Corruption

Mali and Algeria have largely driven Nigeria out of the headlines over the past several days, except with respect to Nigerian troop commitments to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervention force. Serious and informed speculation about the relationship between Boko Haram, militants in Mali, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has also been largely absent. Yet Boko Haram activity continues in northern Nigeria. Last week, for example, the emir of Kano survived an assassination attempt that took the lives of his driver and two body guards and wounded two of his sons. The Nigeria Security Tracker, which seeks to chart instances of political violence, including Boko Haram, runs about a month behind. Next month, it should indicate whether there was a significant change in Boko Haram activity during the Algerian In Amenas crisis. However, stories about human rights abuses perpetrated by the Nigerian security services in their struggle against Boko Haram are becoming both more common and more open. The chief complaints are of the military indiscriminately firing into crowds, rounding up young men from near the scene of a Boko Haram incident, and detaining them without charge and in inhumane conditions. There are also claims of the use of torture. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of even wealthy families sending their young men away from the northeast to avoid the security forces. I have heard credible reports of members of elite northern Nigerian families being killed by the security services. Reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch provide external validation of many of the charges. Journalist Sani Tukur on January 13, published, “How Nigeria Military Arrest, Torture, Exploit Innocents at Giwa Barracks” in the online Nigerian journal The Premium Times. There is credible detail here describing arrest sweeps, shocking over-crowding of prisons, food shortages, and the use of torture. “Bail” amounts, normally given in the range of N200,000 to N300,000 (U.S. $1,300 to $1,900), may be a bribe rather than a security of the suspect’s return. Even in a country as poor as Nigeria, elites can raise such a sum, though many non-elite families cannot, condemning young men to the shadowy prison system, which rarely ends in trial. Tukur and many others have observed that such human rights abuses are a potent recruiting tool for Boko Haram: “[Giwa Barracks] is a place one will become more radical and prefer to be a member of the Boko Haram even if you are not one.” The security services staunchly deny accusations of human rights abuses. Others excuse security service rough methods as required to suppress Boko Haram. The debate in Nigeria between human rights and security necessity recalls that associated with Abu Ghraib in the United States during the second Iraq war, or between those who support the Algerian government’s methods at In Amenas and those who argue that a more sophisticated approach could have saved lives. In the aftermath of In Amenas, I am not yet ready to comment on ostensible links between Mali, Algeria, AQIM, and Boko Haram. However, I continue to see Boko Haram as primarily a domestic response to the alienation and poor governance of northern Nigeria.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s group Al Mulathameen (translated by the New York Times as “The Brigade of the Masked Ones”) kidnapped more than forty international workers from the Algerian natural gas field, ln Amenas, which lies along the middle of Algeria’s eastern border with Libya. The attack was ostensibly in retaliation for French intervention in Mali, and specifically, the Algerian government’s decision to allow French military planes through their air space en route to Mali.  And that seems to be the assumption of much of the Western press commentary. But we should be cautious about uncritically swallowing the claim that the kidnapping was politically motivated. Belmokhtar is “Mr. Marlboro,” the chieftain of a highly successful smuggling ring. We should consider that his motives included the criminal. Belmokhtar is legendary in Algeria for his ability to avoid arrest.  He also had a falling out with AQIM some time ago. Western response to the situation in Mali since last weekend highlights the dearth of information and understanding about the Sahel. Hence, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s September 2012, paper “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region” is a must-read. Wolfram Lacher, the author, is a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Written before the present round of the crisis, it is extraordinarily prescient. Among many other things, he shows that Mali’s last “democratic” government’s “…complicity with organized crime was the main factor enabling AQIM growth and a driver of conflict in the north of the country.”  The military coup of March 2012, did not end this:  “actors involved in organized crime currently wield decisive political and military influence in northern Mali.” It becomes very hard to differentiate between “good guys” and “bad guys,” between terrorists, criminals, and elements of governance. Indeed, on Mali, there is probably too much emphasis on Islam and “al-Qaeda-linked terrorism” (whatever that means) and not enough on organized crime.

