By Dr Vincent Adedara
Corruption is the bane of greatness in Nigeria, if you can compromise and cooperate with the corrupt institutions in Nigeria, you will not be incarcerated. I witnessed a raid of a building around my house in the night around 1.30 am by EFCC, l thought there was an armed robbery attack until l saw a bus with inscription of EFCC, I was in charge of the house because the Landlord is not in Nigeria, EFCC broke the doors of the house when the residents were fast asleep and surrounded the house and shooting to the air. It was a terrible day as we were afraid of stray bullets.
The operation was not different from armed robbery attacks. Some boys were raided and taken into custody, their cars were detained after releasing them as collateral. One of them told me they said he must pay in dollars to have his car released. Most often, the car will be abandoned by these boys, and next, you can’t trace the cars again. The same Gestapo way of arresting Nigerian citizens as if armed robbers are on a raid is the style through which Very dark man was arrested, and they will not release him soon because he may not be willing to compromise or cooperate with them in their understood institutional language.
Do Anti Anti-Graft Agency prosecute high-profile corrupt officers in power who have destroyed the economy of the country? Anti-graft agencies should stop being a political tool in the hands of the government in power and stop chasing squirrels when they have elephants to capture.
Have you not seen uniform officers going around with POS machines? If fraudsters are caught, they have to pay a percentage of the money in their accounts through ATM or money transfer or bitcoin transfer or payment in dollars at times for them to be released or go to jail through trumped-up charges and unfounded complex accusations that will make you settle quickly. And if you are eventually charged, your bail conditions will be made stringent so as to stay long in prison because you failed to compromise. That is why you will see fraudsters arrested in the night, and the following morning, you will see them in the street again.
A percentage had been paid. People are afraid to say the truth because, you can be roped in for what you know nothing about and be left in jail for a long time. That is the system in Nigeria, lots of innocent people suffer more for what they knew nothing about in the country especially the poor than what they know. An innocent person will be coerced into paying for trump up offences and it must be done within time given.
An officer in Uniform only knows a bible verse in the Bible and once quoted it to me when l was insisting on my right some time ago. He quoted Matthew 5:25 precisely and accurately: “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison”.
They are very smart and have support from the top hierarchy, and if you fail to play along, you will be frustrated. Even lawyers have compromised. Instead of standing strong, they will tell you, if you can’t beat them, you join them. We need urgent intervention in Nigeria, maybe intervention through revolution without bloodshed.
All segments of our institutions are corrupt by 80 percent, including civil service, police, ICPC, and EFCC in particular. The eighty percent will eventually corrupt the remaining twenty percent of officers with integrity. All the officers in uniform are only doing “thief snatched it, thief collected it.” You can be fraudulent. Just have enough proceeds of crimes in your account to pay, and you will soon be free. There is no saint anywhere in our country; most of our security institutions are not better than Yahoo boys institutions.
We are in a country where a sitting Senate president was alleged with sexual harassment on different occasions and the first victim called “Port Harcourt girl” had allegedly slapped him for such harassment in the past and the second victim alleged huge sum of money was paid into her account as “sexual advance fee”, yet we allow the man to still preside as a Senate president. l can understand that everything is possible in Nigeria, including the Senate President getting a third time for President Tinubu.
Insofar as he is loyal to the government, he is untouchable, and he can commit any atrocity and still be ignored and covered. A chairman of the Ethics Committee in the Senate was indicted for fraudulent practices in the USA. He is still presiding because he is loyal to his fellow Mafias. We have many corrupt individuals with cases in court still being reappointed into sensitive positions. It is a Nigerian style of leadership.
To submit a petition at FCID Alagbon, Lagos, you will have to pay ₦50000 “facilitation fees,” and in Abuja, it is ₦100000. And if you refuse to pay the “facilitation fees”, your petition will be “put away”, another vocab clause. I see this as a pre-bribe fee, to be followed by an interlocutory fee, and post post-investigation fee may be the last fee.
Finally, if your matter is considered for investigation especially outside jurisdiction, for the men in uniform, it depends on institutions without exception, you will pay for fueling, logistics and hotel bills of the officers and we say they will uphold justice, equity and rule of law, unofficial financial payments will becloud the sense of good judgement of the officers and he who plays the piper will eventually dictate the tunes, justice will become cash and carry system in Nigeria more soon with a blatant obstruction of access to justice even for the rich.
Innocent people are being killed extra judicially because of money and bribes. Justice is a no-go area for the poor in Nigeria. Justice is for the highest bidders, the more money or influence you have, the better justice you get. There is no equality again but a mere bulldog and paper tiger in the constitution, especially for the poor.
This is the reason everyone especially the young men are looking for money at all costs so as to belong and be part of the society where money and influence dictate justice direction, the position you will occupy in Nigeria depends on money and influence, there is no merit again, then Nigeria is sitting on gun powder kegs, kidnapping, robbery and fraud will increase mostly because of nepotism, inequality and corruption of the system.
If you don’t believe it, check high profile offices in Nigeria with third class graduates and even school certificates leavers frolicking because of influence and money they can garner to bribe through while we have first class graduates and even master and PhD holders riding “Okada” for livelihood because of insensitive people we call leaders in Nigeria, Youth are becoming money mongers because we have portrayed to them that no good things can come from anyone who has no millions in his or her accounts.
Institutional failures in Nigeria are driving many of our young men into survival strategies, and anti-graft institutions are running after them to share out of the corrupt proceeds they managed to grab fraudulently.
Civil service is the worst, they help politicians to siphon money, teach them how to perfect their corruption, no level of government is excepted, corruption is endemic and viral. Until there is a serious reform in the civil service, the fight against corruption will remain a mirage in Nigeria.
There is an implosion waiting to occur in Nigeria, which will consume the forces against civil liberties. Endsars is a replica , it is going to be spontaneous and uncontrollable if we don’t nip it at the bud timeously and many political classes and those responsible for the institutional failures will be caught in the webs. My intuition cannot be wrong.
Adedara is a solicitor in Nigeria, England and Wales
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
