Whenever I allude to a morsel (or chunk) of Nigerian corruption, some commentors quite rightly allude to examples of corruption in the 'developed' world - the smelliest one being perhaps the Saudi arms deal the Serious Fraud Office lost their voice over. In this context, I thought you might enjoy a snapshot of an email exchange between 3 Naija-loving Brits, (or rather, two Naija-loving Brits and one Tiv-Brit) today (the debate rumbles on). Start from the bottom (SG) and read upwards (AW then OO):
OO:
And the Saudi intel thing is a bunch of bollocks anyway. The Saudi regime is more scared of Al Qaeda than we are, given their stated aim to take over Saudi, and they rely on our help to protect themselves from their own citizens. The real reason it was dropped is to protect BAE and the Thatcher family - yes, Mark 'Equatorial Guinea' T was mixed up in this too...
Since you mentioned Siriana, that film also illustrates the correct, neat, businesslike way to handle these things, which is to factor a fall guy into the equation. You call up the Saudis and say ' we need to show the public a head on a spike, you pick a useless unwanted political liability of yesteryear to pin it all on, we do the same, justice is seen to be done and we can all get on with business as usual'. That's what you, I or Babangida would have done.
But TB thought little enough of the British public that he allowed the Attorney General (a position he created to defend the independence of the legal system) to stand up in parliament and say 'in this case national security is more important than the rule of law'. That's a sentence which if uttered by a member of George Bush's government, would have echoed round the world, and if uttered by Obasanjo would have had the NBA, NLC, and every other TLA in Naija up in arms and out on strike.
But in Britain, the response was limited to James Naughtie commenting "and I thought the rule of law WAS a matter of national security", and then a day of headlines before everyone went back to speculating over premiership transfers and how much value those horrible curtains of their neighbours' would knock off their own house price. The reason why TB correctly thought we were such a bunch of supine f*cking wankers is because we were surprised when the investigation he ordered his mate to do into dead government weapons scientists exonerated him and blamed the independent media. We wouldn't recognise a scandal if we found it on the sofa molesting our children...
I'm not telling you anything John Lydon didn't already tell you in 1976. The British public make me want to puke sometimes.
AW:
The official rationale for dropping the sfo investigation was that it would damage national security. (thats what they said -piss the saudis off and we lose their intel on Al Q)
Whatever you think about that (and personally i think its bullshit) that was their "nuanced" decision.
In theory, as voters, we can turn around to the labour party and vote them out if we disagree with them. (ok we don't really have much of an alternative -the conservatives would have done the same thing i suppose).
Playing devils advocate for a second, they could say there was a benefit to British industry by the corruption: jobs, intelligence, favourable deals with the internationally key house of Saud... Its real politick and whatever you think about that, that's their reasoning. Their question would be: What negative effect does that corruption have on the lives of British people? As a character in Syriana (A film i thought was actually pretty dull) says: "corruption is why we win"
On the other hand, whats the rationale for dropping (or not proceeding with the cases) people like Ibori, Odili, Dariye et al... what's the quid pro quo? Where's the benefit? qui bono? How is allowing those guys to extract everything from the budget and "convert it to their own use", as the phrase goes, improving Nigeria's ability to compete in manufacturing? Creating much needed jobs? Buying international favour with key world players? Who can nigerians vote out if they disagree with the way their leaders do things?
I thnk when Nigerians say "see corruption in Britain!" what they are saying is "there is corruption in both the UK and Nigeria, therefore there's nothing wrong with corruption in Nigeria". That’s not the point. The real question is "why is corruption in the UK different from corruption in Nigeria?" ie: why does corruption have apparently little negative effect on the quality of life of Britons, but a massive effect on the quality of life of Nigerians?
I personally don't like the government's decision to drop the SFO investigation. Theorists on international development have for many years falsely classified (either implicitly or in some outrageous cases explicitly) the world into the "honest" developed world and the "dishonest" developing world.
Quite obviously that is completely wrong.
But instead of the developing world saying "see corruption in the Britain!" they would be better asking what benefit they are actually getting from their leader's tight closed-shop attitude to power.
SG:
I was at Michaela Wrong’s book launch at SOAS t’other night (‘Its our turn to eat – story of a Kenyan whistle-blower’). All good stuff. Nice, Africa-lovin folk, though their perspective on corruption is a bit one-dimensional and stereotypical. The discussion tended to be over-simplified, until the BAE scandal was mentioned. At which point Sir Edward (ex-High Comm to Kenya/anti-corruption crusader) showed his true colours, as a pillar of the establishment. The message was clear – African corruption is a simple, linear matter, to be exposed and decried; Brit corruption is nuanced, complicated and needs to be kept in context.
Yes, Sir Edward.
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