 The anti-corruption war of President Mohammed al-Bahiri for some has been partially successful and for others an unsuccessful crusade. Today we assess the President's administration's fight against corruption in 2021. And again, Nigeria announces the removal of fuel subsidy but this time with a 5,000 narrow transport monthly grant. Are Nigerians ready to accept this new move? Well this is Plus Politics, I am Mary Anaconda. Now during the campaign season of the 2015 general elections, President Mohammed al-Bahiri vowed to fight corruption if Nigerians elected him to lead them for the next four years. When he was sworn in, he further declared a war on corruption. However, things are not going so smoothly. In a recent review, a former Nigerian head of state Ibrahim Babangirah stated that corruption in Bahá'í's administration is worse than when he in Babangirah was in government. Even the United States described the scale of corruption in Nigeria under President Mohammed al-Bahiri's administration as massive and widespread. Many Nigerians believe that double standards in Bahá'í's treatment of those loyal to him also characterize the fight. Nevertheless, Abu Bakr Malami, attorney general of the Federation, has a different view on this as he has stated that Nigeria is getting it right in the fight against corruption under the Bahá'í administration. Well joining us to break this down is Dabal Adhanirao, he is the chairman's centre for anti-corruption and open leadership tackle. And we are also being joined by Kala Wali Uluwadari, he is the deputy director of CERAP. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for having us. So I'm going to start with you Mr Adhanirao, it's interesting when we see the different sides and the different, you know, prisms to which people look at the fight against corruption. Many have said that the president is doing well, many have said that corruption is fighting back and others do not see anything tangible that the president has done in his fight against corruption. I remember very well when the president said that one of the reasons or one of the biggest things he was going to deal with is corruption. We know that he rolled on the winds of this to become president. But the president is just about a year and a few months away from leaving office. How do you score Mr President and what would be the, you know, points for which you would score him? Thank you very much. I will score the president 70% in the fight against corruption. You see, fighting corruption is not a tea party, it's a difficult task for anybody in any country of the world, no matter how powerful, no matter how developed the country is. Corruption can be very tricky when it comes to avoiding the long arm of the law. And you also know that corruption crimes are not committed in the open. And that means that a lot of efforts will have to be put in place to trace the evidence of corruption. And the witnesses of corruption are also not easy to come by. You need a lot of persuasion to get people into giving evidence against corrupt elements. You also know that corruption has pervaded our minds for a very long time and it was almost like a state policy at some level. And people thought sometimes ago that corruption is actually a native of Nigeria. And if something has become, you know, something like a state in a country and a lot of public officials and even private sector practitioners have gotten themselves used into committing corruption crimes, it is likely to take a long time and a lot of effort into fighting corruption into extracting corruption virus from the system that has gotten itself used to committing corruption crimes and getting away with it. And of course, corruption didn't just start during the presence of civilian dispensation. It has started since a very long time, even before the independence in 1960 and all of that. And even in colonial days, I mean, there are trappings of serious corruption. But then if an administration is opaque, you are not likely to detect corruption crimes. If an administration enjoys impunity, you are not likely to get justice against those who committed corruption crimes. If an administration is like a diastolic, you are not likely to consider the losses that people have to suffer in the hands of corrupt elements. And that is the reason why it takes so long before corruption efforts to manifest. And you also know that it is the same sector of people, the politicians, the political elites, the ruling elites that are committing corruption crimes. And because we cannot do any other thing than to follow the law, the constitution that is grown known for the administration of the country, we have to obey the law in tackling corruption. And because it is the same politician that would pretend to be making laws that would curb corruption, they will not commit their own to making such laws. And that is also the reason why we have weak laws and weak implementation of those laws. And it affects all arms of government, all tiers of government. And that is why we are having it so difficult to deal with corruption issues. But then the Bahá'í administration has done so much by implementing all of those machineries, legal machineries that has been, I mean, that has been on the ground before it came in 2015, and it's political will to implement the law. I was really hoping that you would answer that, I would ask you, because you can't just tell me that the president has scored 70 percent, but you cannot tell me exactly what he did to get that 70 percent. And you're saying machineries. Can we really point to this, that, and that that he's done to plug the loopholes in fighting corruption or to see that he has fought corruption to a certain level where we can we can actually clearly say that this 70 percent stands. So I'm really hoping you can tell me that quickly. That's exactly what I'm going to do that. OK, there are a number of safeguards, what you call it, legislations that have been lying fallow over the years that were not operationalized by the previous administration. I mean, look at what has happened with PVN. Look at what has happened with TSE and a number of other