impunity

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Buhari Has Panama-Proofed Nigeria’s Corruption

ByGrimot Nane Zine

If you were to personally ask President Muhammadu Buhari what the most successful thing a person could achieve in Nigeria was and he is candid with you, he will tell you to seize power (through coup d’ états or general elections) or amass riches (through grand corruption). Power and wealth for their sake will always breed corruption, and that is mainly why the president himself is not exempt. We all know that, but some emphatically deny it. The Panama Papers scandal involving tax evasion and money laundering cases in off-shore havens shook many international heavyweights in the civilised world but not Nigeria. Buhari’s administration has rendered big thieving Nigerian politicians and quasi-businessmen completely “Panama-proof”.

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Buhari: Continuing The “Too Big To Convict” Anticorruption Sham

ByGrimot Nane Zine

The first corruption prosecution of President Muhammadu Buhari’s reign has succeeded. The former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration Safety Agency (NIMASA), Raymond Omatseye, has been sentenced to five years in prison for his orchestration of N1.5bn contract scam. Omatseye got what he deserved; every guilty man and woman should be punished according. Well, not quite. The process that led to the conviction precedes this administration. Then this success is actually a major failure of anticorruption when considering the political economy and ethnic dynamics of Nigeria, a massive sham. The prosecution / conviction of Omatseye suggests a pattern of ‘ethnic ease’ adopted by several Governments of Nigeria (GON); the smaller the ethnicity of a corrupt official the easier it is to convict him or her and vice versa. Read More “Buhari: Continuing The “Too Big To Convict” Anticorruption Sham”

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Senators: Enacting Laws to Make Corruption Profitable

ByGrimot Nane Zine

Corruption is essentially a phenomenon that is highly secretive mostly because its perpetrators seek to avoid the consequences of detection, prosecution and conviction. In Nigeria, and for a long time corruption in high places has been both visible and morally-neutral because of the generous guarantee of impunity public officials readily enjoy. However, the impunity guaranteed by government inertia appears to be insufficient for thieving public officials. Nowadays, lawmakers actually enact bills to destroy those who have the temerity to detect, expose or prosecute their very own cases of corruption and enact bills to immunise themselves against detection and prosecution. Is there not supposed to be a “War Against Corruption” (WAC) going on in Nigeria? Read More “Senators: Enacting Laws to Make Corruption Profitable”

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Is the TSA a Panacea to Corruption?

ByGrimot Nane Zine

The Treasury Single Account (TSA) was adopted by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a diehard neoliberal, while she was Minister of Finance under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. The TSA a monetary tool introduced to reduce the cost of borrowing in a debt-stricken neoliberal world and ensure idle or unused monies by government agencies do not sit in accounts. The introduction of the TSA into the Nigerian system of economic management has nothing to do with the intelligence or sensibilities of either Goodluck Jonathan or President Muhammadu Buhari; it is a “compulsory” International Monetary Fund (IMF) instruction. Is the TSA an effective anti-corruption tool though or not? Read More “Is the TSA a Panacea to Corruption?”

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Unionised Cultists: Okada Riders Rule with Impunity

ByGrimot Nane Zine

Trade unions are purely or originally organisations that were created and existed to protect the rights of workers especially from the exploitation and insensitivity of the owners of capital, their employers. Things like annual paid holidays, adequate working conditions, fair pay, secure working contracts, the 35-40 hour week etc. are the gains of trade union activities. However, there are malignant and highly deviant mutations of trade union or its ethos going on in Nigeria and elsewhere in the form of gang or cult activities. Read More “Unionised Cultists: Okada Riders Rule with Impunity”

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Native Politics: Thieves and Treasures

ByGrimot Nane Zine

At the heart of Nigerian politics and the thinking that drives it is a pervasive ‘nativity’ that cannot be ignored or dismissed. Musing without it is impossible. Can you imagine a polity in which the “high and mighty” as well as the “hungry and insignificant” truly believe “the best way to protect a treasure is to have it guarded by a competent thief”? Such a belief though thoroughly ‘native’, assumes that the thief has a strong sense of shame or a sensitive conscience, and is limited to his residential environs. Read More “Native Politics: Thieves and Treasures”

Nigeria’s Big Thieves and Small Thieves
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Nigeria’s Big Thieves and Small Thieves

ByGrimot Nane Zine

“We hang the petty thieves & appoint the great ones to public office” – Aesop. Was Aesop not talking about Nigeria? #UniPortFour – 11 Oct 2012

The tweet above was sent in reaction to the broadcast of the lynching to death by inferno of four University of Port Harcourt students alleged to have stolen a mobile phone. It was a major international embarrassment even though the international press did not run with it. Shortly afterwards there was another broadcast of a girl accused of stealing a Blackberry phone in a market in Lagos having a phone shoved up her vagina! On the other hand politicians and bureaucrats that are accused of stealing millions and billions of dollars from state coffers become more popular and powerful in the country. Read More “Nigeria’s Big Thieves and Small Thieves”