NZERIBE AND ANTI-CORRUPTION STRUGGLE
In the past few months, the issue of corruption has been given a lot of attention in the media, public gatherings, churches and mosques. It is so fashionable and topical that no public figure, even the corrupt, delivers a speech at any public gathering without a sore tribute to the word 'Corruption'.
Like the national anthem sang by all Nigerians, from the seat of power - the Presidency to the law-making chambers of the National Assembly, top business moguls, politicians and even those in uniform, all have joined in the chorus. In Lagos, an anti-corruption NGO has even been given permission by a law court to prosecute the Federal Government or it's agencies for corruption. Come on, what is happening?
Are we all just waking up to become latter day apostles of anti corruption? Maybe not. But the fact is that the situation has become so critical that everybody has noticed and felt the weight of this monster called Corruption. Corruption has become malignant in our society.
Among the anti-corruption crusaders are the old advocates and the new entrants. But one name has remained prominent and consistent in it all. He is a man of many facets, who has not been fingered in any of the corruption dramas. I choose to call him the Originator. I call him that not because he is the first to bring this monster to the fore, but because he started this battle some 21 years ago and you will not believe it, even in the era of the gun-totting military regime.
In 1990, he published a book Nigeria: Seven Years After Shehu Shagari; Who Next? In which he spoke boldly and fearlessly against the military and corruption. In the book, he set out the methods and ways to tackle and defeat the monster. He highlighted the need to set up an anti corruption agency which was later adopted by former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and later the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
That originator is Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe, the most capped Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Senator from Oguta in Imo State though feared for obvious reasons some of which we may consider unpalatable is also loved and respected by his colleagues and those that understand his ideologies. He is a man that says it as he sees it and not afraid to stand by what he believes. During the Shehu Shagari administration, one of our then ministers deposited a huge sum of money in a United Kingdom bank only to discover after a few hours that Nzeribe had substantial stake in the bank, he went back and withdrew his money after losing 10% of the amount as charges under just a few hours. That is how much corrupt people fear the man Arthur Nzeribe.
At the early stages of the Obasanjo administration, Nzeribe forsaw what many Nigerians didn't about the then President Obasanjo and moved an impeachment motion in the Senate against him. At that time most people vilified him, but later when they actually realized who Obasanjo really is, they wished that the impeachment process had gone through. It is equally on record that he presented a list of about 500 corrupt Nigerians to the Obasanjo administration who failed to pass over the list to the relevant anti-corruption agencies but went ahead witch-hunting his political enemies in the name of fighting corruption.
Nzeribe does not care if you love him, he analyses issues without emotions and because he is forthright and foresighted on any issue he picks, it is often difficult to fault him. He does not stop at shouting stop corruption now or it will undo us as a nation, he has gone many steps further to enumerate ways to checkmate the monster. To show that corruption-free Nigeria is dear to his heart, he has deplored personal resources towards gathering information and carrying out investigations on allegedly identified corrupt individuals and leaders. This information, I am sure, he is willing to share with the relevant agencies to aid them in the fight against corruption.
Since corruption has become endemic in our country, all hands must be on deck to fight the monster and the relevant agencies could use all the help they could get from well meaning Nigerians. Hence, it may be a good idea for the agencies concerned to make use of Senator Nzeribe's wealth of information, which he has compiled over twenty-one years of watching and documenting corrupt individuals.
I could hear some of my colleagues asking if it will be a good idea trusting Nzeribe. I have thought through the life and activities of Nzeribe and I'm convinced that he may have been accused of all sorts of things most of which are imagined and hyperbolic but he has never been indicted of corruption or embezzlement. He is a man who is not afraid to confront the people in authority or the high and mighty with their sins and follows through anything he engages in without fear or favour.
As Nigerians intensify this clarion call for a 'corrupt free Nigeria', it is earnestly hoped that the efforts and works of Nzeribe and the likes of Gani Fawehinmi, Dr. Tai Solarin, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, and other anti-corruption activists do not end in vain. The edge Nzeribe has in this must-win fight is that he understands the system inside out, from his vantage position of being an insider in the power circle, and this informed his long struggle against corruption in Nigeria.
Peters writes from London