Jacob Zuma was re-elected as the African National Congress (ANC) party president and Cyril Ramaphosa the deputy president. They won by large margins. So, too, did Executive Committee candidates who supported Zuma. Zuma’s chief rival, current Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe received only 991 votes to Zuma’s 2,983. As voting in South Africa largely remains a racial census, at least on the national level, Zuma will almost certainly be re-elected president of South Africa in 2014. Coming into the convention this week, Zuma already had a delegate lead based on non-binding primaries in the ANC heartlands KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. However, the convention balloting was secret. Motlanthe’s supporters had hoped many delegates would abandon Zuma in the aftermath of Marikana mining massacre. They did not. In a party political system increasingly based on patronage and clientage, few delegates could afford to oppose the clear favorite. The sky is not entirely blue for Zuma, however. He is personally associated with corruption and still faces charges in court. South Africa’s free press regularly documents his excesses, such as the use of public money to embellish his private "Versailles" in his native Nkandla (underground bunkers, tennis courts, etc.) and, in general, living beyond his means. (There are disturbing echoes of Congo’s Mobutu, even if still faint.) His administration, not known for its political skill, faces huge domestic challenges related to slow economic growth, the persistence of poverty, and racial inequality. Township residents are increasingly impatient with ANC operatives’ failure to deliver services because of corruption, even if they have not yet turned against the party. The ANC remains firmly identified with Nelson Mandela, who is ninety-four and currently ill. He continues to be the national icon of liberation and reconciliation. Accordingly, the South African media is obsessed with the state of his health. But the other heroes of the anti-apartheid movement seem to be distancing themselves from Zuma’s ANC. Archbishop Tutu’s criticism of the party and the South African government has been harsh. So, too, has been that of Mamphela Ramphele, a founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, later vice chancellor (president) of the University of Cape Town, and a managing director of the World Bank. According to the New York Times, Trevor Manuel and Jeremy Cronin, both known for their personal integrity and perennials in ANC governments, declined to accept nomination for the ANC executive committee. The ANC continues to struggle to change from a liberation movement into a party of government. Many South Africans are concerned about the identification of the ANC, as the current ruling party, with the national government as a whole. Hence, when four white right wing fanatics tried to blow up the ANC convention, they were charged with “treason” rather than, say, attempted murder. Yet South Africa is far from being a one-party state. At local and provincial levels, voting behavior is not necessarily determined by race, and the Democratic Alliance (DA) now governs the Western Cape and the city of Cape Town. The DA has its sights set on capturing the city government of Johannesburg and the provincial government of Gauteng, the wealthiest part of the country. It is a credible goal. The Western Cape and Gauteng are the most developed parts of South Africa with the most favorable social statistics.

Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s courageous governor of the Central Bank, has once again called attention to the high cost of government in Nigeria.  He claims, credibly, that at least 70 percent of government revenue is spent on the government itself. In a comment that will hardly endear him to the political class, he called for the downsizing of government by half. Sanusi bravely pointed out that it was not just civil servants that receive government salaries.  He said, “this is a country where we have 774 local government councils; in each council you have a chairman, a vice chairman, and maybe ten counselors.” Each receives a government salary, as opposed to other countries where local governments are paid by revenues raised in their locale. For Sanusi, the fundamental problem is the constitution, and its requirement that state resources and jobs be allocated to each of the states to uphold the principle of “federal character.”  Hence, each state must be represented in President Jonathan’s cabinet–which means a cabinet of thirty-six ministers and thirty-six ministers of state. Sanusi was made central bank governor by President Umaru Yar’Adua, Jonathan’s predecessor. A Muslim from the North, he is regularly speaking truth to power, including within the national assembly, which he has accused of wasting his time. Not a member of Jonathan’s inner circle, he is likely protected by his justifiably high international reputation and because it is difficult to fire a governor of the central bank.

