Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission said lack of political will and inconsistencies in implementing anti-corruption measures were major reasons efforts to curb graft in Nigeria had failed in the past.

Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Justice Mustapher Akanbi, yesterday attributed lack of political will and inconsistency in the implementation of some ad-hoc measures put in place by past regimes as some of the major reasons for the failure of efforts to curb corrupt practices by Nigerians in the past.

Delivering an address at the opening of a one-day interactive seminar on the theme, “Fighting Corruption: The Stakeholders’ Perspective” at the Commission’s head office, Abuja, Akanbi also listed the inability of past regimes to prosecute any important Nigerian for corrupt acts as accounting for the indifference of Nigerians to corruption.

In addition, the learned retired Justice pointed to the un-seriousness on the part of law enforcement agencies or authorities in dealing with reported cases of corruption as another of the contributing reasons why the battle against corruption is yet to be worn by Nigerians.

“The question is: why did previous efforts at tackling corruption fail? My belief is that past regimes did not manifest the strong political will, so vital for any successful effort at combating the menace of corruption.

“There was inconsistency in the implementation of the ad-hoc measures put in place and the efforts of one or two military administration to tackle the problems head on were thwarted by successive regimes who never saw corruption as anything serious worthy of their attention.

“Instead, they adopted a cosmetic approach in dealing with the issue. A successor regime returned seized properties to their ‘owner’ even though such ‘owners’ were divested of the properties on the grounds that they acquired them illegally and corruptly.

“Secondly, for almost about two decades, Nigerians kept talking about corruption, yet no one was being prosecuted for corruption in any of the superior courts of record.

“The lethargy on the part of the law enforcement agencies or the authority in dealing with issues/cases of corruption gave the criminally minded corruptees and their cohorts a field day and encouraged them to continue to amass ill gotten wealth at the expense of the nation,” Akanbi said.

He noted that it was this prevailing un-seriousness against corruption that necessitated the promulgation of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act on June 30, 2000, the establishment of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on September 29, 2000. And that President Olusegun Obasanjo made the fight against corruption part of his election campaign manifesto and the passing of the Act was made in fulfillment of his promise to tackle the issue of corruption head on.

Akanbi described the 2000 ICPC Act as unique in the sense that it goes beyond criminalizing corruption to empowering the Commission to educate the public against bribery, corruption and related offences. It is against this background that the he grouped all Nigerians as stakeholders in the arduous task of fighting corruption.

“You owe it [as] a duty to yourself and the nation that corruption is done away with in this country. It is your responsibility to ensure that money meant for government coffers are not diverted into private pockets of unscrupulous individuals,” Akanbi said.

He described corrupt person[s] as economic saboteurs, whose acts stunt economic growth and developments.

George Oji, This Day, September 15, 2005