Corruption scandals are a major feature of the news in Nigeria. That is because corruption is a defining feature of Nigerian politics in at least three ways, and all of them play out in the media.
First, there is corruption as a political narrative, as something to talk about, as the subject of a story, rather than an act of wrongdoing. Merely talking about corruption is a major political activity in Nigeria, and one that all political actors participate in with equal vigour. Nigerians, as citizens, rail against corruption all the time and everywhere. University classrooms, especially those in the social sciences and humanities, often end up with both lecturers and students lamenting the level of corruption in the country. Novelists, activists and cultural icons and intellectuals talk about it and paint a heavenly picture of a country Nigeria would be if only there were no corruption. Religious leaders lament it too, if they scarcely preach against it, as in really preach against it, such as by example.
And of course, politicians and political leaders also talk about it too, perhaps with even more spit when they do. The average Nigerian politician is a saint who, like the ordinary citizens, also laments pervasive corruption in the country. More than merely lamenting it, as the citizens do, our average Nigerian politician sees corruption as a speck in the eyes of other politicians and leaders that he, or she, must remove for the betterment of all. For a Nigerian politician or aspiring leader, talking about fighting corruption makes them an instant political hero with the rest of the citizens, at least until other politicians see the same speck in our politician’s own eyes when the right opportunity presents itself.
All of this for the moment is at the realm of political talk, without any specific instances of corrupt acts in reference, such as, for example, when David Cameron said Nigeria is a “fantastically corrupt” country and the whole nation went haywire in justifying or agonising against that. It is, perhaps, by talking and lamenting about corruption that Nigerians find meaning about their country, that people make sense of the everyday chaos and dysfunction around them. It is as if merely talking about corruption—and at this point I mean just talking about it—is the glue of common citizenship that binds Nigerians together as citizens of the same country. Almost nothing else achieves that.
Ultimately, the press is the foremost site for much of this talk, ensuring that there is a story about corruption in the newspapers or other media, nearly every day. Other interpersonal sites such as what in much of northern Nigeria we call “chamber” (a collection of friends just about anywhere), shops, clubs, buses—just about anywhere a handful of Nigerians gather—as well as the courts and official documents, films and novels, and now social media groups, are all important for talking about corruption in Nigeria. But none of these has the reach or effectiveness of the press, which daily drips with stories of corruption.
The second relationship is the performative and intensely political role that corruption plays in Nigerian politics. Accusation of corruption, rather than election or performance for example, is the most important political tool for removing somebody from office in Nigeria, regardless of whether the allegation is true or not. Those being removed in the name of fighting corruption may well be guilty, and indeed, most have been one way or another, but those doing the accusation are not necessarily innocent of corruption either. It is all politics. This is why the media is the preeminent site for much of Nigeria’s empty anti-corruption war by nearly all governments or anti-corruption agencies, rather than the courts or policy and legal mechanisms that are universally and impartially enforced.
In this sense, much of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agenda is a performance, regardless of the government proclaiming it. It is like a theatrical play in which the actors do not always mean what they say or do, unless there is somebody to remove from office, not necessarily to reduce corruption, but more to advance the political or bureaucratic career of somebody else. Accusation of corruption is the most effective weapon for political fights in Nigeria, not because those accused of corruption are innocent—they are mostly not—but because the motive of the accusers is almost always political; not legal or moral. And where is it best to do such political work with accusations of corruption rather than the newspapers and other media?
Third, there is a direct link between corruption and democratic politics. It is hard to believe, but for a country still coming out of long years of military rule like Nigeria, democratic politics actually increases the opportunities for corruption and corrupt behaviour; think ministers, legislators, party honchos, political godfathers, and even ordinary party members who vote in primary elections. Even ordinary democratic processes such as elections, election petitions, law-making and oversight functions of the legislatures, impeachment proceedings or threats of them, policy-making and so on, all increase the opportunities for more corruption in a democratic political culture such as ours.
Investigative committees and probe panels of the national and state assemblies, for example, are often constituted precisely to attract a slice of the spoils for the members as we saw previously in the cases of one Farouk Lawan, Ndudi Elumelu and others in the green chamber. Anti-corruption cases in courts and in the clandestine offices of anti-corruption agencies sometimes also play similar political roles of snaring to get a slice of the action.
But equally too, democratic politics also enhances the opportunities for disclosing and exposing corruption. Media investigations, whistle-blowers, leaks, the courts, probe panels and commissions of inquiry, and well, anti-corruption and oversight processes all help to get news about corrupt behaviour in the press. Yet, for Nigeria, it is more useful to look at all of these more from the perspectives of politics and political processes, rather than from any moral or legal imperatives.
So far, we have tried to advance a theory of corruption and politics in Nigeria, and their representation as scandals in the press, at least, as briefly as this space would allow. Yet, the practical implication is not far-fetched. Consider the scandal still boiling at the humanitarian affairs ministry. Given what we now know about the case so far, it looks like the two principal actors—the minister and the suspended head of her agency—both have questions to answer, if in different ways. But the reason why we come to know about the case at all is possibly more of politics than anything else, and you can see even the EFCC has since calmed down, as the spotlight shines on unexpected corners.
Consider also a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele’s case. I could be wrong, but I honestly don’t see how Emefiele would not be culpable in at least some of the allegations against him. But according to our theory here, his guilt or not may not be the issue here, since there are others who may have done similar or worse things around the same time who are now close pals with the present leaders. So, you probably won’t hear of any corruption cases against them in the press. This is no excuse for Emefiele or anyone, of course, but a bit of a lens for looking through all the scandals anew.
