An intensified campaign to win debt relief from creditor nations has prompted Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo to wage war on corruption.

Ranked as the third most corrupt country in the world by global graft watchdog Transparency International, Nigeria’s reputation for sleaze is such, the TI rating prompted some to joke that a “clever government official must have paid a hefty bribe to keep the group from ranking Nigeria first or second,” the Washington Post reports.

For many Nigerians, the president’s war on corruption has been a long time coming, given his promise six years ago to stamp out vice when he took office in 1999. Nothing much, they have noted, has happened, until now.

In the past two months, two senior ministers have been sacked, a former top police officer has appeared in court in handcuffs, and the senate president has been under pressure to resign – all charged with corruption for offenses that would have once been winked at.

Some commentators, however, are worried cynicism will poison the president’s current efforts and are calling on Nigerians to rally round, urging citizens to remember “where we were when Obasanjo assumed power.” J.O. Muruako, a writer for the Lagos tabloid Daily Champion, asserts that “no Nigerian civil leader has tried to evolve fair-play and equity in the body politic, as Obasanjo has so far tried” and “no Nigerian leader has tried to establish an anti-corruption system as he is trying to do.”

“We still remember the free-for-all rot,” said Muruako, referring to the Shehu Shagari administration between 1979 and 1983, the military regimes of Murtala Muhammad and Muhammadu Buhari that “wielded brutal and lawless powers indiscriminately, while corruption simmered under them,” as well as the Ibrahim Babangida military dictatorship from 1985-1993, whose “rule formalized corrupt practices.” According to Muruako:

“President Obasanjo has commenced a tripod revolution, which should eventually establish socioeconomic and political stability and development . . . if we are prepared to bear the necessary pains.”

If the 400 eminent Nigerians President Obasango assembled earlier this year for an ongoing national conference on political reform are “not allowed to hammer out a lasting political blueprint” for the country, “then we are doomed,” warns Muruako.

Some critics say the president’s crusade is already showing signs of faltering and point out that although some top officials have been brought to justice, none have been jailed.

“In fact, even those that were fired from office are still walking the streets as if firing was enough for the egregious offences they committed,” writes Alfred Uzokwe for Nigeria World, an online news provider.

“A few days ago, Tafa Balogun, the corrupt former police boss, who should be sitting in jail now for abusing his office, made bail. To add insult to injury, the charges . . . against him have been reduced from 70 to 50,” he said.

Uzokwe says “tough action” is needed if Nigerians are to take the president’s war against corruption seriously or “the desired effect of deterrence will never be achieved.” Instead of talk, he said, Nigerians want wrongdoers held to account and convicted, and the president need look no further than his own government as a place to start clean-up duty.

“There are a lot of corrupt public officials in the senate, in the house and even in the president’s cabinet and he must start bringing them to book in full public glare,” said Uzokwe, stressing that the president’s anti-corruption crusade is his chance to make history and that posterity will “not forgive him” if he succumbs to pressure.

The pressure Uzokwe is referring to concerns the increased scrutiny the president and his son, Gbenga, have borne since the president’s graft war began earlier this year.

Some say the president’s credibility is undermined by rigged civilian elections in 1999 and 2003, which suggest he is morally ill-equipped to turnaround Nigeria’s formidable track record on sleaze. Meanwhile, Gbenga has found himself having to defend allegations that he holds multiple bank accounts in the United States totalling as much as $22 million and has cited his father’s campaign as the reason he is being targeted.

“General Obasanjo, including his son, Gbenga, must realize that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and as long as the anti-corruption war continues, jabs will come their way,” continues Uzokwe. “Assuming that Gbenga is innocent of all the allegations against him, he must realize that all these come with the territory. All these years, he has enjoyed the perks of being the son of Nigeria’s president and Nigerians did not hear him complain. He must now be ready to take the bad pill along with the good.”

President Obasanjo’s war has already claimed one son of privilege. The Abuja Court of Appeal in Nigeria has ruled that Abba Sani Abacha, the son of former Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha, must stand trial for his alleged role in the looting of public funds during his father’s reign from 1993 until his death in 1998. Nigerian state lawyers believe Abacha Snr. may have stolen as much as $2.2 billion.

Abba was charged with money laundering and fraud by German authorities late last year on a Swiss warrant and has since been extradited to Switzerland where he will stand trial. Swiss authorities began investigating bank accounts linked to Abba’s father after the Nigerian government accused the late dictator of stashing stolen public funds in offshore accounts (following his election in 1999, President Obasanjo vowed to recover billions of dollars stolen from state coffers during decades of military rule, and said he would use some of that money to repay Nigeria’s foreign debt). In February of this year, Switzerland announced that it was returning $458 million invested in its banks by Abacha. As well as Switzerland, Nigeria is looking for money in the UK, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the US.

Despite being the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, some 60% of Nigerians live in poverty and the country’s economic strife has long been linked to corruption and decades of successive military dictatorships alleged to have incurred the massive debt burden that currently cripples the nation. Allegations of corruption also dog President Obasanjo’s first presidential term in the late 1970s.

Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, a distinguished crusader against foul play and minister for the federal capital territory, earned the wrath of the Nigerian Senate last year when he accused two senators of asking him for a bribe before his nomination as minister was approved.

According to el-Rufai, at least three out of every four lawmakers are corrupt in Nigeria, as well as half of the nation’s governors and many of its civil servants. On a more uplifting note, most of the country’s Cabinet ministers and the nation’s top judges were clean, he said, although bribery was common in the lower levels of the judiciary.

Things are beginning to change, he said, but only because corrupt government officials have begun to fear that they might get caught.

“We are moving away from a culture of impunity, where people felt they could be corrupt and get away with it, to the point where people are scared of being corrupt. If a few more ministers go to jail, if a few more members of the National Assembly go to jail, believe me, people will line up and do the right thing,” he said.

A position Nigeria World’s Alfred Uzokwe strongly agrees with.

“The lesson here is that Nigerians abide by the rule of law only when a credible threat, for contravention, hangs over them like the sword of Damocles. . . . If the current anti-graft war [is to] succeed . . . tough talk alone will not cut it. It must be backed with tough punitive measures like prosecution, jail terms and forefeiture of ill-gotten property to the government” he said, quoting the Latin phrase, “Metus improbos compescit, non clementia” – which means, “Fear, not kindness, restrains the wicked.”

Perhaps the final word goes to Nigeria World columnist Moshood Ademola Fayemiwo, who writes:

“In Nigeria, once you are ‘elected,’ you are repeatedly told: ‘This is your time’ meaning; ‘Steal, but make sure you’re not caught.’ . . . So where should President Obasanjo begin his moral crusade? . . . That first step begins with him both as a citizen and a leader. A leader should lead by examples. That Ota Farm which he owns in the outskirts of Lagos couldn’t have been acquired by Obasanjo with his salaries as former head of state or retired general.”

A champion of the president’s war on corruption, Fayemiwo declares Obasanjo must first “dance naked” and expose the skeletons in his own closet if he is to convince those who have given up on Nigeria that it will no longer be business as usual.

Lisa Peryman, Odious Debts Online, May 6, 2005