The PDP platform, not the APC’s, appears to present a more realistic strategy to fight corruption.


As strange as it might at first seem, if we listen closely to the narrative of the APC and PDP on corruption, there is reason to believe that the PDP presents a better platform for fighting the monster in Nigeria.


On the campaign trail, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) framed the major issues in the 2015 general election as overcoming “corruption” and “insecurity” in Nigeria. Although the issues are not as clearly defined in the ruling party, we can infer from its recent activities that the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) is running on the platform of its achievements as the ruling party, while also endorsing “voting rights” and the “restoration of security in the North East.” By recognizing and confronting insecurity in the North East, it seems the ruling party hopes to put to rest the “insecurity” issue promoted by the opposition. At the same time, its candidate has launched a robust and contrary narrative on the issue of corruption and how it can be reduced, if not eliminated in Nigeria.
 
So far, the PDP has fought and won a major battle for voting rights by having the elections postponed so that almost half of the voting population would have the opportunity to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs). The postponement also gives the ruling party an opportunity to restore some normalcy in the North East which has hitherto been ravaged by terrorists. Successfully prosecuting this military campaign will definitely remove terrorist-induced insecurity as an election issue, and leave the APC with only a leg – corruption – to stand on. Terrorism is the biggest security threat that Nigerian faces. However, it is a big issue in one key part of the country but certainly not in a majority of political zones in Nigeria. Except for non-indigenes who fled to areas without terrorist pressures, voters in the North-Central, South-West, South-South and South-East areas of the country do not feel the heat as much as those living in the North-East and North-West. In the areas without terrorist threats, the APC is left with corruption as a sellable campaign issue.
 
There are three problems I find in most discussions on the subject of corruption: public perception of corrupt persons; conditions of service for the Nigerian worker; and media framing of the issue. Nigerian war against corruption is compromised by policies and laws that at the lower level dehumanize and make it impossible for workers to earn living wages (and therefore prone to accept inducements) and, at the higher level, allow legal and administrative loopholes through which privileged indicted persons escape justice. Many commentators have noted that the corruption tendency is perceived as wrong by most individual Nigerians – as long as their friends, family, groups, or members of their tribe are not the accused. Reporters, editors and media analysts frequently lapse into media logic in writing about corruption, celebrating accused persons rather than educating the people to appreciate that there is a direct linkage between the tendency and their standard of living and also by not focusing on the main issue through investigations of the root causes of corruption from which they can then champion the institution of preventive measures to eliminate it from wherever it manifests in the system. In their different narratives, the parties are remarkably approaching from quite different angles: to prevent corruption by attacking its root causes (PDP); and by confronting, naming, shaming and prosecuting those who have been indicted (APC).
 
The APC manifesto promises that the party, if elected, shall seek to strengthen anti-corruption agencies, sensitize the public against corruption, encourage whistle-blowers to report corruption acts, and establish special courts to try corruption cases. President Goodluck Jonathan looks down on this approach to fighting corruption. In his most recent interview, aimed at challenging the APC narrative which appears to be resonating with voters, Jonathan says that the APC recommendations are curative rather than preventive and will therefore not work. To explain his preventive approach, he gave the examples of what has happened with fertiliser procurement for farmers, as well as federal civil servants who did not receive their December 2014 salaries because their managers embarked on the usual end-of-year spending spree, not knowing that technology has been deployed to shut down the system whenever they attempted to do this. To this, we can add the privatization of old NEPA/PHCN which has completely removed middlemen whose jobs were to procure and sell contracts that ended up not being executed – while the country wallowed in darkness.
 
If we listen closely to what the two parties are saying on the subject, there is reason to believe that the PDP presents a better platform for fighting corruption in Nigeria.

Author

  • Ogbuagu Bob Anikwe, a veteran journalist and message development specialist, is now a community journalism advocate and publisher of Enugu Metro. Contact him on any of the channels below.

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