Corruption and Insecurity in Nigeria: A Fight Against It

CORRUPTION AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: A FIGHT AGAINST IT (A STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIME COMMISSION)

In this chapter the researcher reviewed literature related to the study. The reviewed literature was organized under the following broad sections conceptual review, theoretical review, the review of empirical studies and the summary of literature review.

2.1   THE CONCEPT OF CORRUPTION:

Adeyemi, (2003) observed that corruption is endemic and is deepened by neoliberal policies of the government. These policies are more or less prescriptions by multilateral agencies and institution of the Breton Woods System which according to him are interested more in capital transfer than genuine national development.

Abor, (2006) sees corruption as a conscious and well planned act by a person or a group of persons to appropriate by unlawful means the wealth of another person or group of persons. This view sees corruption as the appropriation of property.

Abdulahi, (2007) stated that corruption is the diversion of resource for the betterment of the community to the gain of individuals at the expense of the community.

Ciroma, (2004) asserts that corruption is deliberate bending of the system to favour friends or hurt foes, to him any misbehavior, deviation from or perversion of the system, or misleading Nigerians or giving them wrong or distorted information about things they ought to know is called corruption.

Huntington, (2008) sees corruption as a lubricant “to intricate machinery of business and policies” to him corruption is associated with rapid social and economic organisation.

Owasu, (2006) corruption revolves around the opportunistic manipulation of regulation and rules of social conduct to achieve selfish, often time materialistic desire, in turn undermining the common goal.

2.2   CONCEPT OF INSECURITY:

Onyemaizu, (2006) view insecurity as the breach of peace and security, whether historical, religions, ethno-regional, civil, social, economic and political that have contributed to recurring conflict.

According to Abraham (1942), insecurity is a feeling of general unease or nervousness that may be triggered by perceiving of oneself to be vulnerability or instability which threatens one’s image.

2.3   HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF EFCC:

The history background to the existence of the economic and financial crime commission derived from the recognition from the late 1980s of the need to create a special interventionist agency to investigate economic and financial crime. At that time, the menace of advance fee fraud, with negative impact on Nigeria had been recognized. At the same time, it was recognized that the sophistication of economic crime were such that there might be the need for a special commission to handle its investigation and prosecution as apposed to the regular law enforcement agencies. By 2012, Nigeria found its way in the financial action task forces list of non-cooperative countries and one of the conditions for being taken off that list was compliance with recommendation 26 of the FATF’s then 29 recommendation which required the creation of a financial intelligence unit.

Consequently, the EFCC was created in 2002 and Nigeria’s financial intelligence unit domiciled there with the statute creating the EFCC was first enacted in 2004. The EFCC stated operations in 2003.

The statute creating the FFCC vested it with the mandate to

1. Investigate and prosecute economic and financial crime section 47 of the enabling acts issues such bank fraud, tax evasion capital market fraud, future market fraud etc .
2. Be the national coordinator for anti money laundering.
3. Be the designated Nigeria financial intelligence unit.
4. Implement the provisions of the advance fee fraud Act, failed Bank Decree, money laundering Act and the bankers and other financial institution decree, from a practical point of view, the EFCC sees its mandate as the provision of financial security for the Nigeria economy. It implement the mandate through tackling those menaces such as official corruption, tax evasion, bank fraud, advance fee fraud, illegal bunkering and several other shades of economic crimes that can distort key economic indices and inhibit growth. It also seeks to create a level playing field for all stakeholders within the economy.

2.4   MOTIVATION FOR ENGAGING IN CORRUPTION:

These are the most commonly motivating factors for corruption in the governance process and among government agents.

1. Desire for an unfair advantage: Henry, (1987-16) stipulated that many officials are motivated to participate in corrupt behavior because of the inherently selfish desire to have an unfair advantage over their peers. Through bribery, extortion, embezzlement, nepotism and other means; he maintains that corruption can help dishonest people get ahead while the public pays the price.
2. Lack of punitive measures: Thomas, (2006:11) a great political philosopher, once said, “a man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous”. This idea that individual cannot always rely on a working inner moral compass alone to guide them to virtue is at them heart of the next motivating factor for participating in corrupt behavior.

