anti-corruption riffs

Two good anti-corruption riffs from Nigeria 

PAMBAZUKA NEWS 94
A weekly electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa

NIGERIA: POLITICAL ELITES, SHAM DEMOCRACIES AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Ledum Mitee

This week a lot of noise will be made regarding the nomination of incumbent
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria as the candidate for the People's
Democratic Party heading into upcoming elections. More than a few people
will
regard the convention just held as some sort of sign that democracy is on
the
march in Nigeria. The truth is very different. Functional democracy is in a
fragile state and being suffocated by corruption, political violence and
silence in the face of quite unacceptable practices on the part of
government.

The upcoming Nigerian elections are being conducted by a body whose
commissioners are appointed solely by the sitting President, who has gone
out
of his way to appoint associates and 'party hacks'. Local government
elections
are actually under the thumb of the state governor who also has exclusive
power
to appoint a state commission. The control of the electoral commissions is
just
one element of a political system that has a long way to go before it can be
recognised as anything like a democratic system in which individuals are
confident that they can freely participate in elections where their votes
will
be properly counted.

I could go on at length about corruption of the current political process,
and
about how it starts from the very first stages of the election cycle and
culminates in an election that is reduced to a meaningless charade. However
for
the balance of this editorial I would like to emphasise the role of the
international community and the extent to which it legitimises regimes like
those found in Nigeria.

Over the last four years the Nigerian government has wasted a great deal of
goodwill both domestically and internationally. At the international and
local
level there has been a response that resonates desperation: that any
civilian
regime is better than a return to military rule. Unfortunately this is only
partly true. In the last four years Human Rights Watch and others have
chronicled human rights violations and mass killings, including several by
government, which would have brought immediate sanctions against a military
regime.

There is a crucial need for the international community to recognise that
political elites, dressed in the garb of sham democracies, can be every bit
as
violent as the harshest of military regimes. For people from NGOs who have
traditionally resisted government repression and are now encouraging
political
participation the risks of violence are real and ever-present. There have
already been a number of political killings. The unfortunate reality is that
as
we struggle to bring forward genuine elections we face the risk of many more
casualties, primarily at the hands of political thugs used with no fear of
accountability by political incumbents.

If Nigeria is not subjected to intense pressure, both internally and
externally, to allow the development of the fundamentals of democracy, then
those of us in 'civil society' face a bleak future. While the belated
registration of new political parties, after inexcusable delays which have
wrecked their chances of normal development ahead of upcoming elections, is
a
step forward, the reform of Nigeria's electoral laws and practices is a
fundamental pre-requisite before Nigeria is even recognised as a democracy.

Nigeria is not alone in Africa in practising appalling shams of democracy.
One
of the reasons for some peculiar stances taken by 'African leaders' is that
in
too many countries we are ruled by elites who have no regard for the
grassroots
members of their society. Often civil society in the form of NGOs are
pursuing
quite different agendas to those of our so-called leaders. Some of the
positions we are forced into are quite different to those that are assumed
by
international NGOs, who have sometimes neglected the question of legitimacy
of
many African governments. For example, my own experience is that there is
considerable sympathy amongst NGOs in different countries for the firmest
conditionality for governments seeking fresh loans to prop up corrupt
regimes
on various pre-texts.

Our appeal to the international community is based on the fact that Nigeria
has
repeatedly said the international community is welcome to observe how far it
has progressed on the democratic path. This opportunity should be taken, but
pursued vigorously in a manner where the international community seriously
considers whether the fundamentals have changed in Nigeria and communicates
exactly how far we have to go for the Nigerian government to achieve
international respectability.

* Ledum Mitee is the President of Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni
People
(MOSOP), an NGO which has been campaigning for the environmental and human
rights of the Ogoni people since 1990. mosop@phca.linkserve.com
Ph (+234) 84 233 907

***

Toronto Globe and Mail
Steal globally, profit locally -- the new face of crime

By KEN WIWA

Saturday, January 11, 2003 - Page A19

In these postnational times, everything from sex, drugs and luxury cars to
people-trafficking, gambling and money scams have local roots but
international reach. Gone are the days when Al Capone could boast that his
rackets were "run on strictly American lines." Crime increasingly mirrors
our multinational order as the players think local but act global.

