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FIGHTING CORRUPTION: A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
- Released by Hon Justice Emmanuel Ayoola CON, DCl, JSC rtd on 15th APRIL 2009 2009 ANNUAL GUEST LECTURE OF THE ASSOCIATION OF VETERINARY MEDICAL STUDENTS (AVMS) UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN
DELIVERED AT TRENCHARD HALL, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN
ON 15th APRIL 2009 BY
Hon. Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, CON, DCl, JSC rtd)
CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT CORRUPT PRACTICES AND OTHER RELATED OFFENCES COMMISSION (ICPC)
FIGHTING CORRUPTION: A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
It is indeed an honour for me to be invited to deliver this 2009 annual lecture of the Association of Veterinary Medical Students of this great University. I was not privileged to study at this University. In my days there was no University of Ibadan and there was no university in Nigeria, but there was a University College, Ibadan, which did not teach law, affiliated to the University of London. However, I am proud of my long association with the University of lbadan not only as an external solicitor of this University from 1971 until early 1976 when I became a judge of the High court of the old Oyo State, but also long before then when, in the early 60s as Chairman of the Ibadan Branch of the Nigerian Youth Congress I had the support of and profitable collaboration with the vibrant students of this University.
I am happy to be part of this event, more so as I was asked to speak on Fighting Corruption: A Collective Responsibility. I congratulate the AVMS not only for this annual event but also for the choice of topic. I was a bit intrigued that veterinary surgeons would choose a topic for its annual lecture that is not related to veterinary science or medicine or agriculture. On some reflection, I come to the conclusion that veterinary surgeons are well placed to understand the finer things of life and the value of life itself. I believe that when a veterinary surgeon struggles very had to save the life of an animal it is because he or she appreciates life for its own sake. He or she does not see the animal as meat or in material terms, as many of us would, but as a being endued with life worth preserving. I believe that the fight against corruption will take on a new meaning if we see it as a fight to preserve a virtue - the virtue of integrity - that would make life worth living.
Corruption has, in recent times, come to be the most talked about subject in Nigeria. In a not too distant past, corruption was not a talking point. Incidents of corruption were far and in between and on the few and rare occasions when such incidents occurred they were viewed with much public disgust and outrage. Then followed the dark days of military administration, days of pervasive lawlessness in governance, when corruption was not talked about because it had become so prevalent and tolerated by society as, almost, to become a part of our culture, not only of business relationship but also of governance. It was from that era that we emerged when, in 2000, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act ("the ICPC Act") was passed. Thanks to the courage of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who created a new order in the fight against corruption.
That corruption is a serious vice is stating the obvious. Much, if not all, of our social and economic woes are attributable to corruption. The response of Nigerians to corruption has, however, been emotional and sentimental, whereas what is needed is a carefully designed strategy showing an understanding of the vice. The average citizen has not cared to give any thought to the depth and breadth of corruption and the extent to which it has harmed and is harming the nation and has damaged and is damaging the reputation and well-being of its citizens. A response to corruption that is lacking in strategy and not grounded in an understanding of the vice cannot produce a durable and effective campaign against corruption that a response that is scientific and strategic and leaves little room for rhetoric and sensationalism would produce. A hasty, panic driven response to pervasive corruption, usually manifesting in over-publicized, sensation-generating investigation that fizzles out, tends only to give a false impression that a battle that has just begun is being won, while the enemy merely goes into retreat only to regroup, strategize and re-emerge, stronger and more pernicious. The credibility of the anti-corruption effort is thereby damaged.
But, first, what is corruption? Most persons would believe that they have an idea what corruption is, even if not its precise definition. Law itself has not bothered to define corruption. Not many realize that there is no offence known as corruption in the ICPC Act. What the Act has done is to describe conduct and decisions in terms of the motive of the decision maker or actor. It is in this sense that acts or omissions are described as being "corruptly" done or not done. In some cases the adverb is omitted but from the description of the conduct prohibited, that the conduct-prohibited is corrupt would be implied. I have no difficulty in agreeing with the opinion expressed that: "the adverb 'corruptly' is the term that implies motive to decision or action (or the failure to make a decision or to act) of an officeholder in both public and private sectors where the decision or action (or absence of either) is to the advantage of a person or entity which is providing the reward, fee or other item of value to the officeholder."
Oftentimes, the distinction between fraud and corruption is blurred. In the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act, 2000 "corruption" is defined as "including bribery, fraud and other related offences." Even though corruption and fraud are often linked together they have areas of distinguishing emphasis. The emphasis in fraud is deception while the emphasis in corruption is deliberate and determined abuse of power and advantage conferred by office. In every act of corruption there is often an element of fraud. However, ironically, an uninformed public tends to detest fraud while they are tolerant of corruption.
