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Promoting good governance with emphasis on anti-corruption and ethics
- Released by Hon. Justice Emmanuel Ayoola on Thursday 5th July 2007 Where law does not matter, rights cease to matter. Where rights do not matter, the citizen is in bondage and the whole essence of good governance is lost. Subtle lawlessness starts from disregard of minor rights and soon ripens into a culture of lawlessness on a grand scale. In Nigeria, we were on the verge of that grand lawlessness where human rights were trampled on with impunity and life and property became unsafe.
Incipient culture of administrative or executive or, even, judicial lawlessness is difficult to detect because often a greater need of society is claimed as justification for a departure from the ethics of governance enshrined in the concept of the rule of law. Where there is a rise in crime, law enforcement agencies resort to policing outside the law, often to the admiration of a large sector of society who see the end as justifying the means, indifferent to the damage done to the greater values that make for good governance and the negative culture of lawlessness that is being engendered. Where there is a social need to be satisfied, government claims justification to ignore the rights of the citizen. Where there is economic crisis, government tends to claim a justification to act quickly outside the law. Often, the slowness of the legislative or the judicial process, induced sometimes by systemic inefficiency or by corruption encourages administrative and executive lawlessness.
It is an incontrovertible proposition that without the rule of law, good governance is a sham. Whatever technical meaning may be given to the term ‘good governance’, it must be conceived as governance for the public good, apart from it being governance that is efficient and effective. The ultimate public good being liberty, freedom and security of life and property, governance that falls short of delivery of these lacks the quality that makes governance good. Bad governance breeds corruption while at the same time, corruption is often a result of bad governance. There are numerous forms of corruption. only few need be mentioned. There is grand and petty corruption. These two forms of corruption have been described as follows: Grand corruption is corruption that pervades the highest levels of a national government leading to a broad erosion of confidence in good governance, the rule of law and economic stability. (2) Petty corruption can involve the exchange of very small amounts of money, the granting of minor favours by those seeking preferential treatment or the employment of friends and relatives in minor positions. The most critical difference between grand corruption and petty corruption is that the former involves the distortion or corruption of the central functions of government, while the latter develops and exists within the context of established governance and social frameworks.
Embezzlement, theft and fraud have also been classified as corruption in certain circumstances, particularly where the crimes are perpetrated by a person who has access to money or property by virtue of office, position or employment. Abuse of office, abuse of discretion, influence peddling, favouritism and nepotism are all forms of corruption. The first step to a corruption-free society, however, is the pursuit of good governance through a holistic, credible and potent anti¬corruption strategy. For a long time now, numerous initiatives in the fight against corruption have been pursued. Since 1999, the conventional initiatives of seizure of assets have been overtaken by the criminal option of investigation and prosecution. Achievement is recorded in some noticeable respects:
Accountability is gradually becoming the order of the day. It is now more difficult than before to conceal ill-gotten assets.Through the introduction of transparent procurement procedures, corruption in public procurement has been reduced. It cannot but be conceded that since 1999, the mechanism as well as the level of accountability in conduct of national affairs have improved, stewardship in the public sector is now open to higher level of scrutiny than before. Greater powers are now conferred on integrity institutions to probe into assets of public officers. Where in the past, assets declaration and assets probe exercises were undertaken intermittently, often after a violent take-over of government by the military and with fanfare; it is now a routine exercise undertaken unobtrusively and devoid of fanfare. A veritable source of corruption, contract award and procurement activities are now subject to due process.
However, notwithstanding these gains, internationally, Nigeria is still listed among the world’s most corrupt nations. Even within the country, public perception of Nigeria as a corruption-ridden country persists. It was recently put thus: “On the quality and availability of public services, a recent governance and corruption diagnostic survey of Nigeria, revealed that more than one in three households believe the services delivered by the water board, public health department, public education, power authorities, national telecommunications company and many other essential services to be poor/very poor, while the worst rating is reserved for the Nigeria police. Nigerians yearn for the dividends of democracy, but continues to reap the costs of corruption”
The persistence of negative perception of the corruption level in Nigeria should not lead us to believe that the war on corruption has made no impact. Although often not captured by surveys, which themselves are very often distorted by stereotypes, there is no doubt that the culture of corruption is gradually receding. Where corruption has been practised openly by many, the few who continue to practise it now do so with extreme covertness.