The elderly mother of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is still in the hands of those who kidnapped her on December 9, 2012. According to the Nigerian media, the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of N200 million (U.S. $1.27 million.) This was reduced from their original demand of N1 billion (U.S. $ 6.34 million) when the family made it clear that it could not pay. The episode still looks criminal rather than political, despite the kidnappers’ rhetoric about Delta grievances and initial demands that negotiations be with the Minister herself rather than with her brother. Two police and two domestic staff have been arrested. While the authorities are tight-lipped, presumably they will be charged with dereliction of duty during the kidnapping. The state commissioner of police says that his command has “deployed personnel to the nooks and crannies of the state in search for the kidnappers.” On December 13, the New York Times ran a story on how kidnapping of foreigners, particularly Europeans, is funding Islamist extremists in Mali. There is no relationship between jihadist, terrorist kidnappings in the Sahel and the kidnapping of the Finance Minister’s mother for mercenary purposes. There is also no evidence of cooperation between Sahel jihadists and the Nigerian kidnappers in the Delta. Initially, according to the Nigerian media, the kidnappers of the Mrs. Okonjo demanded a ransom similar in size to that normally demanded by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM.) The Times, quoting a U.S. treasury official, reports that “in 2010 the average ransom payment per hostage to AQIM was U.S. $4.5 million; in 2011, that figure was U.S. $5.4 million.” As the Times observers, the U.S. and the U.K. refuse to pay ransom; it is commonly assumed that other Western governments do pay ransom–and ransoms are so high because governments can afford to pay. During the 2005-2009 insurrection in the Niger delta, militants often resorted to kidnapping for ransom. The Nigerian government’s policy was not to pay, but it was widely suspected that ransoms were paid, especially by state governments. Since then, kidnapping has continued, but usually of Nigerians who can pay, rather than expatriates. Meanwhile, the hope must be for the early release of the Finance Minister’s elderly mother from captivity.

Kamene Okonjo, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s mother, who is a medical doctor and the wife of a traditional ruler, was kidnapped on December 9, 2012. The kidnapping highlights a growing menace in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Ten heavily armed men kidnapped Professor (Mrs.) Kamene Okonjo, wife of Professor Chukuka Okonjo, the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku, from her home.  She is the mother of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.  The victim is eighty-two years old. The Coordinating Minister is unpopular among many Nigerians, so a political motive for the crime cannot be ruled out.  But, I think it is unlikely. Kidnapping as a purely criminal enterprise has been on the upswing. Delta state, where the Minister’s mother lives, has been especially plagued with it. Victims are often individuals with the means to pay a ransom. When ransom is paid, the victims are released.  Kidnapping of expatriate oil company employees was a widely used tactic by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) during its insurrection that ended in 2009 with an amnesty program that included payoffs for the warlords. The police are claiming that they are “on top of it” with respect to this high-profile kidnapping. Beyond the hurt and anxiety that this vicious crime is bound to cause the victim’s family, it will also embarrass the Jonathan administration, of which Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is such a prominent member.

