Grandiose Parlor

Prompted by the indictment of several Governors and other notable Nigerians by EFCC and the concern for free and fair elections in Nigeria in 2007, the three major sociocultural associations representing Nigerians in America  - [tag]Egbe Omo Yoruba[/tag], the [tag]Igbo congress[/tag], and the [tag]Zumunta Association[/tag] - issued a communiqué (pdf) last week that questions the fairness and seriousness of the [tag]Economic and Financial Crimes Commission[/tag] (EFCC) and also speaks to the forthcoming elections.

While the communiqué salutes the courage of the EFCC by going after corrupt individuals, this excerpt sums the organisations’ impression of the agency’s seriousness pretty nicely:

“The responsibility of EFCC is not discharged by merely naming accused persons in the press, but with the successful prosecution and incarceration of the guilty parties. It is regrettable that since the former Senate President, Chief. Adophus Wabara, Senator Chris Adighije and the Former Minister of Education, Dr. Fabian Osuji were publicly disgraced almost two years ago over an allegation of N50 million bribe, that nothing else has been heard about this high profile public interest allegation of official corruption. Such laxity or gap in prosecution of cases of monumental public importance is inconsistent with serious commitment to eradication of economic crimes and official corruption.”

The EFCC’s strategy of generating some buzz around corruption is necessary, and I welcome that. However, the agency has to do more than just issue proclamations on dirty public officials by building prosecutable cases that can stand the rigors of the court of law. As BRE (Jewels of the Jungle) states in a comment, ”the Nigerian EFCC chief Nuhu Ribadu’s life is about as worthless as a plug nickel if he begins to layout prosecutable evidence against serving government leaders and prominent businesspeople who are guilty of these alleged crimes in Nigeria.”

The question is can Ribadu do this? No matter how much media publicity is generated by the EFCC’s proclamations, if it can’t convincingly prove its cases in court, there is no work done and all effort is wasted.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the EFCC needs to take a cue from the conviction of the former Illinois Governor George Ryan (United States), who was found guilty and jailed earlier this year for receiving kickbacks on state contracts. It took nine years to build a convincing case against Ryan. Can the EFCC muster this kind of staying power?

On 2007 Elections 

The plan of the organizations to form partnership with international agencies and monitor the 2007 election is commendable, and timely. Earlier today, I read at Mutiu’s blog of Project Vote Nigeria, a project aimed to galvanize Nigerian youth into action and empower them to participate in the coming election.

I have always stressed that democracy has no room room apathy. It is encouraging to read, at last, that some young blood in Nigeria have decided to take action! Check this excerpt:

“We live in a democracy and that means that we- the people- get a say in who runs this country, and by way of this privilege we also get a say about how our country is run. It is very easy to be blasé about your right to vote and take a “whatever, who cares” kind of attitude about it but you shouldn’t brush this great honor off so quickly. Sure registering can be a bit of a chore, and yes, you have to head down to a polling center on voting day to cast your vote which takes some time out of your day, but whether you know it or not these are very small prices to pay for the right to vote. If you do not try and just assume the ‘They’re dishonest politicians and will do what they like anyway…rig…cheat…’, then that’s exactly what they’ll do! You’ve given them the excuse…”

I hope Nigerian youths respond to this clarion call as the the nation begins a drive to register voters for the election: 60 million is the goal! To guard against the perennial problem of electroral malpractice, some electronic gadgets will be used during the exercise.  Uhmmmm! That’s a topic for another day.