Like Bola Tinubu, the president who appointed him as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede is full of hot air on tackling corruption in Nigeria. He is all sound and no fury, all talk and no action, all rhetoric but no substance! Olukoyede pontificates and fumes about corruption, yet corruption remains endemic and intractable in Nigeria.
As widely reported last week, the latest Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, CPI, shows that Nigeria remains deeply corrupt, as the world’s 36th most corrupt country in 2024. Nigeria ranked 140th out of 180 countries and scored 26 out of 100 points. One must wonder what the EFCC has achieved since Olukoyede assumed office in October 2023.
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Sadly, Olukoyede’s speeches suggest he’s merely shadow-boxing, ignoring the root causes of the problem and focusing on its symptoms. The Oxford Dictionary defines “shadowboxing” as “the act of making a show of tackling a problem while avoiding any direct engagement.” That’s precisely how to see Olukoyede’s failure to recognise that the Nigerian state is an embodiment of corruption, that all its institutions are thoroughly enmeshed in all facets of corruption, and that the EFCC is too incompetent, too corrupt and too politicised to tackle endemic corruption in Nigeria. Yet, instead of acknowledging the complex dilemma of a weak state institution fighting entrenched corruption that has its roots in the state itself, Olukoyede indulges in diversionary blame-shifting, pointing fingers at ordinary Nigerians.
Recently, the EFCC chairman accused Nigerians of condemning corruption while defending corrupt leaders. He said: “Everyone is crying that Nigerians are corrupt, that the system is corrupt, that corruption is killing us and destroying our system, but when we investigate high profile cases and arraign people in court, the same people will carry placards and be supporting corrupt leaders.” He added: “It doesn’t show that we are serious about this fight.”
“Yet, instead of acknowledging the complex dilemma of a weak state institution fighting entrenched corruption that has its roots in the state itself, Olukoyede indulges in diversionary blame-shifting, pointing fingers at ordinary Nigerians.”
But who is not serious about the “fight”? Is it helpless Nigerians or the powerful state? Is it NGOs and newspaper columnists that shout themselves hoarse or state institutions, like the anti-graft agencies and the judiciary, that pay lip service to tackling corruption and are complicit in enabling it? Of course, most Nigerians are lethargic about their country’s endemic corruption, but that’s because the citizens are utterly alienated from governance processes and are oppressed and impoverished by an extractive state that serves only the interests of the political class and the political entrepreneurs. There’s little or no demand for accountability and transparency by the citizens precisely because ordinary Nigerians have been reduced to medieval-era serfs totally submissive to the feudal lords.
The EFCC chairman talked about people carrying placards to support corrupt leaders. Doesn’t he know that those protests are not spontaneous or organic, but sponsored? Just as politicians buy votes and hire thugs during elections, they rent crowds to protest when charged with corruption offences. In a society defined by extreme poverty and inequality, those who corruptly enriched themselves can mobilise poor people to carry placards and protest for them. But if the presence of protesters in front of a court cannot stop independent judges from doing their jobs and dispensing justice, why should sponsored protesters or placard-carriers stop the EFCC from doing its job? Yet, truth is, protests or no protests, the EFCC is too hobbled to tackle corruption in Nigeria, evidenced by its failure to convert virtually no high-profile investigation into a successful prosecution. Why? Well, the agency is utterly corrupt and lacks political independence and thus political credibility.
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Take corruption first. In January 2024, Olukoyede himself said: “The craze and quest for gratification, bribes and other compromises by some of our investigators are becoming too embarrassing.” Then, recently, The Punch newspaper reported that “EFCC battles internal scandal as operatives loot recovered assets”. According to the story, “the missing items included gold bars valued at over N1bn and jewellery, while between $350,000 and $400,000 had also gone missing.” The EFCC has long been opaque about its handling of billions of dollars in forfeited assets. But the fact that an agency tasked with fighting corruption is so utterly corrupt shows a gaping systemic rot. That calls for deeper introspection, instead of shadowboxing by focusing on the small fry of sponsored protesters.
Unfortunately, EFCC’s corruption apart, there’s also its politicisation. The IMF highlighted this problem in its 2024 Article IV Consultation report on Nigeria, saying the EFCC is not operationally independent because it is beholden to the president who appoints and can dismiss its leadership. The IMF argued that the EFCC’s lack of operational independence “must lead to perceptions of doubt with respect to the objectivity of its prosecutions.” Of course, it’s no secret that such perceptions exist; the EFCC is widely seen as biased and doing the bidding of the presidency.
At a recent three-day workshop on anti-corruption, fiscal responsibility and transparency and good governance in Abuja, Olukoyede said the EFCC won’t spare corrupt public officers. His words: “The EFCC under my leadership will have no sympathy for public officers who breach the rules to enrich themselves or their cronies.” That stretches credulity. For a start, can Olukoyede tell Nigerians how many ministers in Tinubu’s cabinet, and how many other senior officeholders in his government and party, have bulging corruption-related files with EFCC and why they are not being prosecuted? He’s being disingenuous. He lacks the power and the independence to prosecute anyone in Tinubu’s good graces. He simply cannot touch any high-profile public officer without Tinubu’s nod or say-so!
Yet, no anti-graft campaign can succeed without political credibility, and nothing damages such credibility more than perceptions of selectivity or differential treatment. Every anti-corruption strategy must be based on equal treatment or the principle of generality. When President Xi Jinping launched China’s anti-corruption crackdown, over 100,000 officials, including high-ranking military officers and national leaders, were affected. Consequently, as one Chinese writer put it, “corrupt practices are now universally frowned upon in China.” In Nigeria, the anti-graft war is selective, partisan and one-sided, with some people treated as untouchable.
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Of course, the EFCC was politicised right from its inception. Indeed, Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC’s first chairman, was a politically ambitious anti-graft “czar”. In 2011, barely three years after leaving the EFCC, he ran for president under the Action Congress of Nigeria, ANC, a party led by Tinubu, who Ribadu, as EFCC chairman, described as corrupt. Recently, Ribadu, now Tinubu’s National Security Adviser, accused Naja’atu Mohammed of “lying” when the Kano-based politician reminded him that he once described Tinubu as “the most corrupt politician”. Nasir el-Rufai, former Kaduna State governor, is right: “Nuhu must have serious amnesia”. The facts are there, including an EFCC’s Senate report in 2006, which described Tinubu’s “corruption” as “of an international dimension”. Ribadu once said: “When I look around, I see a lot of investment done with dirty money.” Yet, as a politician, he has no qualms hobnobbing with the culprits.
Truth is, there are very few men of integrity in Nigerian public life, which makes tackling Nigeria’s endemic corruption a tall order. That integrity deficit, coupled with the institutional failures, is what must exercise the minds of the EFCC leadership. Anything else is mere shadowboxing!
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