legislations. But these are things that were already initiated by the Jonathan administration. Can we really take credit to the president? That's exactly what I'm saying, that it has always been there, but there haven't been political will to operationalize it. It was it is during this administration that the PVN was fully implemented and that has made it difficult for corrupt elements to learn that money to learn that elicit process of corruption through financial institutions. The same thing with the TSE. In the other days, I mean, before the TSA was put in operation, several MDAs will open accounts in the name of the federal government and they open it in their own name, appended their signatures. And whatever revenue that got into such accounts will go into private pocket. Then when you look at act two, anti-corruption and transparency units that also have been dobbled aside with ICPC, act two, I mean, ICPC on act two should have at least a desk in all the MDAs so that they monitor the inflow and outflow of funds into those MDAs. That also didn't work for so long. Then school rules also had made it difficult for professional bodies for NGOs like ours, civil society organizations and so on and so forth to learn that money on behalf of corrupt elements. And if this is fully implemented, all of these legislations are fully implemented, it will be difficult if not impossible for anybody to commit corruption crimes. So implementing those laws has made the Abuhariyah's administration stand out opposed to this resource. All right, I'll come back to you because I have so many questions but I want to throw it to Kalaouli. I know that CERAP has come up with so many issues. They have taken governments, ministries, departments, agencies to court on several issues, bordering on corruption, disobedience to the rule of law. So I want to throw the same question I threw to him to you. How well has this government done in terms of fighting corruption being the bedrock of this administration? The reason why they became the leaders of this country, they rolled on the wings of this. How well has the presidency done? He's saying it's 70%. And mostly he's pointed to finances, plugging a few loopholes from what he says. But I'd like to hear from you, Kalaouli. Thank you very much. Of course, I have a different opinion and the facts and indices of these assessments bear that out. So if we are going to look at and assess the Abuhariyah administration for the past six years, we should not do it politically like we've seen the proponents of this administration do. It's not a relative task compared to what has been before the previous administrations. It should be objective based on why the worldwide international best practice acceptable parameters and indicators. We're going to look at particularly for the administration that come into power and the mantra of fighting corruption. So I would look at it, for instance, we can start with the rule of law until you process for this administration. How is that fair? And I think we can all agree that you cannot fight corruption or have any kind of fighting against corruption without the rule of law. Do you possess an integral part of fighting corruption within the contents of the rule of law? And so this administration has a penchant for picking and choosing which government is enforcing the rule of law. That is if it does or not. And that speaks to what we do with Sarah. Presently, we have more than eight cases. Judgments, by the way, I beg your pardon, against this administration, against the government. Some of them were gotten before the Constitution came and some, the only life of this administration that had yet to be enforced. And you look at this, these are judgments that speak to the basis of transformation and accountability. For instance, the president during the broadcast that was at the interview with channels, the issue of us over $15 billion spent on the power sector came up. You call that Sarah had gotten a judgment from the federal economy, does this would be also altering the very administration to probe those allegations and if anybody's called people to face justice, including a recovery of those funds, this judgment is yet to be enforced or obeyed by this government. And still on the big process and the rule of law, what about the general report that come out time and again, making the damning allegations against ministries, private agencies, from things that have transpired since 2015, including a huge amount of money that could not be accounted for. And this is within the context of an auditor general that is appointed by the same president. What about enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act? How open is government? And a case in point to the Pandora papers for instance, these allegations are there in the open. What has this administration done about the allegations? May the gauge public assistance who have been found comfortable in this act? The least one would expect is the president, you would agree with that the box stops at this table, to order investigation into these allegations as the least you can do. And then the second is if you, that we would use to assess this administration is transparency and accountability. How transparent is governance under the Wari administration? It is not and that is just a fact. And again, you would agree with that you cannot fight corruption without setting a good precedent. And transparency and accountability is an integral part of our constitutional provisions and our second practice worldwide. For instance, security votes is an issue. Those, these amount of money is being paid for all, many, all tiers of government. The president has done nothing about it, either to stop it or able to order investigation into how those funds have been utilized over the years. And you will understand that security votes is also part of the elements of political corruption, funding security and all this political corruption. And then the budget processes. It is not enough to sign the budget within the cycle within the January to December cycle which is good and that is not a budget, but it's not enough. What about our budget