Professor Itse Sagay, Femi Aribisala and Oby Ezekwesili at the Department of Jurisprudence and
International law Roundtable at the University of Lagos (Photo: Premium Times)
A round table organised by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, tagged "Winning the War Against Corruption",
at the University of Lagos on Thursday, had legal scholars and experts
hurl verbal missiles around to brainstorm on winning the war against
corruption.
The event which began with the keynote speech 'Rule of Law and Treatment of Politically Exposed Persons in Corruption Cases' delivered by Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, was also an opportunity to launch the book 'Legal Perspectives to Corruption, Money Laundering, and Assets Recovery in Nigeria.'
Femi Falana, who was represented by Wahab Shittu, advocated the creation of special courts to handle corruption cases.
The verbal battle began after controversial scholar, Femi Aribisala, took to the podium to discuss Falana’s speech. "There is no fight against corruption in Nigeria. And if there’s no fight against corruption, you can’t even talk about war," Aribisala began.
He then launched into a 10 minute speech that attacked the global
definition of corruption by Oby Ezekwesili, a former World Bank vice
president who had earlier defined corruption as 'the abuse of public space for private gains', the prescription of special courts by Falana; and current administration’s effort against corruption.
"Corruption cannot be narrowly defined the way Dr. Ezekwesili
defined it, only relating to public institutions. We are corrupt in
Nigeria. The plumber, the tailor, the whole society is corrupt," said
Aribisala.
"And we have not yet taken a decision, we have not yet gotten
to a point where we are fed up. I mean, she (Mrs. Ezekwesili) had given
an example of Hong Kong where people became fed up and said enough is
enough. We have not reached that situation yet, I don’t know why not,
but we certainly have not.
"The 2015 election was not an anti-corruption election. We did
not have any political party that presented an anti-corruption mandate
to us. The party that won the election was just a makeover of the PDP, I
mean the PDP people moved from the PDP to the APC. If they were corrupt
when they were in PDP, they became clean when they were in APC.
"So there is no mandate against corruption. If President Buhari
was determined to fight against corruption, my feeling is that he gave
up after losing election three times. Because the fourth time, he formed
an alliance with people who he despised before. And they were not
necessarily people who had a track record of being (sic)
anti-corruption. So today, I don’t know who is anti-corruption."
Aribisala said the current fight against corruption by the
President Muhammadu Buhari government is merely a fight against the
Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).
"We have to make up our minds if we really want to deal with
the question of corruption. If we want to deal with the question of
corruption, Nigerians themselves must insist on it and we have to deal
with it at the institutional level.
"The institutional fight against corruption that has taken
place to the extent that it has, took place under PDP. The institutional
structures, even the ones that the present government is relying on,
are PDP structures. Whether it is EFCC, ICPC, TSA, all these came under
PDP.
"In ten months of Buhari’s government, there has been no
institutional structure that has been laid against corruption. We have
simple had media circuses accusing people of corruption.
"You cannot fight corruption with corruption. And corruption is
more than just the stealing of money. If you disobey the rule of law,
you have corrupted the system. If you create an avenue where you have a
big margin between the official foreign exchange rate and the parallel
market rate, there’s gonna be corruption. If you have children of the
rich getting into the CBN on nepotistic grounds, the corruption is still
with you.
"If you have a budget that is padded left right and centre, and
after this was revealed you passed it and say only a small amount
changed in it, and we do not know what is in the new budget, you can’t
say you are against corruption. There is no transparency in any of these
things," he said.
Meanwhile, Itse Sagay said the APC had a manifesto that spelt out
its strategies to combat corruption, and admonished Aribisala to stop
making statements devoid of facts.
"Obasanjo created ICPC, EFCC, they are doing well we don’t need
to create new institutions. You do not win a war by just creating
multiplicity of institutions everywhere, that’s irresponsible. We will
work with the institutions that we have.
"You don’t dilute the meaning of corruption to a point that it
is meaningless. This is a very serious discussion and I want us to be
serious about it. If you are anti-government, please go and campaign
against government and let your party win in 2019.
"This is not a venue for PDP campaign. Most inappropriate
comment. We are here on serious business. Let’s maintain that
seriousness," he said.
With Mr. Aribisala appearing unperturbed by Sagay’s stern remarks,
Mrs. Ezekwesili pleaded for another chance at the podium, ostensibly to
further drive the case against Aribisala’s argument.
"The systemic nature of corruption as a cancer against a system
of governance is demonstrated in the fact that the activity of
corruption begins to happen at their different levels," Mrs. Ezekwesili began.
"So for example, I wasn’t surprised that some of you were
clapping. The reason you were clapping is that you are a page in your
own level of corruption.
"There are many whose exam malpractice is the basis upon which
they have come to school. So when you are talking about the need to
wage a war against corruption, they are completely disconnected from it.
There is a complete dissonance from it."
Ezekwesili urged the students to desist from applauding populist statements.
"You need to be driven by the evidence of the damage and the
destruction that corruption is doing to you, at the unit level. If you
think you are doing well now, you will do exceedingly better if
corruption is effectively tackled in this society," she said.
"There is no comedy session going on here. We are talking about
something that can be destructive. You should be holding the gun to
fight against corruption. The gun has to be intellectual, so I need you
to intelligently process everything that is said."
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