When the legal agencies do not impose sanction on parliamentarians and other government officials who have violated their public duties, there is lack of punitive measure for corrupt behaviour. This is the case for instance, when judges are in the pay of the ruling party or there are too few police officers to enforce the law. When there are not punitive measures to ensure transparency, monitoring, and accountability through a working justice system, some people will participate in corrupt behavior simply because they can get away with it.

iii.    Lack of transparency: Drogenes, (2008:1) stipulated that transparency describes when there is free access by citizen to public information. To him, when the rules procedures, and objectives of the government are not available to the public, there is not budgetary and administration oversight to balance the power of government officials, transparency is lacking and corruption can be bred without oversight and transparency of budget and rules, national resources may be plundered and power may be abused in favour of the corrupt official only. Kaufmann, (2005) maintains that when there are not public sector mechanism s that channel social preferences and specific involved in those complaints, people of power will not serve their purpose of representing the populace, but have free reign to do as they pleased in the public sector. Ugwu, (2008:1) stated that lack of transparency creates opportunity for public officials to abuse their office for private gain. This closely relates to accountability, and weak accountability mechanism tends to facilitate corruption where there is a lack of transparency and accountability corruption will flourish he added.

1. Poor incentive structure: Bad incentives, such as clerks not earning a living wage or not having job security might also encourage corrupt behavior such as supplementing income with bribes. Johnston, (2006:16) stipulated that some people who do not have an incentive to perform their official duties, but actually pay for their jobs with the understanding that they will make money through bribes. A lack of incentive also results when position of power are granted as a result of favouritism and nepotism, making people resist hard work.

Incentives also come into the picture when salaries are so low that people cannot meet the basic living standards for food and housing. As a result of that, people will often take other jobs that cause absenteeism of public officials, and often increase the demand by government officials for bribes and other paybacks in order to supply the public service Stapenhurst, (2008:17) stipulated.

1. Problem with the law: Lawless and over regulated government. Ake, (2001:86) stated that corruption can also be caused when there is excessive control and a sort of monopoly of power. In these circumstances, there is not a level playing field and decisions will always be made at the advantage of the group or person who dominates political control. As a result ordinary citizens right are lost and public resources are often plundered for the personal gain of the public officials poverty or scarcity of goods may also push people to live outside the law.

Bedeian, (1987:369) in his own contribution stated that corruption occurs when government officials resist government policies and programs. Introducing policies that allow for greater oversight would help to assure that power were balance and no one person would be making all of the political decision when politicians resist this change they prevents political and cultural progress for their country, prohibit civic interest from being met, and allow the pattern of corruption to flourish.

• POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA:

It is common knowledge that corruption is very prevalent in all sector of our national life which practice in noted to be inhibitive of national growth and development. So in order to prevent corruption from happening all, Nigeria should emphasis on the following.

1. Social Transformation: Nigeria society need transformation in education of the public is the first and foremost a necessary factor in concretizing for social transformation in Nigeria. Eme, (2009) opines that there is need for on-going formation and reformation, orientation and re-orientation of the minds and heart of Nigeria conscience is needed for them to begin to see that corruption are evils and are enemies of development of a country.
2. The enforcement of the anti-corruption law: The law should be enforced to its fullest and without fear and favour.

• Improvement of social-political and economic life: This is another weapon against corruption in Nigeria. Agbaegbu, (2006) stated that the multiplying effect of this improvement will reduce the tendency of public servant to demand and take bribe and get involved in other corrupt practice.

• MANIFESTATION OF INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

The under listed are the various manifestation of conflict and insecurity in Nigeria.

1. Ethno-Religious Conflict: communal and societal conflicts according to Ibrahim and Igbuzor, (2002) have emerged as a result of new and particularistic forms of political consciousness and indentify often structured around ethno-religious conflicts have assumed alarming rate. To him, it has occurred in places like Shagamu (Ogun State), Lagos, Abia, kano, Bauchi, Nassarawa, Jos, Taraba, Ebonyi and Enugu state respectively. Ugwu, (2000) in his own contribution stated that groups and communities who had over the years lived together in peace and harmony now take up arms against each other in gruesome “war”. The claim over scarce resources, power, land, chieftaincy, local government councils, control of markets, “osu caste system” and Boko Haram among other trivial issues have resulted in large scale killing and violence amongst groups in Nigeria.
2. Political Based Violence: politics in the current civil dispensation like the previous republic have displayed politics of anxiety which has played down on dialogue, negotiation and consensus. Uche, (2011:14) stipulated the anxiety is a result of loss of power by an elite stratum.

