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Special report… Diezani: Lessons for Nigeria’s anti-corruption war

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EFCC detains 11 INEC officials in Gombe over Diezani's $115m

By Timothy Enietan-Matthews (Nation’s capital)… .
Last week’s Friday arrest of the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, came to many as a surprise, largely because it was not expected at the point it happened and where it happened.
Despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s vow that those who looted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, will soon be brought to book, many pessimistic Nigerians viewed the statement as another movement without motion.
Those who believed so may have grounds to do so because the Buhari administration came to power largely on its promise to Nigerians to fight corruption headlong immediately it assumes power.
For four months, the administration dwelt largely on the blame game, with many senior officers and party chieftains constantly demonizing former government officials, without considerable energy devoted to bringing them to book. So the arrest of the former minister came as a refreshing start to the anti-corruption crusade the government had promised.
Die-hard apologists of the Buhari administration saw Alison-Madueke’s arrest as a great feat and the beginning of the clamp down of corrupt elements, believed to have milked the nation’s treasury dry.
However, emerging details points to the fact that the investigation and arrest of the former minister had nothing to do with the Nigerian government neither was it initiated by it.
According to information from the United Kingdom, the current travails of Alison-Madueke started way back in 2013, long before the Buhari government came to power. The former minister, according to reports, had been on the radar of the UK National Crime Agency, NCA, which had been conducting discreet investigations into some of her brow raising financial transactions in the country. These painstaking investigations led to her arrest.
It should however be noted that the issue of who did what led to her arrest may not be as important as the lessons the Nigerian government and its anti-graft agencies, especially the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, have to learn.
The major drawback of the nation’s anti-corruption crusade has been that of procedures. A drawback that has allowed suspected corrupt individuals walk free and literally become superstars, and enjoying their loot freely.
In the case of Alison-Madueke, the NCA had been reportedly trailing her for more than two years without giving her an inkling of what was going on. Oblivious of what lurks in the corner, she chose the Queen’s land as a place to stay, far removed from the prying eyes of the Buhari administration.

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For Nigerians, the media would have been awash with suggestions or outright information that she is being investigated and would soon be moved against. Such cases abound and that of a former governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odilli comes to mind.
Odilli, because of procedural error, successfully truncated every attempt to arrest and bring him to justice by procuring a perpetual injunction barring his being investigated and arrested. He has remained a free man for more than eight years and counting.
Another important lesson to be learnt from the Alison-Madueke’s saga is the usual practice of media trial and attracting so much buzz whenever a so-called big fish is caught. The NCA has so far refused to release the identities of those arrested with the former minister, claiming that their laws do not permit them to do so until they are charged to court.
This, in my opinion is the way to go! It beats the mind why Nigerian anti graft agencies engage in media blitz anytime they make arrests as if they are soap opera producers. Discretion is what has been largely lacking in their operations, which most times, rob their cases of the needed tack, reducing it to ‘witch hunt’ and an attempt to ridicule the suspects.
This practice has largely reduced their efforts to the realm of politics, and enlisting an army of sympathisers for their victims in the process.
According to our statute books, a suspect remains a suspect and adjudged innocent until found guilty by a competent court of law. Yet, they are treated and judged like condemned criminals by our law enforcement agencies. This has to change if the Nigerian government is really serious about fighting corruption and defeating the scourge!

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