Xi Jinping has one over-riding political mandate: clean up corruption or clear out. Corruption and its manifestations are at the heart of the Party’s greatest challenges: its glaring lack of legitimacy; one hundred eighty thousand mass demonstrations annually by most recent count; and an outflow of money through corruption, crime, and tax evasion as high as $3.72 trillion over the past decade. Is Xi up to the task? In a 2000 interview, Xi Jinping stressed his belief that a new leader should set his own agenda but also build upon the work of his predecessors. Xi is pushing forward on an anti-corruption platform and in so doing is following a long and storied tradition in Chinese history. Mao Zedong launched the country’s first anti-corruption campaign in 1951, just two years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and such campaigns have been a staple of every Chinese leadership since. In the past five years alone, over six hundred thousand Party officials have been investigated for “corruption-related activities.” The challenge here is two-fold: the number that should be investigated is probably closer to six million or even sixty million; and the traditional method of attack—simply plucking out corrupt officials one by one from on high—is woefully inadequate to the task at hand. Fortunately, Xi and his corruption czar Wang Qishan appear to have some other tricks up their sleeves: Make first impressions count: Within the first month of Xi being selected as General Secretary of the Communist Party, the Party issued eight new guidelines for officials designed to help them clean up their act and be “men of the people.” Most of the new regulations revolve around reducing official excesses, such as controlling the funds spent on official banquets, renovating government buildings, or purchasing official cars. Gone are ribbon-cutting ceremonies, long and empty speeches, and orchestrated rallies for Party leaders when they travel at home or abroad. Losing all these perks may do more over time to improve the quality of Party members than any anti-corruption campaign. Introduce democracy … but just a little: Look for small bore—not bold, but not boring—changes in Party governance under Xi. He will likely support two small “democracy” reforms: greater intra-party democracy—ensuring that there are more candidates than positions throughout the Party hierarchy; and deliberative democracy, engaging the Chinese people at the local level in the decision-making process, while still retaining the decision-making part of the process in the hands of the Party. Down south, officials are also experimenting with disclosing their financial assets, and there are plans to release this information to the public. According to Mei Heqing, a senior official with the Guangzhou municipal commission for discipline inspection, people will even be able to go online to find out how many properties local officials own. Befriend the Internet: This may turn out to be the boldest advance in Xi’s first year, or it may not. The official Xinhuanet.com recently published a report underscoring the positive role of Chinese netizens in ferreting out official corruption, suggesting that the new leadership may appreciate a helping hand from the country’s mass-based anti-corruption campaigners. The elevation of Liu Yunshan—renowned for his "draconian control of the media and Internet" over the past ten years—to the Politburo Standing Committee, however, has many reformers predicting a tough road ahead for freedom of speech and Internet expression. The netizens will almost certainly win the war, but the battles will be ugly. Xi Jinping’s domestic political agenda over the next year might best be summed up by simple, clean men in a simple, clean government. Xi wants his officials to be corruption-free, servants of the public good, and modest. Getting there won’t be easy, but he has made his intentions clear.

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. In his later years, American journalist Lincoln Steffens looked back with skepticism on his work. His muckraking essays in McClure’s magazine exposed government corruption, but he doubted that they contributed to enduring change. Revolutions in Mexico and the Soviet Union impressed him and seemed more effective than reform in advancing society. With respect to them he famously commented, “I have seen the future, and it works.” Elements of Nigeria’s elite seem to have caught a glimpse of a revolutionary future, too. In years past, deteriorating conditions in the country gave rise to coup talk. Today, revolution is openly discussed. This is new. Former President Obasanjo recently stated that unless youth unemployment is addressed, “Nigeria will see a revolution soon.” Tunde Bakare, a Latter Rain Assembly pastor and Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election, picked up the theme, adding that “President Obasanjo and others responsible for the yawning gaps between the haves and have-nots in the country would not be spared in the impending revolution.” Bakare included religious leaders engaging in conspicuous consumption at the expense of their flocks among those who “would not escape the revolt of the masses.” Most interestingly, he suggested that, “if the revolution does not begin in the church, it cannot spread; if it does not begin in the mosque, it will not spread, because they control the population.” Earlier this year, Buhari and former Kaduna State governor Balarabe Musa both warned of a revolution. If a revolution occurs in Nigeria what would it look like? According to Professor John Voll, revolutionary models profoundly changed with the Arab Spring. Now they are: non-ideological and pragmatic, use the blogosphere as an arena of conflict, utilize flash mobs as a weapon, and include women as a dynamic element. Crane Brinton is out, Voll says, “We’re in a new revolutionary mode.” Perhaps a Nigerian revolution is already underway. While Maiduguri is not the Vendee, it is an epicenter of Boko Haram’s violent opposition to vestiges of the government. Expansion to Sokoto, where the sect wishes to transfer religious authority from the Sultan to itself, would represent fundamental change to the northern power structure. Ongoing communal violence in the country featuring flash mobs, as well as growing popular rage against corruption, reflect Steffens’ belief that “long before the bullets dominate the landscape, the seeds of revolution are planted by rapacious, corrupt, and inept governments that refuse to change.”  