Where accountability was not the order of the day, the reverse is now the case. Where impunity had reigned, the “nothing will happen” attitude is fast disappearing. The level of achievement in the anti¬corruption campaign may not have been as immediate or earth¬shattering as a nation anxious for quick fix results may have wanted. But gains have been made.
There is no lack of vigour or commitment in the campaign against corruption. What is lacking is sufficient public participation in the campaign. Where society should be more concerned with practicalising integrity, a large section of society is more interested in the excitement of seeing public figures debased by any allegation of corruption. Dramatization, personalization and politicization of incidents of corruption distract attention from the vice that corruption is. One of the challenges faced in the anti-corruption campaign is, therefore, to get society to develop a right attitude to the war against corruption by seeing it as war against a vice in which they should be active participants rather than spectators. Another challenge is that of sustaining the campaign over a sufficiently long time as to make an appreciable impact on the quality of governance.
The anti-corruption campaign is not yet long enough as to achieve such impact even though there is reason to believe that if sustained, the campaign will usher in a durable culture of integrity and good governance. Building on its three-prong mandate of investigation and prosecution, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission ICPC) has embarked on a holistic and participatory approach to the anti-corruption campaign. One of the pillars of the approach is the division of society into sectors for the purpose of integrity education and practice. Another is the establishment of avenues for public participation in the anti-corruption war. There is a National Anti-corruption Coalition, which is a coalition of NGOs in the anti-corruption community. There is also the National Anti¬corruption Volunteer Corps which gives citizens at all levels opportunity to be involved in the anti-corruption war. An invigorated anti-corruption public education and enlightenment campaign will not only bring integrity issue to the fore in the thoughts of many but will also afford them a closer understanding of their part in fostering a national culture of integrity.
At the governmental level, greater attention is now being placed on repositioning the Anti-corruption Monitoring and Transparency Units in MDAs for greater effectiveness. The ICPC has started to invigorate its systems review efforts. These initiatives are complementary to investigation and prosecution activities. Notwithstanding these efforts, the truth must remain that for invigorated anti-corruption efforts to have a lasting impact on governance in a multi-party democracy as ours, the political parties themselves must be integrity centres through which the moral point of view is injected at the party level in decision making. Unless there is deliberate integrity education at the party level, political parties would continue to embark on policies that may encourage corruption. For instance, a policy that will reward financial backers of political parties with appointments to public offices does not augur well for a corruption free administration, and consequently, for good governance. The entire electoral process must be reviewed if corruption must be tackled, not only in the electoral process, but also to ensure corruption-free governance.
An attempt was made to introduce ethical contents into governance by the promulgation of a Ministerial Code of Conduct and Ethics. However, not much can be said about the impact of such code in the absence of any discernible monitoring and enforcement system or evaluation. As was once said, ‘to effect a shift in values, it is not enough merely to roll out values statement, distribute a code of conduct, or exhort people to higher standards ...management and organisation are the vehicles through which beliefs, values and convictions are transformed into corporate action.’ . If anti-corruption efforts are to bear fruits in promotion of good governance, the war must be waged vigorously at the level of the public service and with committed partnership of the public service. A public service that has practicalised integrity by codes, systems of right conduct - monitored and enforced - would have freed itself from being inveigled into corruption by the political class.
Hon. Justice Ayoola, delivered this lecture to mark the 2007 Nigerian Civil Service Day recently.
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Population - 140 Million
GDP - $54.7Billion
GDP per Capita - $400
GDP Growth - 3.8%
GNI – $42.8 Billion
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