On Nigerian Criminality and Public Accountability

Nigerians and Criminality

I have NEVER believed that the individual Nigerian, being human like everyone else - the Ghanaian, American, Japanese, etc. -  is any more corrupt or less corrupt than anyone else, nor is he more or less spiritually inclined to be so. Even when you factor in "original sin" and the "fallen-ness" of Mankind, geneticists have so far not discovered a "corruption" gene whose markers are more preponderant in Nigerians (or Africans for that matter) than other groups of people in the world.

What Nigerians within Nigeria in general have are:

(i)      a disproportionate preponderance of means, motive and opportunities for criminality within our borders;

(ii)      a disproportionate lack of the certainty, predictability and long-standing effects of punishment of such transgressions (Failed Banks, Failed Contracts Tribunals notwithstanding);

(iii)    a careless expectation that such lack of discovery of criminality and adequate punishments within Nigeria is exportable to other shores, and finally:

(iv)    a complete disconnection between the odor of their criminality and the image of our nation. The last one is what I call a lack of national self-esteem, brought about for now by a lack of national esprit de corps and ethos. [In family self-esteem, you are always concerned not to bring the name of your family to disrepute, a hallmark of African-ness, although not uniquely African.]

 

Technology and Criminality

Let me give an example of a very simple crime to illustrate points (i)-(iii). It could happen in Anywhere, USA, but let us say it happened in Texas. A man who had recently happily  "checked out" out Nigeria - let us call him “Andrew” - overstayed his visitor’s visa (as he originally intended anyway), and was caught speeding along a highway at 80 mph. He was stopped by a burly white Texas Ranger, and told the exact amount of his excessive speed. Our Nigerian Andrew denied his act vehemently and loudly, pointing to his speedometer as recording no more than 40 mph throughout. When asked to produce his drivers' license, he said he had just lost it. He started to protest vigorously with all the newly-acquired Texas twang that he could muster, that he was a US citizen with rights too! The Ranger quietly asked for his name, at the same time reached over the hood of the car to read the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the car.  He  asked the Nigerian to wait patiently in his car, while he returned to his own squad car to do some record checking. Sensing that he was in some trouble, and successfully resisting the urge to offer a bribe (the burly Texas Ranger spoke good English and looked awfully more "prosperous" than himself), the offending Nigerian started to "beg", saying he was in a hurry to get to an important interview. He pleaded that he should be treated with mercy just like the Ranger would treat his "junior brother." (That gave the Ranger an inquisitive squint - "Black man my brother?", he asked himself quietly.)

After the Ranger pleaded anthropological ignorance of such a familial connection and returned to his squad car, the Nigerian engaged his car's ignition and took off at a high rate of speed. Looking through his mirror, he noticed that the Ranger sat calmly. Thirty minutes later, our Nigerian was flagged down by three terrifyingly light-flashing squad cars, and six cops came out – guns drawn!

The proverbial "Andrew" is now cooling his heels in jail for multiple offences, including driving a stolen car without ever having a Texas license, fleeing scene of arrest, and multiple other offences. He is now awaiting certain deportation, ready to be "checked back" into Nigeria.

If we analyze this situation, we will notice that our proverbial Nigerian moved from lying to temptation to bribe, to begging to physical flight to avoid arrest. Technologically-challenged Andrew probably did not know that a speed gun is routinely used here, the patrol cop can call ahead to other cars along his route, the VIN, citizenship and visa status can be instantly checked in national computer records etc. All these routine steps are just alien to our experience for now in Nigeria.

It is this same kind of ignorance that lets a Nigerian crime group make 20,000 drug crime-related calls (?) from a store-front in Chicago, and think that that kind of unusualness will go undetected.

Motive, Means and Opportunity – and Lack of Detection

Every criminality is marked by motive, means and opportunity - and hope of non-detection. The motives of financial crimes are clear - getting rich quickly, greed (i.e. getting even richer) and ostentation (i.e. showing others how indeed rich you are). The means proliferate in this country (USA) and the developed world - credit cards, phone calls, Internet - because while all commerce depends on trust and now technology, Western commerce is chronically so. It is both the means and the opportunity (many of which are not available in Nigeria, except for highly-placed government officials as well as policemen) that seem all so easy - deceptively easy to take advantage of - that land many Nigerians in trouble abroad.


Crime and Nigeria's International Image

When criminality involving Nigerians is announced anywhere in the world, much as we many deny it, each one of us winces privately and sheds a tear that may not appear on our faces but that do dampen our hearts. I even search out the names of the Nigerians announced to see whence they came in Nigeria, what ethnic affiliation they bear, etc. If there is national character in the names, I relax a bit. If too many names sound or translate like mine, I hiss and spit a curse in Yoruba vernacular and call around to friends in the cities mentioned to see whether they know any of these miscreants. Call that ethnicism if you wish, but you are as guilty as I am.