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. Greek journalist Costas Vaxevanis recently escaped judicial sanction when the judge in an Athens court “found that Mr. Vaxevanis had acted in the public interest when he published the ‘Lagarde’ list—a document containing the names of two thousand Greeks with Swiss bank accounts—in Hot Doc, the magazine he edits.” Observes the Financial Times: “impoverished Greeks are becoming ever more resentful of the ability of the elite to escape paying their dues.” According to Vaxevanis, “it was the first time that the names of Greek account holders abroad had been published, so there was tremendous interest in finding out who they really were—the top tier of Greek business and society.” Around the time of this Greek drama, in Nigeria, a report from the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force, chaired by Nuhu Ribabdu, similarly heightened stress among political elites. Ribabdu is the former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). According to Reuters, Ribadu’s report “showed Nigeria had lost tens of billions of dollars in cut-priced deals struck between government officials, the state oil firm, and multinational oil companies over the last decade.” And it “found hundreds of millions of dollars of oil bonuses and royalties paid to the government were missing.” Reacting to the report, the Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum stated that Ribadu’s committee was not intended to be a “probe panel” or “commission of enquiry,” therefore “nobody or institution was indicted as nobody was on trial.” The presidency denied a possible cover-up of the report. Vaxevanis and Ribadu represent twenty-first-century muckrakers whose work is exposing the persistence of long-term patterns of elite corruption corroding governance in both countries. That these patterns persist despite their efforts to “name-and-shame” is often attributed to a lack of political will, usually among the so-called political class. But as has been suggested in other contexts, to be effective, political will cannot be confined simply to courageous journalists and former government officials. Broad-based collaboration among government (all branches), foreign and domestic business, civil society, and ordinary citizens is needed. In Greece, Vaxevanis received support from the courts; whereas Ribadu, in Nigeria, appears to have less government backing. But political will in both cases is spotty. Meanwhile, the murder of Guinea’s Treasury head Aissatou Boiro, who was investigating missing state funds, evidences strong political will among those wishing to maintain “business-as-usual.”

Times are hard for Jacob Zuma. His woes range from the cosmic to the personal. His leadership of the governing African National Congress is likely to be challenged at the December party convention. The Farlam Commission investigating the Marikana massacre may hold the state accountable for murder of mine workers. If so, the Zuma government could fall. (In South Africa, unlike some other African states, official commission reports that embarrass the government cannot be suppressed.) Two international agencies have cut South Africa’s credit rating. Unemployment is up. The perception is that corruption is increasingly out of control. It is widely believed that Zuma is trying to politicize the judiciary. He is under heavy personal criticism for the use of public money for “security enhancement” of his private farm. And then there is the government’s failure to deliver textbooks to children in Limpopo Province. Accordingly, eight of the eleven opposition parties have tabled a motion of no-confidence in the Zuma government. Should it pass, the Zuma government would be forced to resign. It will not pass, and it will probably never even reach a vote because of the ANC’s overwhelming majority in parliament. (If all of the MPs from the eight opposition parties voted for the measure, it would still need the support of more than sixty ANC MPs to pass.) More than 60 percent of the MP’s are ANC, and many of them dislike Zuma. But, it is highly unlikely that they would vote to bring down an ANC government. The ANC leadership can, using legitimate parliamentary tactics, ensure that the measure will never even reach the order paper stage. Indeed there is already an ANC counter-motion proposing Parliament "reaffirm its full confidence in the able leadership of President Jacob Zuma." So, is this a fruitless exercise? No. In the short run, the no-confidence motion ensures nation-wide public discussion of the government’s shortcomings in the run-up to the ANC party convention. In any democracy that is healthy. There are signs that it is already bringing pressure on Zuma, though it is not clear what the short-term consequences will be. Perhaps of greater importance, the fact that eight parties–ranging from the Democratic Alliance (the official opposition) to the Inkatha Freedom Party to the Congress of the People–are cooperating in this endeavor may be a step toward the emergence of a united, credible opposition party that could someday challenge the ANC’s overwhelming dominance of parliament. That, too, would be good for democracy.

