PMB, BRING BACK GMB!

The bane of fighting corruption in Nigeria is in the punishment. As long as people would steal and get away with no more than a pat on the wrist (or simple forfeiture of suspicious assets), people would continue to steal, wallahi. Most Nigerians, including those who support the PMB government’s efforts at fighting corruption, are intensely annoyed and dismayed when the courts grant bail to our thieves. Where else on earth, but Nigeria, is this kind of wanton thievery a bailable offence?

And we are doubly enraged when so-called compatriots, at home and especially abroad, abuse and curse and denigrate the fight against corruption (however miniscule we think it is), whenever legit agencies confiscate jewelry and wads of dollars stashed all over the place by powerful women, sometimes backed by powerful men. Just because ‘the thief from my place is not a thief!’

Every Nigerian who wants an all-out annihilation of corruption in this country is not too happy with the snail-speed of the four years of President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB). Millions of us would rather have General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) of 35 years ago cleaning out these dirty stables. And he (PMB) himself has been convinced that ‘in democracy you can’t incarcerate suspects for long…’ A lie!

There is this story I love to repeat from GMB’s time in 1984, when that no-nonsense government issued a directive that there shall be “no-more-than-five-naira-in-a-policeman’s-pocket-at-any-given-time.” It is narrated that a certain Commissioner of Police was coming into town in mufti. As it was night and he was incognito, he was stopped at a police checkpoint just outside town. The police constable on duty had some bravado: he asked for welfare, not knowing whom he was soliciting from. “Oga, make you pity us o; we dey here since o; we never chop o”, and such similarly pathetic appeal fund launchings.

The police commissioner, it is said, didn’t utter a word. He took out a Twenty Naira note, a Murtala (a lot of money back in 1984), folded it neatly over his police service identity card, and handed it over to the policeman. As bribe-taking policemen (then and now) usually never check their loot until after the event, the ‘gift’ was pocketed and the unrecognised commissioner flagged on.

During a lull in ‘business’, the policeman ‘collector’ went aside and brought out that promising thick bundle from his pocket. The identity card fell out. He picked it up and went nearer the light to see what it was — and promptly fainted! When he eventually came to, he raised the alarm of the horrible mess they had landed themselves into. His colleagues did not believe him at first; but by the time all had taken turns to see the police commissioner’s identity card in clearer light, reality dawned on them that they were done, kaput. For, during those GMB days, the going rate for that type of crime was twenty years in jail.

Before morning, when they knew they would be sent for by headquarters to account for their (mis)deed, so the story went, the policemen all resolved to take early retirement. They all vanished into thin air. They knew one truth: no Emir or Elder could stand them surety. To this day, it is said, they have never been found, for fear of the consequences of twenty years in jail for Twenty Naira during GMB, not a few months (or outright bail) for billions as we witness during PMB.

The Chinese, who still seem to be at their anti-corruption best, have the ultimate solution for graft: one looter, one bullet. Many years ago, China executed its corrupt head of the equivalent of our NAFDAC. He had taken a bribe to allow a certain not-well-tested drug on to the market, and the drug had caused the death of scores of children. He was caught, tried, convicted, shot, his fortune forfeited to government and his family had to pay the Chinese nation the cost of the dutiful bullet. “Garin Dadi Ba Kusa Ba!”

Nigeria’s corruption story is as incredible as it is unbelievable. We remember that when ‘pure water’ business started many decades ago (actually during the government that succeeded GMB, when corruption had a father and a mother), there was strict regulation as to the licenses given by NAFDAC. As most people trusted the then meticulous nature of NAFDAC’s licensing regime, they believed the water they were drinking was really ‘pure’. Little did we know then that many of such ‘licensed’ companies (whose NAFDAC registration appeared on the cover of their polythene bags) used this mandate to manufacture and sell empty bags to other – unlicensed – ‘pure water’ packagers.

Or the incredible story of the early 1980s when NITEL introduced coin-boxes where, for Ten Kobo, one could make a call for a few minutes. It was reported then that some smart ones would tie a very thin thread to a Ten kobo coin and dip it into the phone-box. The coin would cross the laser and so activate the connection. As the call was progressing, a warning would soon come that credit was running low. The smart fellow, it was said, would then pull up the coin till it reached nearly the top, and then would dip it in again. As computers are as dumb as their user is smart, the phone would believe it was a new coin and continue the call.

Don’t we remember that about 20 years ago in one northern state, it was announced that 200 trucks ferrying fertilizer to the state had ‘disappeared’. Each truck was carrying thirty tons of the commodity; so 6,000 tons, or 120,000 bags just disappeared into thin air! Now where would anyone hide that type of quantity? No one would oppose that such perpetrators be tied to the stake and shot. He who brings kola brings life, it is said, so whoever denies fertilizer, denies farming, denies food, kills.

How come a revenue collecting assistant in a state Inland Revenue office had five cars and four houses and three wives and two gold wristwatches and one credit in his WAEC? Or how can anyone explain how a common computer operator at old NEPA (now Power Holding dancing DISCO) would have several cars, wives and houses, yet his ‘wealth’ raised no eyebrows? Incredible?

Almost everyone was happy when, 30 years ago, that legendary bastion of corruption among the uniformed class, the Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO) became marginalised with the introduction of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC. But a few years later, many drivers began to rue the loss of that devil they knew, the VIO. At least he was local, and so his collection would be spent locally, rather than the from-out-of-nowhere ‘road marshals’. When they lasted, these civilian appendages to the FRSC became law unto themselves. For wearing a yellow armband, a ‘marshal’ could stop a vehicle, ask for particulars, check the oil level, and recommend another brand of air freshener, even if he had been a butcher all his life. Drivers also still debate who is better, or worse, between armed robbers on the highways or the police and military checkpoints who ‘accidentally discharge’ for as low as Twenty Naira.

PMB, please bring back GMB! Don’t believe the lie that in a democracy you can’t shoot a thieving oil minister or Presidential Consort!

May Allah bring back GMB!