In regard to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission ("ICPC" or the "Commission") the mandate of the Commission has been clearly and expressly defined. This is an advantage because it enables the Commission to determine more easily its core business and concentrate on it rather than casting around for business and spreading thin in the process.
The mandate of the Commission is threefold. Perhaps the best known to the public of the threefold mandate is the mandate to investigate and prosecute offences under the ICPC Act or any other law prohibiting corruption. It is, indisputably, an important mandate. However, a well-informed anti-corruption strategist would rank it equally with the other mandates. It is only those who do not know much about the fight against corruption that would think that the only potent tool for the fight against corruption is the criminal justice option.
The Commission has, as the second of the trinity of mandates, the mandate (a) to examine the practices, systems and procedures of public bodies and where, in the opinion, of the Commission, such practices, systems or procedures aid or facilitate fraud or corruption, to direct and supervise a review of them; (b) to instruct, advise and assist any officer, agency or parastatals on ways by which fraud or corruption may be eliminated or minimized by such officer, agency or parastatal, and, (c) to advise heads of public bodies of any changes in the practices, systems or procedures compatible with the effective discharge of the duties of the public bodies as the Commission thinks fit to reduce the likelihood or incidence of bribery, corruption and related offences.
The third of the trinity of mandates is the mandate to educate the public on and against bribery, corruption and related and to enlist and foster public support in combating corruption.
The second and third of these mandates are usually described as representing the preventive mandate of the Commission. However, these mandates do more than prevent. They aid, when diligently pursued, in bringing the corrupt to justice. It is noteworthy that when the Commission intensified its activities in regard to public enlightenment, public education and mobilization from December 2005, when I took over as Chairman of the Commission, the number of petitions received by the Commission increased. In the three years from 2006¬ 2008 the petitions received outstripped the number of petitions received in the five years of the Commission from its inception in 2001 to 2005. The number of cases prosecuted in the three years from 2006 2008 more than doubled the prosecution for the five years from 2001 2005. It is, thus, clear from statistics that when the other two mandates are vigorously pursued they strengthen the criminal justice mandate in addition to preventing corruption. An informed anti-corruption strategist sees the mandates as a trinity working in unity to eradicate and prevent corruption.
Sometimes, the inability of the public to consider the statistics and to attribute equal importance to each of the mandates distorts the assessment of the performance of the Commission and also retards an informed assessment of the cost of fighting corruption. Recently, a distinguished Senator wrongly based his assessment of the value derived from the funds made available to the Commission only on the number of cases prosecuted! From this erroneous position he, unwittingly, gave the impression that the result does not justify the cost in terms of convictions recorded over an 8 year period. Such misconception that ignores the other mandates of the Commission explains the inadequate funding of the Commission, resulting in its difficulty in fulfilling the threefold mandate of the Commission to the extent it would have wanted to. Each of the mandates of the Commission would have been more effectively prosecuted were the present entire budget of the Commission to each of them.
Notwithstanding all that I have stated above, the proposition I make is still valid that: whatever the level of funding by the State in the fight against corruption, successful investigation and prosecution of crimes and the prevention of crimes are impossible without public participation and cooperation in the effort in terms of information and vigilance. The war against corruption cannot be effectively prosecuted without active public participation.
The second proposition I make is that: public education, mobilization and enlightenment are all essential to a successful strategy in the fight against corruption. Agency activities in the fight against corruption cannot by itself alone bring about eradication or reduction in the level of corruption in society. The fight against corruption is a shared responsibility between the State, represented by its agencies, and the citizens, represented by individuals and civil society groups.
The days when the fight against crime is left exclusively to the State are over. The attitude of most citizens in Nigeria to corruption in the past has been that as, apparently, corruption did not bother the State, it should not bother anyone else. It is thus that everyone became a victim of corruption while at the same time becoming the perpetrator or aider and abettor and or condoner of the perpetrator. Part of the cause of the snowballing of the culture of corruption was that it was tolerated by all and sundry and oftentimes described in euphemistic terms.
In the days when public education and public mobilization in the fight against corruption were nil, only few cared to report corruption. Those were the days of the 'national cake' syndrome when the citizen was expected to 'grab' whatever he or she could lay hands on, regardless of the illegality of the act! The turning point in the fight against corruption came with the establishment of the ICPC in 2000. Earlier attempts to fight corruption had been spasmodic and half¬ hearted and often perceived by the public as lacking in sincerity or credibility. With the establishment of the Commission in 2000 a systematic and new approach to the tight against corruption emerged.
