Africa: Growth Versus Corruption

By many accounts, Africa's hitherto dour economic condition is changing for the better. The continent used to be one about which nothing good was said. Wars, famine, diseases and coups d’etat were the main images by which Africa was defined by most analysts, especially those in the developed world. Consequently, the African story, as told by the global media, ran along a pre-determined pattern, and it was largely ugly.

Now, I am not trying to say that wars have ceased here, or that coups d’etat are over, or that Africans have stopped killing themselves over mundane issues such as tribe or religion. Far from it! These ugly occurrences are still taking place with devastating impact on our progress and image in the world. In spite of this, however, I can say that these evils have reduced in the last three decades or so. One just has to look at the figures and the facts to know that Africa is rebounding. The impact may be slow and forced, but it can be felt, seen and grasped.

Writing in Foreign Policy recently, three authors - Norbert Dorr, Susan Lund and Charles Roxburgh - noted, rather effusively, that Africa has outgrown the gloom and doom by which it used to be judged. That happened within a single decade of amazing transformation from stagnation to euphoric growth. Recall that in 2001, the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair lamented thus: “The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world.” Now it seems the continent of one billion people is getting its acts together and striving to compete with the rest of the developing world.

Africa, write Dorr, Lund and Roxburgh, “is now one of the world's fastest-growing economic regions. Between 2000 and 2008, the continent's collective GDP grew at 4.9 percent per year - twice as fast as in the preceding two decades. By 2008, that put Africa’s economic output at $1.6 trillion, roughly at par with Russia and Brazil. Africa was one of two regions - Asia being the other - where GDP rose during 2009's global recession.”

As a result of this boom, which is strongly supported by increasing urbanisation, the region is fast becoming a beehive for foreign investors. Vast fields of natural resources and a population bursting at the seams are the main attractions for investors. The areas where the continent offers the greatest promise are telecommunication, oil and gas, infrastructure and domestic appliances. But agriculture, which has the potential of turning the continent into a greater economic hub with 60 percent of the world’s arable land located here, has not been sufficiently developed. The sob-story here is that countries like Nigeria that have vast arable land have stuck to oil and gas where they make a quicker buck. If such nations mechanically cultivated their lands, then the story would become rosier.

How is Africa making this great leap forward? By getting its acts together, of course. Many of its countries have embraced democracy, even if home-grown. Warts and all, this adoption has made it possible for them to carry out economic reforms in various sectors which, in turn, have translated into the trimming of waste. In Nigeria, successes have been achieved in the banking and the telecom sectors, and in the fight against corruption. Privatisation of government companies and liberalisation of other sectors have created a middle class that was only dreamt about only a decade ago. Now, it is possible to think of Nigeria or South Africa joining the four-member BRIC grouping of fast-growing economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Non-African contenders to this privileged club of emerging economies include Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia. Nigeria, with a population of more than 150 million, may get in first, even though South Africa, with under 50 million, is a larger economy. Reason: indicators favour the economy with bigger demographics because, in the long run, it is the urbanised and empowered population that would make the market rules.

But as Africa frolics in its new-found emergence from the economic woods, it is easy to forget the big challenges. Africa is still home to the world's biggest cataclysms, not only the natural ones but also the man-made. Sixty percent of its population dwells in rural areas, and it is poor, illiterate and divided along tribal and religious schisms. Without the right leadership, growth will be stunted. Now the main problem is the absence of conscientious leaders whose focus is to create the enabling environment that will see the people crawl out of poverty.

Corruption is rampant, even in nations with the greatest promise. Nigeria, the so-called economic giant, is lagging behind South Africa in most economic indices, not because the latter is richer in resources but because it is richer in leadership. Nigeria is number 134 out of 178 countries in Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, while South Africa is just number 54. There is a clear correlation between a nation’s depth of corruption and its economic growth. No wonder, then, Nigeria trails behind South Africa even though its resources are larger. People are more comfortable to relate with economies that have lesser potential for risk. According to reports, Nigeria was able to get investment flows of just $216 million for the first 10 months of this year; South Africa, however, got $3.4 billion within the same period. This shows that Nigerians in positions of authority steal more than their South African counterparts. It could also mean that the mechanism for checking corrupt practices and punishing perpetrators works better in the latter.

For Africa to maintain the tempo of its growth, therefore, it must have in place the right leaders who, in turn, must fight the spectre of corruption in their countries. At the moment, the picture is scary. Just two days ago, on Thursday, the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative of the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime issued a how-to guide for recovering stolen assets. The Asset Recovery Handbook, which can be accessed on the World Bank web site, reveals that developing countries lose between $20 billion and $40 billion each year to bribery, embezzlement and other corrupt practices. It also shows that over the past 15 years only $5 billion was recovered and returned.

The book recommends measures by which developing nations, most of which are in Africa, can recover funds siphoned from their coffers and stashed abroad. It recommends that anti-corruption practitioners such as those working in our own Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must exchange sensitive information with partners in other countries to trace stolen funds and gather evidence. They must be familiar with a wide range of legal tools and procedures for freezing, seizing and repatriating stolen funds. And they must be able to navigate the legal systems of their own country and of partner countries. They must also know that, as our own anti-corruption czar, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, is fond of saying, corruption also fights back.

No matter how difficult it is, Africans must ensure that they up the ante of the present growth on the continent by putting the right leaders in place and making sure that corruption, by which the continent gained dubious renown, is kept at the barest minimum.

