The day Aribisala annoyed Sagay and Ezekwesili

Last week, in an event organized at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Femi Aribisala’s speech seemed to have elicited standing ovations from the students, who were members of the audience – this irked Professor Itsy Sagay and Mrs Oby Ezekwesili. In that event, as reported by Premium Times, I strongly believe Sagay and Ezekwesili failed to satisfactorily counter Aribisala’s supposedly ‘jaundiced claims’, instead attacked his person and the students, as it were. I came to this conclusion after searching the internet for days to find out what other newspapers reported that transpired in that event – the Sun newspaper and Premium Times seemed to have the most comprehensive transcript.

The event was organized by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of UNILAG and was tagged ‘’ Wining the war against Corruption’’. A book titled, ‘’ Legal Perspectives to Corruption, Money Laundering, and Assets Recovery in Nigeria’’, was also launched at the event. And of course, the occasion was graced by Professor Itsy Sagay, Chairman Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti- Corruption; Oby Ezekwesili, former World Bank chieftain; Femi Falana, represented by Wahab Shittu; Femi Aribisala, journalist and scholar; Ayo Obe and other dignitaries.

The aim of this article is not to infer, in any way, that Aribisala has a superior intellect to Sagay or Ezekwesili. I strongly believe Sagay and Ezekwesili are intellectual giants and Nigeria is lucky to have them. However, this article is intended to provoke a debate on the fight against corruption. Since in a democracy, perception matters and some people even believe it is everything, wishing away Aribisala’s thesis is not the way to go. In the preceding paragraphs, I will attempt to address each and every issue raised by Aribisala. Please note that since Premium Times is the only Newspaper that provided what looked like a comprehensive report on what transpired, on that day, I will base most part of this article on the newspaper’s report. If there were other superior arguments raised to rubbish Aribisala’s supposedly populace stance, on that day, I encourage it is published because I haven’t seen them yet.

Femi Aribisala started by attacking Ezekwesili’s definition of corruption. He claimed Ezekwesili narrowly defined corruption as malfeasance in the public sector. Well, I think Ezekwesili has defined corruption more broadly in other fora. So, I will let this one pass. However, Aribisala said something that was commonsensical here. He said that all of us were corrupt – the plumber, mechanic, artisan, secretary, clerks etc. That implied that we weren’t ready to fight corruption yet. That reminds me, a senior economists once told me that if you aggregated all the ‘petty’ corruption in Nigeria, you would be amazed at the value you would obtain for the computation.

The fiery journalist made a statement that got me thinking. He argued that if Buhari had any honest intention of fighting corruption, it was likely to be during the periods he contested and lost. Aribisala posited that Buhari probably jettisoned his genuine intentions after he made up his mind to join the guys who left the PDP. Critics of the APC have been reechoing this ‘supposedly false’ accusation by saying the fight against corruption was targeted at them. Sadly, the counter arguments from the APC have not been convincing. I didn’t see any counter argument that could have made Aribisala hide his head in shame in that conference (or seminar). Instead, I saw him getting away with such claims and his popularity soaring, among students.

Aribisala attacked the APC for not having an institutional structure to fight corruption. The dogged journalist posited that all the structures such as the ICPC, EFCC and TSA were PDP’s structure. He claimed that the APC was just engaging in media trials. He even used Orubebe’s case as an example. Here, Aribisala mainly reechoed what some elites in the opposition have been saying.

The fiery journalist gave the APC an uppercut when he posited that one cannot fight corruption with corruption. In this argument, he posited that by allowing a wide margin between the official and black market rates of forex and disobeying court orders, the APC was corrupt. He even went on to refer to the current recruitment in the CBN that has generated some controversy. The Punch Newspaper even wrote an editorial about it.

He didn’t stop here, he went on to talk about the government’s padded budget. He voiced what some analysts have been talking in hush voices. For example, some people are asking why there were no substantial changes in the budget passed, considering that the initial budget was highly inflated. To be fair to the APC, I am sure at the point of making this argument, Aribisala hadn’t heard that Buhari wanted to re-study the budget passed by the legislators before appending his signature.

I am sure it was at this point that the chairman of the occasion, Itse Sagay, decided he had had enough. Sagay queried why Aribisala had decided to follow the populist line by claiming there was no fight against corruption. Well, there has been some effort to stamp out corruption by Buhari, this was even acknowledged by Mr John Kerry, the US secretary of state. I am just trying to reconcile the current fight against corruption with what Chief Obasanjo just said about the EFCC after Nuhu Ribadu. The former president feels the EFCC hasn’t been effective.

The distinguished legal luminary even went as far as reminding Aribisala that the APC had a well-articulated structure for fighting corruption in its manifesto. Is it the manifesto that its content is being denied left right and center that he was referring to? Though, I think Aribisala erred by saying that he didn’t trust government’s genuineness to establish special courts to fight corruption. Besides, that was a structure being articulated and he should have given government the benefit of the doubt.

It was reported that the senior advocate went on to ask Aribisala to go and form his own political party if he wanted to be a government critic. If Sagay actually said this, then, I think it is very unfortunate. I do not think that was the best way to respond to someone with a contrary view, not all critics are meant to be politicians. In fact, most critics don’t do well as politicians. I understand Aribisala is sympathetic to the PDP, but he should have been shut up with superior arguments. For example, his claim that the war on corruption is targeted at the opposition should have been punctured, right there before him.

Oby Ezekwesili, in responding to the journalist, reminded the audience that corruption was a cancer and used the opportunity to chide the students. She queried why the students were clamping. Thank God nobody said the students were hired by the PDP. My analysis tells me they clapped to superior argument. Telling them they were clapping because they were ‘’at a page with their own level of corruption’’ is very unfortunate. Though we know some students engage in malpractices, but branding students who were merely enjoying themselves corrupt is rather unfortunate.

Everyone knows that corruption has done great damage to Nigeria. The other day, there was no electricity in the whole country for 3 hours. If that happened in America, Obama would have given a national broadcast the next day. Some people might have insinuated a terrorist attack. Everyone wants corruption to be stamped out of Nigeria. Aribisala criticism would have even helped government refine and improve its fight against corruption.

I do not know Aribisala neither am I sympathetic to any political party, I just want Nigeria to be a better country. They just made the man popular on that day. There is nothing the man said that the elites, in the opposition, might not have been saying at Ikoyi Club or at IBB Golf Course, in the evenings.