According to Waziri, (2012) the formal national security adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan stated that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is the major cause of Boko Haram violence in the Northern part of the country. He maintains that the inability of the ruling party to compromise with their zoning formula is the chief reason for the destruction of life and properties by the Boko Haram.

Onyemaizu,  (2006:10) added that a resort to violence, including armed militancy, assassination, kidnap, etc, have somewhat suddenly became attractive to certain individual in seeking to resolves issues that could have ordinary been settled through due process. The end products of such misadventures have often been catastrophic. The decimation of innocent lives, disruption of economic activities and destruction of properties among others.

• Economic–Based Violence: In a popular parlance, this thesis is also known as “political economy of violence”. The recent writings in the mass media across the globe and across political divide have laid much emphasis on the role of resources in generating conflict which is a major cornerstone of economic-base violence.

OLonisakin, (2008:16) stated that cries of resources control and revenue sharing regularity rent the air between proponent and opponents. Although by no means limited to oil in the Niger Delta, the most prevalent campaign about the link between resources and conflict focuses on oil and the Delta region. Put differently, there is evidence to suggest that oil has given rise to vertical and horizontal between national, state and society or between dominant and subordinate geopolitical zone, classes and groups across Nigeria, given the pivotal role that oil plays in the restructuring power relation in Nigeria.

1. Organised violent Group: Organized violent groups take varying dimension and forms. These include, ethnic militia, vigilantes, secret cults in tertiary institution and political thugs. Bello-Imam, (2005) stated that various reasons and circumstances account for their emergence. The causes of the manifestation includes the culture of militarism that has its antecedents in military rule, the failure  of the state and its institution, economic disempowerment, the structure of the state and Nigeria’s federalism, non-separation of state and religion, politics of exclusion, culture of state patriarchy and gerontocracy and ignorance and poor political consciousness (Ibrahim ad Igbuzor, 2002:7).
   • THEMATIC EXPLANATION OF THE CAUSE OF INSECURITY IN NIGERIA:

The thematic explanation of the causes of insecurity in Nigeria would show below:

1. Improper funding of security agencies: The improper funding of the police and other security agencies is the major cause of insecurity question in Nigeria Ajayi, (2006) maintain that this cause sterns from the fact that there are inadequacies in the security agencies, modern communication equipment, sophisticated arms and ammunition so that the security agencies will be able to contain these criminal gangs. Also the allowances and salaries of these security agencies are hardly paid, their welfare is nothing to write home about.

As a result of above, the Nigeria populaces are bound to suffer the kind of scandal with its political elites running around in shame.

1. Monetization of the labour market: This theme posits that as a result of high rate of unemployment, graduates without jobs have gone a lot of mental torture in the process of securing jobs and in the process they have been involved in all sorts of fiscal indiscipline and corruption and other social vices. Ekpo, (2004:10) stated that these army of unemployed force themselves into police force and other Para Military and military agencies. The fall out of such a situation will be trying to cover lost ground by enriching themselves illegally colliding with criminal gangs.

According to Oladepupo, (2005:13) it is irony of the Nigerian situation that the nation’s law enforcement agents are even more corrupt than those they are supposed to police. This has sometimes been blamed on the manner and caliber of men and women recruited in the Nigerian security out fit merit and good character are thrown to the winds during recruitment as men and women of questionable character including criminals, bribes their way into the force ……little wonder therefore that many of the recruit hide under uniform to wreck havoc on the society.

• Gross party indiscipline and infighting among political gladiators: according to Akintude, (2002:16) it is worthy to be noted that a sizeable proportion of those who have suffered attacks in recent times have been members of the ruling party and leading opposition parties and their allies. Ibraham and Igbuzo, (2002:18) opines that politics in Nigeria are beset with act of gross misconduct, lack of internal democracy, blackmail, and indiscipline. Their act ranges from disobedience to the party’s constitution, to in-fighting among party leaders and their hanger-on. Take for instance, the political wars between and among governors and their deputies, the legislative and the executive, god fathers and their gods sons, political dynasties, state and Abuja politicians among others.

450. Inadequate personnel: Inadequate of personnel is another factor that promotes insecurity in Nigeria. The international institution for strategic studies as cited by Olonisakin, (2008:20) captures this when he posited that the police-population ratio in Nigeria is 1:450. At a minimum, citizens ought to have easy access to the police and feel safer as a result of the protection they offer. Yet Nigeria has failed to meet the standard set by the United Nations for effective policing.