The establishment of the ICPC was very much welcome by a jubilant public who had been suffering from the scourge of corruption in bewilderment, silence and resignation. There was much public expectation that the Commission would bring corruption to its knees within the shortest possible time, as if with a magic wand. However, a public anxious for revenge and entertainment looked forward to the spectacle of a Commission that would clamp whoever had held high political office into jail! The first tottering steps of the infant Commission was, therefore, in the direction of concentrating unduly on the criminal justice option as the main and primary tool of its fight against corruption, without first building public support and responsibility through mass education and public enlightenment.
In a country where the citizens tend to regard the State as the exclusive bearer of the responsibility for fighting crime the citizens often do not regard themselves as expected to bear any responsibility in detection and prevention of crime or, even, as having any role to play in the matter. Such attitude of indifference leads the public to see the criminal justice option as mere entertainment.
Gradually, thanks to our public education and public enlightenment programmes, agencies charged with law enforcement and civil society groups concerned with or interested in fighting crime are beginning to accept the reality that detection of crime is facilitated, and prevention becomes more potent, with public-private partnership. The Commission under my watch pioneered that shift in perception with very beneficial results to the anti-corruption campaign.
That leads me to my third proposition: Public participation in the fight against corruption cannot be potent unless a structured mechanism for such participation is provided. The ICPC as part of its anti¬ corruption strategy has developed models of such partnership with fruitful results. One of the strategic achievements of the ICPC under my watch is the development of public-private partnership in the fight against corruption. We pioneered in Nigeria the creation of mechanisms that facilitate public participation in the fight against corruption.
The National Integrity Outreach which was launched by the ICPC in 2006 is the all-embracing multi-faceted platform and backbone of the Commission's anti¬ corruption public-private partnership strategy. Through it the Commission has reached out to all segments of society all over Nigeria, enlisted all stakeholders in the anti-corruption campaign and embarked on making every segment of society to see itself as an integrity centre, building its own integrity strategy, designing and enforcing its own integrity code and monitoring its own integrity mechanisms. The Commission has taken the anti-corruption campaign beyond rhetoric. It has created institutions and crafted mechanisms to make the fight against corruption holistic, durable and real. We have thus broadened the scope of participation in the fight against lack of integrity in out nation and we have thus opened the anti-corruption campaign to all and sundry. Our ultimate goal is to transfer the ownership of the campaign to society so that the continuance of the campaign will be assured and will not be dependent on shifting inclination of successive administrations.
Some of the institutions we have created include the following:
The National Anti-corruption Volunteer Corps (NAVC) which is a scheme that enlists volunteers as corruption watchers and as a way of giving the people a role in the fight against corruption. The NAVC has been in existence since 2006 for the purpose of giving citizens, whatever their ages or status in life, a role in the fight against corruption. Corps membership is open to everyone, young or old, willing to contribute to the campaign with commitment and ideas. Already we have enlisted thousands of Nigerians.
The Local Government Integrity Initiative through which we have been creating integrity awareness and accountability mechanisms at the local government level.
The Integrity First Initiative created in order to infuse a culture of integrity in the private sector by exposing businesses to globally accepted best practices and self¬ assessment mechanisms against corruption.
The National Anti-Corruption Coalition created to fulfill the need to build a community of committed stakeholders against corruption in Nigeria is a coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community-based Organisations (CBOs), Professional and Trade Associations for national mobilization against corruption and as partners and collaborators in the fight against corruption. The main objectives of the coalition are to ensure the integrity of the anti-corruption crusade and to build strategic consensus and direction for a more potent fight against corruption. There are now about 200 member organizations in the NACC. The ICPC continues to encourage the formation of NGO's by people who have the passion, commitment and ideas to fight corruption. We already have a geographic map of the coverage of NGO's across the country so that in areas where we find there are few or none, we will be able to encourage their formation. We will go out and spot credible people with good ideas, who will be encouraged and strengthened to form NGO's and we will facilitate capacity development for them based on their potentials and success of their activities so far. Our philosophy is that it is better to have few people with good ideas than many with no ideas. The ICPC will continue to encourage the formation of NGO's by people who have the passion, commitment and ideas to fight corruption.
The anti-corruption war in Nigeria has moved from the phase of creating awareness about the negative effects of corruption, to the next phase of challenging every Nigerian to practice what they preach. This we do through a practical result-oriented informal integrity education programme that attributes great importance to the practice of integrity.
In fulfillment of its public enlightenment mandate, the ICPC has redesigned its strategy from merely 'preaching' integrity to challenging each individual to practice integrity and get others to do so. We have departed from the fruitless strategy of the past that merely brings dignitaries together to pontificate on the virtue of integrity without a convincing testimony that they themselves practiced integrity. We have departed from the practice that glorifies hypocrisy. Whoever dares to stand up to be counted among the fighters of corruption must be a role model in the fight, able to show what he has done to enthrone integrity when he had an opportunity so to do and what role he is prepared to play in the current battle and battle ahead to restore integrity to our nation.-
For our part, the days of hypocritical grandstanding are over. In our people-driven fight against corruption status and stature count for nothing. The only thing that counts is sincerity and integrity. The hero of our people's fight against corruption is that person who possesses those virtues, whatever his status in life.
