Justice Akanbi's ICPC Fighting Corruption With Soiled Hands

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I am still highly surprised that instead of simply resigning his thoroughly discredited job as the Chairman of the so called ‘Independent’ Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and returning to his village to find for himself a more ennobling post-retirement amusement, Hon. Justice Mustapha Akanbi (rtd.) is still out there in Abuja, clinging fast to his horribly muddied seat, and deluding himself that he is ‘fighting corruption.’ Which corruption, by the way? I mean, there must certainly be some strange spirit that automatically possesses all those invited to ‘come and eat’ at Abuja which pushes them to immediately conclude that Nigerians are a brood of 120 million fools, with very simple minds, which anyone can just wake up and manipulate with any drab propaganda. On Monday, September 29, Akanbi’s ICPC was three years old, and I expected him to use that unique opportunity to really reflect on the fact that genuine, enduring credibility is earned, not purchased. Credibility is like oil, and once it spills on the ground, it becomes worthless. Like a lost virginity, its conspicuous absence abides with the person perennially. But unfortunately, Akanbi and his men spent quality time on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) on that Monday, during the so-called ICPC NEWS, thumping their chests in self-apotheosis, and reeling out the ‘gains’ of their ICPC in its ‘gallant fight’ against corruption. In fact, they looked so pitiable as they recited what I was quite sure nobody, including themselves, believed.

The festering credibility bruises which Akanbi’s ICPC suffers from today is self-inflicted. It lost enormous goodwill when it most willingly continued to define corrupt Nigerians as those ‘rebels’ who refuse or cease to worship before the monstrous Aso Rock ‘Golden Image’, erected by a self-styled ‘master’ sculptor in a Hill-top mansion in downtown Minna with raw materials from Egbaland, and fashioned after Nebuchadnezer’s ancient Babylonian model.

Indeed, when General Olusegun Obasanjo launched the ICPC with characteristic fanfare three years ago, few Nigerians paid him any attention. They saw it as one of those things the General usually did to kill boredom in the absence ‘some pressing international engagement abroad,’ or a Senate President to impeach. It was inconceivable really that a president whose cabinet swarmed with men and women whose mind-boggling corrupt practices earned them front pages daily could be serious about fighting a monster that shared a bed with him every other night. So, towards his made-for-the-poor ICPC Nigerians displayed the same indifference and resignation which had marked their response and attitude to his unspeakably incompetent regime. And for sometime, the ICPC remained just another dead wood at Abuja, unknown and unfelt by anyone! in Nigeria.

I do not know exactly when the ICPC and its chairman actually overcame the effect of their Aso Rock-injected sedative and woke to commence its uncoordinated and riotous barking, but I suddenly noticed that they had all of a sudden gone on rampage, probably after a shot of Aso Rock made ‘opium’, administered to them when it became necessary that the leadership of the National Assembly must be made to know who was ‘really in-charge’ of Nigeria. ICPC’s battle with Mr. Pius Anyim, the famed made-in-Aso Rock Senate President, was the most fierce. Of course, that was equally when ICPC also got the still festering bruises whose only cure remains Akanbi’s resignation. At that time, Mr. Arthur Nzeribe, one of those recurring anomalies in our Senate, had alleged that Mr. Anyim had corruptly amassed boundless wealth for himself and equally bought choice properties in major cities of the world. Personally I was so alarmed, and in a memorable essay entitled, “The President Obasanjo Gave The Senate”, I asked Anyim to go and face Akanbi’s ICPC which at that time was after him as if the first corrupt man had just happened on our soil. The opening lines of the essay, still available on the internet, reads thus: ‘Please, for the sake of all that is decent and healthy, let someone just go and look out for Mr. Pius Anyim, that young Ohozara lawyer of the other day and Obasanjo’s Greek gift to a senate and Nigeria he has little or no regard for, and ask him to just go and face Mustapha Akanbi’s “Independent” Corrupt Practices And Related Offences Commission (ICPC). What he is being accused of accumulating and acquiring, and the money he is being accused of stealing and squandering are so much and so mind-boggling that his present arrogant and pigheaded attitude and response to his most horrendous offence is unspeakably detestable and grossly offensive. How can a sane being primitively accumulate so much, indeed, much more than he would even need, in so short a time in office?’

My reason for this stance was simple: According to the Holy Scriptures: The righteous is as bold as the lion. So, to my mind, the only time Anyim’s Senate could justifiably move against the Akanbi’s ICPC as Anyim tried to make them do at that time, was after he had proved that Nzeribe’s accusations were lies. But because Anyim failed to do this, and continued by his comportment to prove that he was guilty as charged, Akanbi’s ICPC for sometime was able to savour the dubious moral air which it radiated with ostentatious self-righteousness at that time. So, when the Senate sought to amend the law setting up the ICPC, Akanbi and Aso Rock were able to sell through the position that the action of the Senate was solely meant to shield Anyim and other bad eggs from the law.

But this was only a marginal part of the story. Akanbi’s zeal was selective and discriminatory. So, we did ask questions: why did the presidency suddenly ‘realize’ that Anyim was corrupt and amassing wealth? Was it because he had stopped ‘yessiring’? Why did Akanbi not also go after a certain minister whose case Anyim cited, who had built a great mansion not far from Aso Rock after being in office for just only six months? The media were publishing most horrible and nauseating cases of corrupt practices about federal ministers daily, why was Akanbi ignoring it all? The Auditor-General published a very damning report on the activities of our ‘most holy, anti-corruption’ Executive and uncovered the most primitive prosecution of corruption witnessed on planet earth, did anybody hear the ‘righteous voice’ of Akanbi?

And even when the same Nzeribe, the very man whose report about Anyim, Akanbi was acting upon came out to shock the world with the confession that he had obtained more than 300million naira to bribe his fellow senators to drop their impeachment move against Emperor Obasanjo and commence one against Anyim, what did Akanbi do? At least Nzeribe, rather than deny his condemnable and subversive act, was going about, dissipating enormous energy, seeking to prove that he did actually obtain the infamous millions and did dole them out to the senators as instructed! Did Akanbi and his ICPC need any further proof to haul in Nzeribe for questioning? And now, recently, TheNews Magazine published a most-foul smelling allegations of corruption against the Inspector General ! of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun. Has Akanbi and his national elixir not heard about those mind-boggling revelations which the IG is trying to sweep under the carpet? Well, a very ‘friendly’ National Assembly is now in place, and it is most likely that the bribery allegations against the Senate by the Minister of FCT, Mr. Nasir el-Rufai, is yet to reach Akanbi’s ears!

Somebody should please walk across and inform Justice Mustapha Akanbi, that it would amount to asking for too much for him to still expect us to trust him and his ICPC again. He should stop pouring away millions of naira on TV adverts, trying to flog a dead horse. He has lost it and he has lost it! The credibility of ICPC still under Akanbi or anyone appointed by Emperor Obasanjo is irredeemable. We trust NAFDAC today not because of a million TV adverts or any ‘NAFDAC NEWS’ on NTA. Akanbi should stop trying to climb a tree from the top. How long can it take him to wash off the leopard’s spots? In NAFDAC and its Director-General, Dr.(Mrs.) Dora Akunyili, we see transparency and sincerity of purpose, but in Akanbi’s ICPC, these basic qualities are sadly missing. I hope that in ti! me, a responsible government will emerge and probe Akanbi and his ICPC to tell us how much he had squandered ‘combating corruption’ with crooked hands. Until then, the minimum we require from him now is for him to just go.

Jan 2004