these people to accept responsibility. It is just so cheap and easy for our leaders to mindlessly play games with one another’s throats at our expense.

Take the reaction to the controversial $10.8bn, which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has been struggling to account for as an example. Rising from a meeting last week, governors who are members of the Rotimi Amaechi faction of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum insisted that there was no evidence that any of the $49.8bn initially mentioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Lamido Sanusi, was paid into the federation account. They therefore called on the National Assembly to institute a forensic investigation into the Federation Account.

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about this resolution was to wonder if governors of our states really think they could be exonerated from the corruption that has taken residence in Nigeria. I also wondered what these governors imagined that an audit or probe or whatever name they call it would do to stop the rot that is going on in the NNPC. I thought these governors were either just playing dumb, trying to score cheap political points or they indeed do not understand the problems at hand. Unless they aimed at deceit, our governors must by now understand the futility of investigations and probes in Nigeria, especially when it concerns the oil and gas industry. Especially, under the Jonathan administration. Since the fuel subsidy scam broke in 2011 for example, we have had the Nuhu Ribadu committee and the House of Representatives ad hoc committee led by Farouk Lawan among several others with no significant result other than the head of the latter committee getting enmeshed in his own scandal.

 I do not see how probes or even the prosecution of offenders can ever curb the unfortunate entrenchment of corruption in Nigeria. The chances even get more remote when we see how manipulable, court processes and judgments have become in Nigeria.

The truth is that our institutions are weak . Unfortunately, Nigerians are also very poor and when a deprived human being sees a weak institution, his first instinct would be to exploit the weakness of that institution to his own advantage.

Am I encouraging corruption? Absolutely not, I am just saying that the pervasive poverty in the land, the weakness of our institutions and the obscene display of wealth by our leaders in the face of grinding poverty collectively make corruption very attractive, almost inevitable. This is more so in an unorganised oil industry which accounts for about 75 per cent of Nigeria’s total earnings. My point is that even if the misappropriated $10.8bn by the NNPC is investigated and found to be untrue, not even the prosecution or imprisonment or even public execution of those who might have perpetrated the crime would stop the next appointee from helping himself as much as he can, without any care for the rest of us.

However, our leaders know what to do about the seemingly intractable accountability challenges that we have in our oil and gas sector. We need to remove the incentive to exploit the system. In practical terms, I think that solving the problem is about giving expeditious attention to the Petroleum Industry Bill and enacting a social welfare law which provides a safety net for every Nigerian who may have served the country in one capacity or the other. I believe that the absence of any form of assurance of a good life outside office accounts for a substantial volume of the corruption that we see in Nigeria. But of far more importance is the passage of the PIB.

Submitted to the National Assembly in July of 2012, it is scandalous that the parliament has not given attention to this all-important bill which will properly streamline operations in the oil and gas sector, the life blood of our nation. I find the lamentations of our governors unfortunately hypocritical because they are in the position to influence members of the National Assembly when they choose to do so, how they have not spoken up for the speedy passage of the PIB is one thing that I would never understand.

The PIB, which has gone through several iterations since 2008, is believed to have the capacity to increase transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector. It splits the NNPC into three and also aims at attracting foreign investment and better regulatory framework for the sector. The bill is believed by everyone, possibly with the exception of our legislators who have kept it in the cooler for about 18 months, to be the roadmap out of the mud of corruption that the oil and gas industry in Nigeria has become.

The failure of our leaders to push for the immediate passage of the bill is even more curious when we consider the fact that the United States of America which is the largest buyer of Nigeria’s crude oil is projected to become a net supplier surpassing even Saudi Arabia through the revolutionising of shale gas technology by 2030. It is shocking that leaders do not realise the need to make hay before the sun goes down on Nigeria’s oil and gas potential and render the country penniless.

Rather than squabble and draw unnecessary political punches over elections that are a clear one year away, our leaders, especially the governors, should immediately come together to do two things. The first is to work collectively towards the passage of the PIB and the second is to begin to look inwards and prepare their respective states towards economic independence from the curse that petroleum resource has become to our nation.