Acknowledgement of the need for a collective responsibility to fight corruption is the beginning of wisdom in the fight against corruption. It is founded on the fundamental proposition that the war against corruption cannot be won unless there is individual commitment to the fight against the vice
I believe that we are on the right track. The ICPC has created avenues for public participation in the war against corruption. However, there is still much to be done. We have by our strategy complied, in large measure, with Article 13 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption which provides that: "Each State Party shall take appropriate measures, within the means and in accordance with fundamental principles of its domestic law, to promote the active participation of individuals and groups outside the public sector, such as civil society, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations, in the prevention of and the fight against corruption and to raise public awareness regarding the existence, cause and gravity of and the threat posed by corruption."
I state as a fourth proposition that: To make the machinery of public participation that we have created fulfill its purpose, that machinery has to be used and operated by well-oriented citizens determined to lead the movement against corruption and committed to the enthronement of a culture of integrity in our nation.
However, where are those citizens? In a nation where materialism has been enthroned and wealth counts for more than virtue, it is proving more difficult to find committed citizens who are sufficiently value-driven and are prepared to be committed to a cause that offers no immediate and direct material returns. Collective action is more potent where there is collective interest. In a society that is driven by undisguised individualism, greed and selfishness, locating persons who are prepared to share the responsibility to fight corruption in society becomes difficult.
The urgent task at hand is to create in Nigeria a class of people that will form a nucleus of a selfless citizenry, committed to the transformation of our nation to a value¬ driven society. Such citizens will be persons who are driven by a passion to enthrone ennobling virtues as a national creed. Our nation flounders today not because of a leadership deficit but because of a value-driven citizenry deficit.
I make bold to say today that the audience to which this lecture is addressed, the University community, has the responsibility to rebuild itself as the nucleus of a value driven society. The relevance of our universities to society in our nation continues to diminish by the day not because they lack academic excellence or because they are devoid of intellectual and scientific ability, but because they have abandoned that area in which they would have easily excelled.
That area is that of the value driven society. The Universities are expected to be at the vanguard of the movement that will be a catalyst for national change in terms of orientation and attitude. They have not shown any noticeable inclination in that direction. Yet, these are the institutions and groups that, traditionally, are expected to provide intellectual input and leadership in the strategic fight against corruption. Where do our academic and intellectual communities stand on issues of social concern? What are the thoughts of our thinkers in the Universities on the issues that make us a laughing stock among the community of nations, principal of which is corruption? Why are the Universities not at the forefront of the battle to restore credibility to our education system and the certificates they award which have been damaged by corruption in the education system? So many questions, yet few answers.
I believe that the surest way to ensure a durable and sustainable fight against corruption is through a movement led by our universities. The challenge of corruption and a pervasive lack of integrity in our nation have reached a level that the usual response of whipping up sentiments and emotions and sloganizing at public rallies has, while useful in terms of mobilization, become grossly inadequate and may often turn out to be a fruitless diversionary entertainment and activity.
The time has come that our fight against corruption and lack of integrity must be driven by an abiding faith in integrity as a national culture. Such abiding faith will not emerge as a durable force merely by exhortation or by platitude. It can only emerge as such if we build a mass movement promoting its advocacy and committed to the practice of integrity as a way of life and is implacably intolerant of lack of integrity. If such movement is to emerge as a durable force for change it must emerge from and be led by our universities that are looked up to by society as leaders of thought, noted for objectivity and bold enough to accept the challenge to be the nucleus of a value driven society.
Only those who are committed to the national creed of integrity can meaningfully assume the responsibility to fight corruption in our nation.
Today, I challenge the University of lbadan community to spare head the promotion and advocacy of a national creed that will recognize integrity as a fundamental virtue that must drive all activities, both private and public, if our nation is to progress. We must begin to build an army of citizens who have sufficient faith in integrity to promote and defend that virtue as a creed, at all and personal costs.
I believe in Nigeria's greatness. I believe that greatness will elude us if we do not enthrone integrity as a national virtue. I believe that integrity is a non-negotiable national and individual virtue to preach, teach and practice. I believe that those .who lack integrity are enemies of our nation and traitors to its greatness.
That is my creed. That should be our National lntegrity Creed. I am not unmindful of the fact that there is a National Pledge, but of what use is a pledge without a creed? It is but a lifeless statement. Let us first enthrone a National Integrity Creed that would breathe life into our National Pledge.
'Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000:s. 2
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