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Published in LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, today. Above picture shows Mrs Farida Waziri, chairman of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)

The Face Of Corruption

Where is Mr. Corruption domiciled? Is he to be found in an office, reclining in a cushion chair and enjoying air-conditioning, or in the garage sweating it out under the sun? Or does he reside in a palace with a big turban or other cultural regalia, being fanned by tireless courtesans? Or is Mr. Corruption sitting in our hearts, flowing within our veins, keeping us alive, manifesting out there in splendid mansions, vintage cars, exotic gardens and aromatic meals?

I decided to ask these questions, even if poetically, after listening to the chairman of EFCC, Mrs Farida Waziri, speak during the launch of her grand project (a la Dora Akunyili’s Rebranding Nigeria Project), called Anti-Corruption Revolution (ANCOR). The South-west zone of the ‘revolution’ kicked off on Tuesday in Lagos. The event was beamed live on prime television. It attracted dignitaries like former secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku; former petroleum resources minister, Prof. Tam David-West; the colourful deputy governor of Lagos State, Mrs Sosan, and the indefatigable Prof. Dora Akunyili, information minister. It was an important event whose timing was apt. Brainstorming on the cankerworm of corruption is never a tautological task, given the fact that corruption is number one factor in the underdevelopment of this country and the way we are perceived abroad. Without corruption, Nigeria would have since attained a cardinal point of Vision 20-20-20 long ago without having to wait till 2020. But with it, it is idiotic to think that we will become one of the top 20 developed nations by that year unless, of course, if we mean to say the top 20 most backward nations.

Corruption is like a self-multiplying octopus in our national psyche. Barring predestination, it is responsible for almost all the mess that we are stuck in as a nation: bad roads, ill-equipped hospitals, under-funded educational institutions, political violence, imposition of bad rulers on the electorate, you name it. This nemesis is the reason for the loss of direction that we see in governance, the collapse of national institutions and the spiraling fall of moral values. Corruption is the ogre behind the sweeping poverty that pushes 70 percent of Nigerians below subsistence level. And poverty, which the visionary, albeit misguided, Poverty Alleviation Programme has failed woefully to reduce, thereby necessitating a Senate probe, has created cataclysms such as crime, squalor, disease and untimely death.
The questions I asked earlier on regarding the whereabouts of Mr. Corruption were predicated on Mrs Waziri’s apparent confusion when she stated, at the Tuesday event, that even though the millions of victims of corruption are well known, the face of corruption remains elusive as its perpetrators profit from obscurity and lack of transparency. By this, Madam Chairman is saying that she does not know who the corrupt Nigerians are even though she knows the victims of their criminal activities. This confession is surprising, coming from the person hired by the president to track down the perpetrators and drag them to face the law. To say that you do not know the perpetrators, in the kind of environment we have whereby ill-gotten wealth is wantonly displayed, means that the battle has been lost even before it starts.

The face of corruption is not elusive at all as the anti-graft czar claimed. The ugly face is very much available publicly, in broad daylight, gaunt and supercilious, daring anyone to touch it. What is the nickname of all those holders of public office who fearlessly display looted funds – saints or sinners? What is the source of some of the mind-boggling wealth we are seeing, owned by persons or groups that are otherwise incapable of amassing them through legitimate means?
Very often even the EFCC does come across some of the looters of the treasury. The media are awash, once in a while, with a story of such arrests and the usually hyped attempt to prosecute a suspect. After some time, the story is tucked into the inside pages and it eventually peters out. The news hawks then return to their shells to await yet another earth-shattering expose.

If Mrs Waziri is truly searching for the face of corruption, I’ll help her track it down. And it’s so simple that you’d consider it a push-over. First, she should begin by scrutinizing the face of anyone she has arrested. Since her coming on board, many high-velocity names have been nabbed by her operatives, but how many were successfully prosecuted? We were told that half a dozen state governors during the Obasanjo era were corrupt but they could not be prosecuted because of the constitutional immunity they were enjoying. Almost two years after they left office, and that privilege is gone, none of them is in jail. Instead, the ingenious minister of justice, Mr Aondoakaa, came up with the plea bargain option which the EFCC is applying in its work. According to the government, this method is cost-effective and saves time. But plea bargain, to most Nigerians, is like retrieving 10 bags from the loot of a big thief in exchange for his freedom and subsequent use of the remaining 90 bags. That, in effect, is a short cut to corruption. It further creates skepticism about the anti-corruption war and makes the citizenry to merely shrug in a resigned cynicism.

The truth is that corruption has become a national culture today, to the extent that those committing it no longer see it as an offence, while the victims of corruption regard it as a way of life. The keynote speaker at the Lagos event, Prof. David-West, had wondered why the faithful in a church or a mosque would collect donations from unscrupulous persons, knowing fully well that the source of the funds is not clean. The reason is that the faithful see such monies as normal, or as their legitimate share of the national cake. They usually reason that their “son of the soil,” the crafty donor, is bringing home the dividends of his/her contacts in high places. If they refuse to take the money, claiming some sense of purity, he would take it to a rival shrine.

Prof. David-West has poignantly put a finger on the culture of corruption in Nigeria. So much lip service has been paid to the problem to the extent that people see it as a waste of time to talk about it again. This is more so when the real perpetrators of corruption are allowed to go scot-free after being arrested. Others are enjoying the privilege of being untouchables in the war against the menace. You are punished for corruption only if you do not have the right pedigree or the right contacts. And in Nigeria, who doesn’t have powerful friends if he’s powerful enough steal? Many top shots in the country, I hear, are occupying their positions courtesy of some not-so-clean services they rendered in the past, including helping establish the government.

I wish Mrs Waziri all the best in reining in this monster. But to win the war, the EFCC chairman should begin to wage it from home, where charity usually begins. It will not help the Anti-Corruption Revolution if the citizenry see it as selective or a mere talk-shop. If you fight corruption sincerely, the people will know; if not, they will know. They have eyes and brains.