I was seeing the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) chairman, Mr Ekpo Ita, for the first time ever last Thursday, and he immediately reminded me of Mr Kofi Annan. It was not only the totally white hair, beard, moustache. It was also the same soft speech, the scholarly disposition, the reasoned arguments, the diplomatic choice of words and the very polite mannerisms. For a while I wondered, "Why did the African Union engage in a year-long search for a President of its Commission between Mr Jean Ping and Mrs Dlamini-Zuma when Mr Ekpo Ita is there for the taking?"

I do not know what Mr Nta did in his previous life, not having seen his CV, but I could glean from some of the stories he told during his two hour visit to the Media Trust's Editorial Board that he was some kind of university administrator. He told a shocking story about how the Academic Registry of the University of Uyo, which holds the archives of three previous tertiary institutions that spawned it, was destroyed by fire and how the authorities of University of Uyo failed over the years to create electronic backups of their archives. I too felt sorry for any graduate of those four schools who will go looking for his transcripts. As an illustration of the corruption in Nigerian society however, that incident is not dramatic enough to raise a lot of highbrows. Nta has been chairman of ICPC for only a few months but I still expected to hear from him much more sordid tales of Nigerian corruption.

Ok, he did tell one. He spoke about a petition he got from the University of Benin about a student that was not allowed to graduate for 12 years. The student had paid money to a certain cabal in order to get transferred to the Medical Faculty. When it did not work out, he demanded his money back and he got it back through the vice chancellor's intervention. The cabal's members then set out to ensure that he did not graduate from Uniben. His exam scripts got missing year after year. When ICPC intervened, the scripts were quickly "found" and the boy graduated that year. This is however not a new occurrence in Nigerian universities. In 1980, when President Shehu Shagari set up a visitation panel into the crises at the University of Lagos, one of the allegations made against the vice chancellor Prof Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh was that he "unilaterally" ordered the graduation of a student. Adadevoh however explained that he intervened because some professors deliberately stopped the Ph D student, who was an assistant lecturer in the same department, from graduating.

Now, those relatively gentle stories as well as the soft, easy-going mien of Mr Ekpo Nta encapsulate ICPC's image in the eyes of Nigerians. ICPC was formed around the same time as EFCC. Most Nigerians still do not know the difference in the two agencies' mandates, which was why when Mr. Steve Oronsaye went to work last year to streamline Federal Government agencies, some people said EFCC and ICPC should be merged with the Nigeria Police. I am not sure that I have read either agency's enabling law all these years, but I have formed my own impression of EFCC's and ICPC's mandates stemming from their own activities. Fair enough, isn't it?

Entirely due to the rambunctious character of its first chairman Nuhu Ribadu, EFCC took off like a rocket and within a short period of time had made a big impact on the psyche, if not the corrupt habits, of Nigerians. The newspapers lionized Nuhu Ribadu; he caught many big fraudsters even though only a few of them were actually convicted by the courts. With the approach of the 2007 elections, when Ribadu moved from common fraudsters to big politicians, especially state governors, EFCC transmuted in many Nigerians' eyes. Allegations of political witch-hunt rent the air; Ribadu generated controversy with his public utterances; many people thought EFCC's list of wanted men closely resembled President Obasanjo's enemies list. EFCC under Ribadu also orchestrated the impeachment of three state governors through the wholesale arrest of State Assembly members who only bought their freedom when they agreed to impeach their respective governors. EFCC's image as a growling and biting bulldog lessened somewhat under Farida Waziri and Ibrahim Lamurde, but it still has a potent appeal in the psyche of Nigerians. The most dreaded newspaper story is that one has been "invited by EFCC." Many Nigerians think of EFCC before they write cheques or lodge a lot of money in bank accounts. The growing phenomenon of laundering money in Abuja properties rather than in bank accounts is directly attributable to the fear of EFCC's "Eagleclaw" software that monitors bank transactions.

All this while, headed though it was by eminent jurists, ICPC made a relatively weak impact on the Nigerian psyche compared to EFCC. Every now and then I saw television pictures or newspaper stories of ICPC charging some people to court. They were never big guys like governors or bank chief executives; the biggest ones I remember seeing were the rector of a polytechnic, a College of Education bursar and other middle-ranking officials. As a net result, ICPC's public profile has been much lower than EFCC's and accordingly, many Nigerians think it is "not doing anything" in the anti-corruption war.

What accounted for this? When we put this question to Mr. Nta, he answered diplomatically that "it had to do with the creation and incubation of the two agencies." ICPC, he said, was headed by an eminent jurist [Justice Mustapha Akanbi] who was very concerned that if an arrest and subsequent handling of a suspect was not done properly, the case against him or her could be lost in court on technical grounds. I am sure that is true, but it is not an explanation that will elicit many claps from Nigerians who are hard-pressed by the ill effects of official corruption in their lives.

Chairman Nta however said something more profound than that one. He pointed to the second mandate in ICPC's enabling law, "system review to identify and rectify corruption-prone systems and processes" in public agencies. As he himself said, preventing corruption does not elicit banner newspaper headlines half as much as waiting for a man to steal money through a corruption-prone system and then apprehend him with much fanfare. It reminds me of the traffic policemen that lurk after road junctions, hoping that someone will beat the red traffic light so they will apprehend him!

What Nta said is true, but from where do we start this process of identifying corruption-prone processes and plugging them? There are far too many of them all around. Which ones should get the most urgent attention depends on the person you ask. A student is likely to say, "Plug the corruption in school admissions." A hospital patient may say, "Plug the system that enables health officials to steal government purchased medicine." A young mother may say, "Plug the system that enables medicine stores to sell fake children's cough syrup." And a bus driver may say, "Reform the checkpoint system so that policemen can no longer extort money from drivers on the highway."

All of them are telling the truth. However, I think ICPC should go for the highest-impact areas before coming down to the spin-off corrupt processes. Central to the corruption in Nigerian society is the contract system in all tiers of government. Except with respect to security votes, huge amounts of money can hardly be removed from government treasuries outside the contract system. Therefore Oga Ita, can we have in place by the end of this year a public contract system that removes all the corruption-prone processes and makes it impossible to steal public funds? If ICPC can solve that one, I will support an urgent amendment to the Constitution to give it a chapter of its own.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201307011885.html?viewall=1

Oga Ita,

we await your response sir.