The fragile nature of brands and identities and the truism of free markets
are the provinces of the international con man. The black market is
yesterday's story. That's because we now inhabit a world where your identity
is a commodity in a grey market -- one where the distinction between what is
real and what is fake is incidental.

Consider this letter, for example: "My name is Ken. Saro Wiwa Junior . . .
The attorney to my late father called a fortnight ago and intimated me that
some money is due from an association of oil companies to my late father in
the sum of Eighteen million, United State dollares (US$18M). he has also
suggested that I should make an arrengement for a bank account out side
Nigeria where this money will be transferred. This is where I solicit for
your assistance. I shall be please to give you 15% of the total sum if you
would offer me your bank account for this purpose, 10% of it will be donated
to some organization as my late father has willed, while my mother, other
children and I would utilize the rest to continue our life out side Nigeria
. . ."

Although my own grammar is not immaculate, I'd like to think that the syntax
immediately exposes this letter as outlandishly bogus. But anyone who is on
e-mail or has a Fax will probably have received a letter like it in the last
20 years. The letter is a postmodernist artifact -- a real fake. It's one of
those infamous "advance fee" scam letters that seem almost comic -- yet they
have managed to extract an estimated $5-billion (U.S.) from the greedy and
naive.

The "419" letter (so-named after a section of Nigeria's criminal code) is
considered a Nigerian phenomenon. But does such a perception leave us with a
better understanding of the nature of the crime?

While Nigeria's reputation for corruption is not totally undeserved, the
greater damage these ubiquitous scam letters inflict might be to stereotype
and stigmatize 100 million Nigerians.

I'm not sure it's helpful to say that a particular crime has an ethnic bias.
What is at play when I say "Colombia" and you think "drug cartel"? Or
"Russia" and you think "mafia"? Or "America" and you think "corporate
crime"? Maybe it's a useful shorthand for investigators (and journalists).
But in these deconstructionist times, stereotypes are becoming redundant as
investigative tools.

Take those scam e-mails, for example. Like an Internet virus that quickly
spreads around the world, the "419" scam is now starting to infect the good
name of other countries, too. These days you're just as likely to receive a
solicitation from Abidjan to Zaire.

There's even a good chance that they're manufactured right here in Canada --
because as crime goes global, it tramples over borders, infecting the data
bases of racial profiles and collapsing the flat stereotypes that were
assembled over centuries.

I have a regular correspondent in Tokyo who recently informed me of the
battle for control of prostitution and cocaine in Tokyo's Roppongi district.
The turf war didn't involve the local Yakuza, as you might expect, but
Nigerian and Israeli gangs, and a band of Iranian veterans from the
Iran-Iraq war. My informant adds, "The Yakuza are nonplussed. And the police
stay out of the way unless Japanese get hurt."

I'm sure Al Capone would be nonplussed, too. Yet we still have databases,
charts and ranking tables of this world disorder from organizations such as
Transparency International, which last year published a table of "Corruption
Perceptions."

Transparency International is a global coalition with an A-list reputation.
You can only admire its reach and devotion to "combating corruption" -- but
you also have to wonder whether its obsession with ranking the world's
countries gets to the heart of 21st-century crime.

For the record, Finland, Denmark and New Zealand have the highest rating as
corruption-free. Canada ranks a creditable seventh, the U.S. 16th -- and
down at the bottom, ranking 101 and 102, are Nigeria and Bangladesh. Given
that the list is tabulated from a "perceptions" survey, it may only bear a
passing resemblance to reality. And really, to compare Bangladesh to Germany
on corruption issues is to compare chalk and cheese.

The world needs tables that rank crime syndicates and corporations, as well
as countries. Such a table might reflect the reality that, compared to
America's Enrons, Tycos and Worldcoms, Nigerian scammers are in the minor
leagues.

wiwa@dial.pipex.com