This is a guest post by Mohamed Jallow, program development specialist at IntraHealth International. He was previously a program associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. Looking at the bitterly divisive elections campaigns in Sierra Leone, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s words from the 2007 elections come to mind; winning the elections is literally “a matter of life and death.” In Sierra Leone, as is in Nigeria, the winner-takes-all-system is an integral part of politics. Widespread political patronage and the perception that those who win presidential elections provide sole, unfettered access to the lucrative benefits of political power, makes the electoral process a very dangerous undertaking. Two weeks before the general elections, the stakes could not be higher. No expense, no level of patronage, and no trick in the book has been spared by the two major political parties to win the presidency. Even Obasanjo himself was on hand to help campaign for the president, following a high profile visit by Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. Already, politicians of all stripes have positioned, and repositioned, themselves for the post elections spoils. This is almost a pre-election ritual. These calculated maneuvers are deeply rooted in the notion that losing elections means being reduced to a spectator rather than an active partner in governance. In cases where they are not oppressed or run underground, key opposition politicians are routinely co-opted by the ruling party through token political positions. In effect, the spoils system renders the opposition irrelevant, thus undermining not only the democratic process, but also people’s faith in their leaders. Just to illustrate how this mentality is hampering rather than solidifying democracy, the main opposition leader, Julius Maada Bio, during a recent speech at Chatham House in London, accused the government of President Koroma of “applying a cruel and crude brand of tribalism, patronage, and nepotism in many state institutions.” According to him, “over 80 percent of the appointments and promotions in the last four years within the public service are of members of selected ethnic groups from northern Sierra Leone, which is the presumed stronghold of the ruling party.” Now, whether this is true or not, the perception is already there. It affects the way people see their leaders, and how accountable they hold them during, and after, elections. However, the most damaging effect of this type of politics is that politicians and voters are more likely to put their ethnic and regional affiliations, the interests of their patrons, before the interests of their country.

In response to my post of Nigerian Army Guilt, an expert on the Nigerian military has written me a thoughtful note which he has allowed me to share.  Despite what Nigerian law and regulation may say, the reality since the end of the civil war is that the main mission of the Nigerian Army is to maintain domestic order. General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Division Major-General Garba Wahab confirmed this when he recently stated that, "the army has the mandate to do whatever within the ambit of the law to provide security where necessary and ensure that the country remains united." The current structure of the army’s divisional headquarters evolved out of the civil war. This is noteworthy because the main divisional HQs–Kaduna, Ibadan, Jos, Enugu, and Lagos–are dispersed among all major regions, and subordinate battalions associated with each division are spread out to cover territory in these broad regions. Perceptions of external threat, typically a military’s concern, do not appear to have influenced this deployment pattern so much as the civil war experience, which fostered recognition of the need for military presence throughout the country; in case Biafra-style problems arose again. If there is one constant thread in Nigerian history since 1970, it is that the military is the guarantor of national cohesion; its mission is to ensure the continued existence of the country. Outsiders focus on the police because they extrapolate from the experience of the countries they live in, where police are responsible for, and usually can ensure, domestic order. Nigeria is different in this respect. Police play only a limited role. Maintaining national security, meaning domestic order, remains the responsibility of the army. Consequently, for years observers worried about possible splits in the military. Not because it would leave Nigeria vulnerable to external attack, but because it would undermine domestic order. From 2005, the beginning of escalating disorder in the Delta, and extending to Boko Haram’s destabilization of the North, those long-term anxieties about the cohesion of the military have sharpened; with good reason. Reported involvement of high-ranking military officers with Delta militants evidenced a deterioration of the army’s cohesion, while presently one has to wonder if some army personnel are sympathetic to Boko Haram. This is the form that divisions within the military have taken in recent years. These types of splits were not envisioned years ago because observers were strongly influenced by events in the past and seem to have anticipated something similar to that in the future. It is important to recognize that this form of military splits appears to emulate the broader global trend in which conflict gravitates toward the domestic gap between rich and poor. That is alarming because it cuts across the old ethnic, religious, regional fault-lines we were all taught to look at, giving domestic battles more power and scope.