Even with "419," where we believe that those foreigners who fall into the trap of such a silly temptation are equally to blame, we know and are certain that it affects our nation disproportionately and asymmetrically than it affects the country of the "victims". But in fact, our country's image is the victim, and it is transmitted to us in our work places, and many other places.

I went to a seminar in Washington recently in which an participant said that it appears that the Nigerian government, and so-called  "patriotic or nationalistic Nigerians" in particular don't realize that if there were an HIV or AIDS in international commerce, "419" comes closest to it. That 419 continues to fester, and there is no feeling that the Nigerian government is strenuously doing something about it to stanch it. Nigerians sometimes try to rationalize it away - racism, victimization, etc. - but it will continue to hurt us very badly. Try setting up a business deal abroad outside the oil industry in Nigeria, and many a time a psychological door is shut at our faces. We Nigerians must first break that door down OURSELVES before we can expect others to walk through it with us.

Of course the most recent and ultimate "419" was the June 12, 1993 presidential election that was promised, and not delivered. Ultimately, that is what "419" is - a promise not delivered. The Nigerian government and Nigerians sometimes fail to realize that the world looks at us in totality: are there things that these people do AS A NATION that we could be assigned to national malaise? When the Olympic team wins a soccer championship, people meet you on the way, and say "Ah - you Nigerians play good soccer!" You don't say, "No - it is the Olympic team that plays good soccer." You say "Thank you", smile and move on. When the Nigerian soccer team lost the African Nation's cup earlier today, we all felt pain as Nigerians. Similarly, we should not be surprised when we are all tarred with the same "419" brush. We had to take the good, the bad and the ugly as Nigerians.

During the Abacha days, a government official once complained to me bitterly that we "pro-democrats" portray Nigeria in a bad light by constantly complaining about the government abroad. I said that much of our complaint centered around the resolution of the June 12 crisis and its concomitant effects, that if we did not complain, the world would think far less of Nigerians as being single-mindedly tolerant of palpable deceitfulness and injustice and impunity. Our complaints therefore provided hope, not shame and destruction.


So how do we run an accountable shop in Nigeria?

We need honest Nigerians to run the present and future Nigeria, but such honesty should not depend solely, or even largely, on individual probity or outlandish (even if welcome) displays of legal tribunals. We must recognize that what we have are public servants, not public saints. What we therefore need are credible structures of accountability.

Take a contract job. It appears to me that it should be very easy to institute a process on a federal, state and local government basis, whereby:
 

(1)  open tender for such contracts, especially large-money-value ones

(2) a timeline of checks on the progress of a job for which money has been assigned is set, and known to as many interested parties, including even competitors for the job (for the case of for example road or building contract, etc.) I have often wondered how it is possible, without a pervasive conspiracy of silence, for 1 billion naira to be reportedly spent on a contract, only to find out that the contract was never executed. After the first million, or two or ten, who asked what? I mean, I have grants here in the US, and I cannot expect money the following year if I have not submitted a verifiable and credible report this year.

(3) an integrated regime of accountability:  it is not only your boss, and your boss's boss who can call you into account, but ANY officer in charge of your account WHOSE JOB IS SAFE if he calls you into question, and who can sue (and expect to collect) both from his employer and the instigator if he is fired from the job on account of a query:  in short mutually-assured accountability and protection. In my university grants, I have to submit quarterly or yearly accounts, and if I have to move monies from one category to another, I send a memo (to an officer I have  hardly ever met) respectfully requesting such movement. If it is an   inappropriate movement, he respectfully declines or asks that I write a memo explaining my request. Thus, if President Obasanjo spends money that he should not spend, the National Assembly should be able to drag before it ANY government official who might not have been presented a legal warrant for expenditure, even by the President.

(4) most important of all of this is a fair and independent judiciary; and finally, what we have not had so far,

(5) a publicly financed Council of Ombudsmen who can receive complaints from any citizen on any issue, and document and publish cases on behalf of those aggrieved, and a Legal Aid Council who can file cases and appear in court for the aggrieved. A vigorous and independent Press is also essential in this regard, in terms of publicising abuse of power.

Some of these suggestions are obvious, and may have been tested before. Others can be put forward. However, we need to recommit ourselves to them in the future Nigeria that we must build which must be an open society in which our citizens and leaders cannot hide or engage in their natural proclivities for criminality with negligent abandon.

Related articles:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/38

SUNDAY MUSINGS: On Corruption in Nigeria: "419 - The Game is Not Over!"

http://www.ngex.com/personalities/voices/se093000_2baluko.htm

SATURDAY ESSAY: On Nigeria's Anti-Corruption Law

http://www.nigerianmuse.com/anti419project/index.html

Anti-419 Project

 

Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD                                         

Burtonsville, MD,

USA February 13, 2000