processes? Implementation of the budget. Is it the monitor? What about the releases? Nearly every agency of government including the anti-corruption agencies will tell you that you do not have enough funds. And this is within the context of about 26 billion that's been allocated to the presidency and the vice president of this, to travels and various frivolous expenditures when very important aspects of the economy has not been taken care of. And so it doesn't look good. And then the thought will be to look at the legal framework of fighting corruption. You would think that the easiest thing that the Aptinian would have done is to push through a lot of very credible legislations that were fighting corruption. We are not yet to see that. But then we've also seen that, I mean, we've seen the presidency respond over and over saying that corruption is fighting back and that's why as much as they are willing, it's difficult to also get to the legislature to fall in line and do the need for. So again, is corruption, the fight against corruption, a fight that just the presidency can actually achieve? Now, you need to understand. And the president himself did mention it in an interview that he granted to channels yesterday. The ABC government is in the majority. The president of the two legislative arms have comprised the national assembly. And so ultimately, it's about the Guari administration and it's ultimately about the political party that are brought in to power. So it wouldn't be a problem if the president can sign the 2022 Appropriation Bill into law and make it, even though with these reservations, why couldn't it, for instance, have made sure either by executive bill or through his political party, the presidential kind bill could have been passed. And you would understand the importance of that bill in the fight against corruption. What about any kind of whistleblower legislation? Again, we are yet to see that materialize. What about the audit bill that would empower the auditor general to do more and guarantee him tenure of office? That is yet to have been passed. Even the electoral act that was amended before him, that has cogent provisions that would help to fight corruption, political corruption at that was not, was not sentenced to by the president. So would you say there is political will at all in this administration to fight corruption? I disagree. I don't think so. Interesting. I'm going to come back to you Colla, but let me go back to Mr. Diniwa. There are people who have said that this fight against corruption under the Bahá'í administration has been deeply politicized. They've made cases as to those who are being arrested or are called to question by the EFCC as those who are opponents, those who have spoken against the presidencies, either their moves or their administration in general, those who have one way or the other criticized the president. Some have even questioned some of the people that the president has appointed. In fact, some people have said that the president continues to appoint people, even those who have questionable characters or questionable backgrounds into office. They continue to shield their allies from investigations and some form of prosecution. In fact, they've also pointed out the president's disinterest in how the ruling party funds its election campaign. And this is one of the things that Sarah is still in court about election finances being made public. What do you have to say about this? Well, I am not spokesperson for the president. Neither am I spokesperson for the ruling party. I'm speaking based on my observation. Based on comparative analysis with other administrations before Buharis. Yes, there are a number of shortcomings, especially when it has to be, I mean, when things that have to do with administrative protocols. But one thing we should do is to be circumspect in our criticism of the administration. First and foremost, I mentioned the other time that we have to follow the letters of the constitution in any analysis that we want to do about how well or otherwise that the government has performed. To do that means that we have to look at where we are coming from. The president necessarily have to work within a political party. And the political party has some influence over decisions that are made by the president. The president cannot single-handedly decide on a policy, crystallize the policy, implement it and ensure that it is implemented to the letter. Compact promises are actually different from administrative policies. When you get to, I mean, the podium for campaign, you speak to the yannies of the people, but you know that it is not only the executive that constitutes a government. You still have the legislature to contend with, you still have the judiciary to pass through. And a situation whereby you mean well and you have a legislature that is not cooperative, what do you do? You act within the available space that you are free to ask. If every righteousness is even fulfilled and the judiciary says no, there's little the executive can do to assert itself. And that is why we say that we need to change the constitution, several aspects of it. Because if anybody oppresses under this constitution, it's not likely to go to the other angle of his own good intention if he has any. I believe that the president actually intend to leave his footprints on the sand of time, especially as far as anti-corruption effort is concerned. I'm curious if the president is indeed ready and willing, and this has always been, and I'm speaking here as just following what you're saying, has really indeed wanted to change the fortunes of this country. He should be in the forefront of pushing for a constitutional amendment or a constitutional conference, whatever they want it to be. But that's not the case. What we saw was a shabby thing that was an amendment of sorts where members of the National Assembly just had a tea party and decided whatever they wanted to. If the president really wanted to do this, don't forget the APC, and of course led by Mr. President, when they decided to run for office, they said they were going to bring us change. How much of that change