Nigeria and Norway have little in common except the first letter of their names and the fact that they produce about the same amount of oil each day. Norway on a per capita basis may be the richest country in the world, while Nigeria is among the poorest. Norway has among the world’s best social statistics, while Nigeria has among the worst. Norway has been a democracy for a long time, while Nigeria is still struggling to attain it. I was therefore startled to learn that an official spokesman for Rivers State, one of the Nigeria’s principal oil producing states, confirmed the purchase of a new Bombardier jet for Governor Chibulke Amaechi. It cost U.S. $45 million. The jet is for the governor’s “exclusive” use and replaces an older aircraft, which will be sold. And, just out of interest, what would be the travel arrangements for the King of Norway and the prime minister? I learned from a good authority that the King flies commercial. The seat next to him, however, is left vacant. The prime minister is not accorded the privilege of a vacant seat next to him when he flies commercial. It is true that the King of Norway can use a military aircraft on official (usually state) visits. And the prime minister can hire a plane. These occasions are relatively rare. It is an illustration of how the Norwegian leadership is accountable to the parliament, and through it to the Norwegian people. Nigeria cannot yet hold its leaders to that standard of accountability. Even more than differing methods of travel, the two governments diverge on fundamental management of their nation’s oil revenues. Norway established the Government Pension Fund into which oil revenue funnels and is distributed to the people. It weighs in at U.S. $656.2 billion. Its management is based on Norway’s highly developed sense of accountability. As such, it operates in a very transparent fashion. Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, on the other hand, is having a difficult time pushing a mere U.S. $1 billion past the state governors to establish a Nigerian sovereign wealth fund. It would be financed by excess oil revenues and eventually replace the Excess Crude Account, which weighs in at U.S. $8 billion. The governors fear the federal government will be unaccountable for how it manages the money; just as the current account is not managed in a transparent or accountable fashion. The governors believe the current system of distributing oil money to the states should be maintained. The state governments, however, have shown just as little enthusiasm for transparent, accountable spending as the federal government.

