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It is my fervent wish and hope that Nigeria will be a great country in a few years’ time, considering its abundant human and material resources. Nigeria is blessed with good weather, soil, food/cash crops, oil and gold as well as other rare earth minerals that can make other countries to envy us. Despite this potential for greatness, we behave like the prodigal son in the bible literature who squandered his share of his father’s wealth.
At 66 in October this year, Nigeria should have risen beyond ethnicity, religion and party to build a strong and egalitarian nation where all citizens should be treated equally and fairly. I strongly believe that this was the dream of our founding fathers. Having passed through independence struggle, nationhood, coups and counter coups and a fratricidal civil war of 30 months and years of military rule, our politicians would have learnt enough lessons on leadership and governance.
Unfortunately, they have not learnt enough lessons on these vital nation-building themes. They are behaving as if we have no vision and dream. They don’t treat their country as their father or mother. What is apparently holding us together is the sharing of the national cake every month in Abuja. Our argument is not how to make Nigeria great by baking more cakes, it is about how to share the ones available and forget about the rainy days which will surely come. One day the cake will finish and lamentation will set in.
Since the discovery of the ‘phantom’ federal agency and the scandal that follows it, stories emanating from this African giant have not been inspiring. They border on graft, unbridled financial malfeasance, selfishness, corruption and whatever epithets you may wish to add. While some Nigerians hope that something good will come out of the ongoing investigations of the ‘fake’ agency, many believe otherwise. The latter have lost confidence in the entire exercise. They don’t trust the system. They don’t trust the cabals behind the system.
At the House of Representatives probe of the agency this week, the Nigeria police failed to produce the embattled DG of the fake agency so that Nigerians can hear his own side of the story since his detention. The police gave some reasons for not producing the agency’s DG. Other stories, which were heard of the agency and fake documents and twists in-between, are coming from just one side, the government and its agencies.
Nigerians are yet to hear from the embattled DG of the agency in question. Nigerians are waiting to hear more of the saga in the days ahead. The government can do better by letting the DG speak openly on the matter. His appearance at Reps investigations would be okay. The President gave the ICPC 30 days to finish the investigation and report to him. Very soon, that deadline will reach and Nigerians will hear the full details.
Apart from the bizarre tales emanating from the discovery of the agency, Nigerians would like to know the allocation of N1.3 billion in the 2026 budget for the fake agency. This aspect will indeed shade more light into our budgeting system and the inbuilt oversight of the federal lawmakers. Did the lawmakers see the anomaly? Is this part of the budget padding fiasco in the nation’s budgeting system? Our budgeting system since 1999 has been characterized by inexcusable budgeting padding narratives of curious dimensions.
However, it appears the tempo of budget padding has increased and the explanations are not forthcoming as expected. The worst part of it is that this is happening in a democratic government, which is supposed to be open, transparent and accountable to the people. Have we lost the eternal meaning of democracy which has the people at its centre?
How can the budgeting of a whopping N22.15billion for traditional rulers’ palaces, renovation and furnishing as reported in some dailies be explained? The recent exposure of widespread payroll fraud across federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) is another pointer of growing corruption in Nigeria. It is unfortunate that 908 fake workers were discovered in the MDAs. The ICPC also recovered N948 million in the exercise.
The fraudulent salary must be returned to the coffers of the federal government. The ICPC revealed that some senior public officials enrolled relatives and associates on government payrolls and collected their salaries over extended period. It revealed that one suspect allegedly inserted the names of his wife, son and mother-in-law in the payroll, while also collecting the salaries of 12 other fake workers.
In the ICPC investigation that covered not less than 50 MDAs, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) reportedly recorded the highest number of suspected fake workers with 570 names on its payroll. It was quickly followed by the National Water Resources Authority with 80 ghost workers and Federal Ministry of Works with 56. The rest of the ghost workers are spread thinly among other MDAs.
This investigation by ICPC is good. Let the agency beam its searchlight to the MDAs in the sub-national governments. It is likely to discover monumental fraud and ghost workers there too. In fact, corruption is not only systemic and endemic; it has metastasized in the body politic and even walks on four legs in Nigeria.
A foreign visitor to Nigeria can see corruption live by encountering our security agencies, especially the police and immigration and even customs. Policemen now greet motorists in a special way that suggests demand for kola or roja. Greetings like ‘Daddy bless us’, ‘Chief your boys are here’ are all euphemisms for bribe. Even though the force says that bail is free, you will discover the truth if you go to police station to bail someone. The war against corruption in the country should be holistic and cover all sectors. The fight must not be selective. There should be no sacred cows. All Nigerians must be treated equally before the law. Nobody should be treated as if he is above the law. The law should respect no person.
