By Owei Lakemfa
I anticipated lots of reactions to my April 12, 2025 column titled: “How the military taught Nigerians the art of looting.” However, I did not expect an avalanche. It was as if I had made a monumental discovery on corruption. I have not!
Some of the reactions suggested that multi-party democracy in a diverse religious and multi-ethnic polity with competing interests like Nigeria, requires compromises which make corruption unavoidable. This assertion, as explained by Chief Tunde Fanimokun, in his 2009 book, “Jakande: His Story Is History”, is a fallacy. In using the example of former Lagos State Governor Lateef Kayode Jakande, Fanimokun, the pioneer Permanent Secretary for Land Matters in the state, demonstrated “the practicability of incorruptibility under a democratic dispensation, given a good leader.” Jakande, by his policies, pronouncements, actions, example and body language, left nobody in doubt that a cardinal sin anybody in his government could commit was to be corrupt in any way or form. As he said: “Where there is light, there can be no darkness.”
Jakande shocked the citizenry when from the podium he was sworn in, he headed for his private one-story residence at 2, Bishop Street, Ilupeju rather than the palatial State House. When he was told it was impracticable, he asked what could be done to make it practicable. When told a ‘State House’ could not be in darkness, and he had no generator, he went out to buy one on hire purchase. When the security services said closed-circuit television is a necessity, he borrowed one from a friend. The emphatic message Jakande sent out was that he sought public office in order to serve and not to be served. At his own expense, he modified his residence and lived there throughout his terms in office, and for the two years from 1993 when he was the Minister of Works and Housing.
When his administration built an average 21 new houses everyday for the four years he was governor – making a total of over 30,000 new houses – he did so at the lowest possible cost. This included making bulk purchases of building materials and fittings using the state Building Materials Company, BMC, “at the most competitive prices from all available sources.” Fanimokun wrote that the Jakande administration also made direct “strategic importation of building materials as and when necessary”. These included iron-rods and cement from Spain and flush doors from countries like Cote d’Ivoire and Taiwan.
This way, the houses were affordable for the poor and the possibility of corruption in awarding contracts, was highly minimised. Fanimokun wrote that in awarding contracts, Jakande’s “tender award procedure was ideal – open, competitive, and very strictly guided by due process.” Also, there could have been no cases of corruption in the allocation system, as there were far more houses available than the number of applicants. He said under Jakande, the annual budget was like a holy book. It was used as an effective tool of management, for fiscal discipline, financial prudence and full compliance. The issue of ‘unspent budget’, he said, would have been strange under Jakande because strict budget implementation was a standard antidote for any end-of-year rush for unspent balances. Fanimokun posited that the practice of unspent budget is by itself “an open invitation to fraudulent manipulations, most especially in the absence of any effective control to clean the balance sheet.” He suggests Jakande’s method of taking steps to prevent corruption rather than tackle it after, because: “It is a notorious fact that Nigerian governments have a penchant for endless probes without prosecution to logical conclusion.”
He also argued that while new agencies to fight corruption such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, have been established after the Jakande era to fight corruption, the country seems to be moving in a circle. He said even when such agencies recover looted funds, there are claims that some of such funds are re-looted. The military coup of December 1983 which overthrew the Shagari administration and ended the Jakande administration in Lagos State, came with a vengeance to deal ruthlessly with leaders of the overthrown administration. It assumed the former leaders were corrupt. But Fanimokun said the military regime found Jakande to be spotlessly clean.
Based on his experiences under Jakande, Fanimokun made eight recommendations. First, is the power of example. Referring to innovative projects like the Banana Island land reclamation project, he said as governor, Jakande created land from water “without allocating one single plot of land to himself or his family.”
A second suggestion is that an upright leader should not be found in the midst of villains and treasury looters. Thirdly, that a visionary leadership is an irreducible minimum. Fourthly, that a good administration must keep faith with its policy pronouncements. Fifth, that good governance should not under any circumstance be compromised. This, he says, requires the promotion of the greatest good for the greatest number of the people. Six, is a total rebirth of the country’s value system built on a people-oriented mass movement against corruption. Seven is a continuous auditing of public accounts and use of watchdogs operating in the form of fund and financial review committees. Lastly, a demonstrable ‘zero tolerance’ for corruption.
While delivering the 2025 Distinguished Personality Lecture of the Lagos State University, LASU, Fanimokun noted: “It is a notorious fact that corruption remains a recurring decimal in the history of Nigeria. It is widely acknowledged as a monster with ferocious fangs/claws; and an endemic problem of gargantuan dimensions.” He said it is disheartening that Nigeria, the sixth largest oil producer on earth, has the third largest concentration of poor people. Corruption, he added, has held back economic growth and development in the country.
In gazing across his audience and, reflecting on his life, he said: “At 80, I feel greatly elated about a rebirth in Nigeria as imminent regarding the anti-corruption crusade.” Some of the reasons for his elation are the high profile cases involving the former Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele; the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello; and the final forfeiture of assets by Mrs Deziani Allison-Madueke, former Petroleum Minister under the Jonathan administration.
Fanimokun said his presumption is that the younger generations as leaders of tomorrow are listening to the clarion call for salvation: “If other wise, Nigeria is irredeemably doomed forever!” To assure the country survives, Fanimokun advocates that the crusade against corruption should be elevated to the status of a war in which drastic measures can be taken. One direction he directs his gaze is China, where the wages of corruption is the death penalty.