Sunday’s New York Times carried an Agence France Presse piece reporting on the alleged Boko Haram killing of at least thirty people over a three day period in Potiskum, Yobe state.  The piece also notes that it was “not clear whether soldiers were responsible for any of the destruction.” The Nigerian army has been widely accused of indiscriminate killings in northern Nigeria as part of its campaign against Boko Haram.  Some political leaders have urged the Jonathan government to withdraw the military, especially from Maiduguri, arguing that it feeds popular support for Boko Haram.  I have blogged on a Human Rights Watch report that raises the question of whether the International criminal Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed both by Boko Haram and the military. But it is too easy to lay responsibility for alleged security service atrocities solely at the feet of the Nigerian military.  As in many countries, the army in Nigeria is not responsible for maintaining domestic order.  That is the function of the police, which, like the army, is a national–not local or state–institution. The army is not trained for domestic policing.  Nonetheless the army has moved to the forefront in the struggle against Boko Haram because of the inadequacies of the police.  The latter are so poorly paid they often support their families by shaking down travelers at the ubiquitous check points and indulge in other forms of petty corruption.  The upper reaches of the police also appear riddled with corruption, sometimes of spectacular magnitude.  And they are very badly trained.  Anecdotes abound of indiscriminate police killings. A consequence of these shortcomings is that the police are widely (if not universally) despised.  Popular regard for the military is marginally better, if seemingly in decline because of recent abuse allegations. There is legal provision for the military to assist the police.  But that is supposed to be governed by strict protocols.  If the army sweeps an area, it is required to hand over its detainees to the police, as occurred when the army captured Boko Haram chief Mohammed Yusuf in 2009.  As is well known, the police then murdered him. There is another dimension.  Individuals in the army can be just as affected by the religious and ethnic conflicts that have become widespread in northern Nigeria in the aftermath of the elections of 2011, as the population they are charged to protect. It is likely that many individual soldiers have a strong–even murderous–bias against the local people. It goes without saying that individuals are responsible for their crimes.  Soldiers, especially, must be held to the highest personal standards.  Nevertheless, there is also an institutional mess, responsibility for which rests with successive governments in Abuja as well as with the individuals who commit the crimes.  Over the past decade Abuja has not developed, trained, or supported the police adequately for it to do its job.  And it is misusing the army to do what it is not trained to do.  Alas, at this stage, it is too late to do much about it.  Precipitous withdrawal of the army from Maiduguri could leave the city altogether open to Boko Haram.

This is a guest post by Janet Goldner, a Senior Fulbright Scholar who has worked in Mali for the past fifteen years.  She works on a variety of grassroots, cultural, and women’s empowerment projects. She visited Mali again in July and August 2012. Her perspective, different from the more conventional discussion of the Mali crisis, reflects a wide range of indigenous contacts.   The western media, to the extent that it covers Mali at all, feeds us a steady diet of information about the refugee crisis and the horrors of the barbarous crimes occurring regularly in the occupied northern territory. And indeed it is terrible. But there is little attention to the crisis in the south that allowed the occupation of the north to occur. The current Government of National Unity, headed by Interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra is rarely covered in the western press. On the rare occasions when Mali is the topic of governmental hearings, Malians are rarely, if ever, included in the deliberations. What happened on March 21, 2012, was not a coup d’état. What began as an unplanned mutiny by soldiers disgruntled at being sent to fight a war without munitions, supplies, or support, culminated with the resignation of President Amadou Toumani Touré. Neither planned nor violent, this event was the beginning of a still incomplete revolution against deep-seated corruption spanning the entire twenty years of the so called Malian democracy. This mutiny occurred six weeks before planned elections. Many Malians did not believe that the elections could dislodge the ruling kleptocracy. Now, elections must wait until the north is liberated. Then Malians can try to build a true democracy as opposed to the corrupt illusion of democracy that existed before this crisis. Malians want real change and will respond vigorously if the old order tries to turn back the clock. The coup leader, Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, is often portrayed by commentors as a mad man, an imbecile. But, he was not present at the Presidential Palace the day of the mutiny, only later did he agree to become the leader of the mutiny. He has no political experience and was not well advised. He made mistakes. In contrast, Sanogo is seen by many Malians as a savior because he delivered Mali from the corrupt leaders and awoke the nation to previously unknown depths of the corruption, including kickbacks from narcotics trafficking and ransoms paid by European countries for hostages held in Mali. ECOWAS is viewed with suspicion as defending of the old corrupt regime since it is led by presidents of west African countries who are no less corrupt than the old Malian regime. Their actions are seen as an effort to protect their own hold on power from the revolutionary aspirations in play in Mali. It is important to listen to ordinary Malians who have not had a voice in the international media’s narrative of the ongoing crisis nor have they been consulted by the international community.