Emma Ezeazu, General Secretary Alliance for Credible Elections said in response to questions from ALABI WILLIAMS that ICPC is too weak to tackle corruption.Weak institutionsIT is not only the ICPC that does not do what it is supposed to do; it is a general deterioration on the ability of government institutions such as the ICPC to deliver on their roles and responsibilities. Underlining this deterioration is the lack of political will on the part of the ruling elite to do the right thing for the good of our people. A number of these agencies are set up as jobs for old friends without any serious intentions. Corruption is so endemic in the country that to deal with it will need an extraordinary will. There are a number of underlined socio-political reasons why an agency such as the ICPC is under performing, during the tenure of Justice Akanbi as the chairperson of ICPC, the law was tabled before the National Assembly (NASS) for amendment, we were reliably informed that members of the committee on corruption were requesting for bribes in dollars to pass the amendment.They believed that Akanbi and the ICPC were collecting a lot of dollars from donor agencies, so they should make available some bits of that money for them. Anti corruption is doomed to fail ab initio in a country where you have to bribe the legislators to amend or pass the anti corruption act. Sometime ago, I was discussing with one of the presidential candidates on the problem of corruption in the country, the man told me that we should stop this campaign of anti-corruption campaign until his tribe comes to power and loots the treasury the way other tribes have looted the treasury; he was of the opinion that the looting should go round before it stops and he is waiting patiently for that time to come. There is a general belief among the ruling populace that Nigeria is not worth dying for, so when somebody is appointed to head such a commission his people will come around him and say, 'look, forget this anticorruption thing, this is our time to chop.' If the person heading the commission is an old man, they will tell him that his appointment is his retirement benefit and so he should not risk his life trying to correct the system at an old age. In other climes, it becomes more bold and fearless when you get very old because you don't have anything to loose, but in Nigeria, corrupt sweet life starts at 70. I encountered a very disheartening episode when the National Assembly wasprobing the huge amount spent on generating power. I was taking a walk along a serene road in Gwarimpa and a radio station was broadcasting the probe. About three children that were returning from school heard about the amount of money that were allegedly stolen, and they exclaimed there is money in this country, one of them said, 'I'm praying to God that one day He will give me the opportunity to be where this money is so I can take my own share for my family.' Under this kind of environment, it is difficult for such institutions like ICPC to perform.I do not think that it is a capacity problem if the institution is constantly headed by the former chief justice of the federation, neither do I think it is so much a question of the law. We may have the best of laws in place, but without the political will to implement them, they will amount to nothing. Now do not misunderstand me, if there are gaps in the law, such gaps must be closed. The law cannot just rise and implement itself; it is human beings with unwavering commitment to public good that can implement the law.I have a problem with the way the state defines capacity for such institutions. Very often capacity means more vehicles, walkie talkies, beautiful houses, traveling abroad for endless trainings and seminars, and first class flight arrangement. The point is, a tortoise cannot give birth to a lion whatever the amount of training, and this is where the civil society must come in to define capacity as the moral ability of heads of such institutions to live up to their responsibilities. Civil society needs to put pressure on people with such responsibilities to do their job; civil society must name and shame them when they are not doing their job. Fruitless criticism of the system will not solve the problem, there are people with responsibility to run the system and those are the people that should be constantly put on the hot spot. Scrap ICPCSomehow their responsibilities do overlap, especially in the area of investigation. There is no need to have two anticorruption agencies in the country; one agency can serve both responsibilities of investigation and prosecution. In my own humble opinion ICPC should be scrapped. We need multiple attacks on corruption but that does not mean we need multiple institutions. One institution alone can set in motion a multiple attack system to deal with endemic corruption in our country. There are two main sides to anticorruption war, investigation and prosecution; the same institution can have strong departments in the area of investigation and prosecution.It is a matter of political will, if there is the right attitude towards setting up the ICPC, the commission can go a long way in achieving its objectives if there is that extraordinary will to attack the problem. I still think that the ICPC should be scrapped, it is generally seen by the public as very weak, while the nation concentrate its anticorruption effort on EFCC.
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