has the president brought to us? Again, the number of people who are the majority in the National Assembly are members of the APC, the same party that promised to bring us change in this country. So yes, according to you, the president does mean well, but does meaning well, or is meaning well enough a reason for the president to be able to run change? Because I can mean well, but then I might not really do well. That's what I'm driving at. I have told you that the president can mean well, but don't forget that it is the same politicians people say that all the political parties are more or less like the same in their program and agenda. And you also know the way that politicians migrate from one political party to the other. And that means that those who have committed corruption crimes will want a safe haven in the ruling party. And many of them will migrate to the ruling party. But the president is the leader of the party. He was tricked and he followed through with his stance. Would these people be accepted into the party? The APC really wanted change. Would they be opening their doors to these same people? They campaign against? Listen, you are talking, the president doesn't have all the powers to implement the rules. Even if he intends to do it. The president needed approval of the parliament. Don't forget that the ruling party is a coalition, a kind of like a granite coalition that is not up to one year before they won election. Now, these people, there are many of them who have gotten there themselves used to committing corruption crimes with impunity. These people will not, they can only pretend to agree with the main thrust of the party program. Many of them will not want to fight against corruption to succeed even when they are working with the president. Several of them have been shown the way out. A couple of former governors are already behind the walls for corruption crimes. A couple of those who work with the president government either been investigated or already been tried and convicted and that some people migrated from there either to political party to the ruling party has not cheated them from being investigated but like I said, the legislature has a role to play. If they don't play their role well, the president cannot impose his will on them. The same thing with the judiciary. A number of people. I think we lost that connection, Mr. Daniel. Let me come back to color. We're looking at solutions now because we've been talking about the problems. But I want to quickly point out something that Mr. Danny Ross said. He said something about the fact that corruption has become a native of Nigeria. And the question that cropped up in my head is why or how did corruption become a member of society? So much so that it's so comfortable and seems not to want to go anywhere. Again, how do we go beyond this finger pointing thing? Because it's one thing to have an intention. It's another to have a plan. But from the look of things, it looks like the presidency, the APC did not necessarily have a plan as to how they were going to bring change to Nigeria. So going forward, we're already in campaign season. What should we be looking out for? Incidentally, contrary to what Mr. Danny Ross said, there are three, there are several legislations that have been passed by the APC. Kala Wale, can you hear me? Apologies, I think we have lost Kala Wale. So quickly, Mr. Danny, I'm going to ask you this question. And I just want us to quickly round up on it. Going forward, just as I asked Kala Wale, it looks like the presidency, the APC did have good intentions, but then they did not necessarily have a plan. And we're in campaign season, going forward Nigerians are looking for a better deal. What should we be preparing ourselves for? Well, you see, the fight against corruption is for all of us. And we should train ourselves to identify corruption. The whistleblower policy of this recent administration worked to some extent. And you know that there's hardly a way that you can operate within a party that has a preponderance of those who have been accused of corruption crimes in the past and so see them fighting them. They will pitch their tents against you, against the policies and the rest of them. But then you talk about finger pointing. There's no way we are not going to finger point those who have the opportunity of committing corruption crimes. Those are the people you said were in the past administration. Of course, it was those, it is those who were in the past administration that had the opportunity of dipping their hands into the national tail and helping themselves with our common patrimony. So that is why the preponderance of those that have been tried and those who have been government before. The same thing we have on. But the time this administration- What do we do going forward? I'm so sorry, Mr. Daniel, because we're almost out of time. What do we do? What should we be preparing ourselves for? What we should do is to change the paradigm. Okay, we shift the paradigm from the elites. I mean, the fight against corruption, that is what the Center for Anti-Corruption Open Leadership is doing now. Shifting the paradigm from the political elite to the grassroots. It is the grassroots that should be educated which way are educating on how to identify corruption, how to report corruption and how to extract corrupt people from their community. Because no corrupt person, we find it easy to move around the country if we do not accommodate them in our communities. Well, we have to go. This will help us a lot. Then there should be a national ideology. I'm so sorry, we're out of time. I want to say thank you. Dewa Adedira is the Chairman Center for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACO. And we lost connection with Kala Wale Uluwadari. He's the Deputy Director of CERA. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for speaking with us. Thank you for having us. All right, well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick break and when we return, we will be discussing the consequences of the announced possible subsidy removal and all the drama that comes with it. Stay with us.