THE allegation that Honourable Farouk Lawan, Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Petroleum Subsidy, collected a $500,000 bribe is shocking and disappointing to many Nigerians. The money was said to have been offered to free two oil marketing companies from the list of those indicted by the committee's report as corruptly receiving subsidy payments. It is equally curious that Lawan, who initially denied the allegation, admitted later that he took it, but only 'to expose' the alleged giver. The incident has reinforced the public cynicism that in Nigeria, everything or everybody has an exchange value.Although the House has suspended Lawan as the committee's chairman pending further investigations, President Goodluck Jonathan should be personally interested in fully investigating this allegation and sending signals that he is indeed ready and willing to fight corruption with the seriousness that it demands. Mr. Femi Otedola who allegedly gave the bribe should also be suspended from any public responsibility that he currently performs.Very few people would dispute the fact that public officials in Nigeria routinely engage in corruption. But they probably never contended, until now, with the scale of the fraud in which payments of petroleum subsidy by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was shrouded, as revealed in the KPMG audit and House of Representatives investigation. About $7 billion is calculated to have been lost to assorted fuel subsidy scams, most of it in the run-up to the 2011 elections. The exposure of these scams on the floor of the House of Representatives in the course of an inquiry by the Lawan committee gave Nigerians hoped that a national institution and some elected officials could work in the public interest. Nigerians hope that the privileged citizens who so brazenly steal from and impoverish them had, this time, grossly overreached themselves, and would be brought to justice.How President Jonathan decides to deal with it, and the consequences of that decision, will be far-reaching.His choice could be remembered as a defining moment when Nigeria was boldly redirected towards the path of purposeful, effective government.Or as the moment when another Nigerian leader opted to preserve or even deepen the nation's unfortunate history of enormous promise, voracious rule and abysmal failure.The intensive media coverage of the House probe has enabled Nigerians to fully understand the assorted stratagems that have been employed to fleece them by an ungodly alliance of oil importers, bureaucrats and politicians. It is clear that millions of dollars had been illegally paid out as oil subsidy, including to people who may not have imported any oil.The implication of Lawan in the bribery scandal does not alter the fact that fraudulent oil subsidy payments skyrocketed as President Jonathan assumed power. If his administration refuses to punish the culprits, it would appear that it is bent on protecting corruption, an impression that would seriously dent the credibility of his transformation agenda. It will also aggravate the sense of drift and helplessness that have been fostered by insecurity in parts of the country.The president should act fast to, at the minimum, ask the leadership of the NNPC and the Ministry of Petroleum to resign in order to restore confidence in the government and the nation. The enormity of the subsidy fraud is at best, evidence of gross negligence and incompetence on the part of the political and administrative leadership of the country's oil sector under President Jonathan. The implication could even be worse. The President needs to relieve himself of these symbols of corruption.The longer term interests of government and the good of the nation should come above personal loyalties.Corruption, accidents and nepotism among other ills can only be significantly reduced when political appointees and top bureaucrats take ultimate responsibility for what happens under their watch. The buck must stop at someone's desk! Ministers will bear ultimate responsibility for lapses in their departments only if the President demonstrates leadership and acknowledges responsibility for the quality and performance of national institutions. This is about setting powerful precedence by personal example. The President should ask questions and demand resignations at the very top in addition to making the Police or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) perform their investigation and prosecution duties.Ministers and heads of MDAs should expect to be asked to resign when major cases of corruption or fraud need to be investigated. This change must start by altering the culture of parcelling out parastatals to politicians who are expected to recover campaign expenditure in these positions. The President should set an example by promptly relieving corrupt public officers of their jobs and building a criminal justice system that assures speedy prosecution. Rhetoric on national transformation is meaningless when the country preserves a political system in which individuals convert institutions and official responsibilities to personal gain. The President must steadily signal to the Police and the EFCC that they should investigate and conclude corruption cases no matter who is involved.Ultimately, a redesign of Nigeria's political and institutional architecture is required if the country is to abandon the sporadic and selective approach to fighting corruption and seriously tackle this cancer. Sadly, the Jonathan administration did not come to power with a plan for one. The oil subsidy scandal is a threat to the integrity of the regime and Nigeria's democracy; it should be a motivation for sincere institutional reform.The civil society, including the media and opposition parties, has a moral role to play in criticising corruption in government. There should be a rethink of policies that place excessive powers on politicians and bureaucrats over vast economic resources.But the ultimate responsibility rests on President Jonathan. He can arrest the drift if he reaches out beyond narrow, self-interested circles, for ideas that will promote autonomous and effective functioning of national institutions.
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