impunity

Buhari Has Panama-Proofed Nigeria’s Corruption

Buhari Has Panama-Proofed Nigeria

Buhari Has Panama-Proofed Nigeria

If you were to ask President Muhammadu Buhari what the most successful thing a person could achieve in Nigeria was? If he is candid with you, his answer would be you to seize power (through coup d’ états or general elections). or to amass riches (through grand corruption). Power and wealth, for their sake, will always breed corruption. By implication, the president himself is not exempt. We all know that, but some are emphatic about denying it. Such is brazen make-belief.

The Panama Papers scandal involving tax evasion and money laundering cases in off-shore havens shook many international heavyweights in the civilised world. Not in Nigeria, though. Buhari’s administration has rendered big thieving Nigerian politicians and quasi-financiers well “Panama-proof”. (more…)

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

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. (more…)

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Senators: Enacting Laws to Make Corruption Profitable

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? (more…)

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Unionised Cultists: Okada Riders Rule with Impunity

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. (more…)

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