Obasanjo: Corruption, illicit wealth hinder development

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the poor suffer the most in corrupt societies, stressing that illicit wealth is inimical to development and progress.

Obasanjo spoke on Monday while chairing the public presentation and launch of “Unexplained Wealth: A Trilogy of Nigerian Financial Law,” authored by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Wahab Shittu, at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The former President, who traced his long-standing involvement in the fight against corruption, said corruption and development could not coexist.

“Whichever way it is described, it is anti-social, it is anti-development, it is anti-progress. It is not in the best interest of any country or any human organisation,” he said.

Obasanjo said his interest in fighting corruption dated back to his military career, when he served as a prosecutor under military law and also sat on a court-martial involving corruption.

He said his involvement deepened after he left office as military head of state and became a farmer, when he was approached by Peter Eigen, a former World Bank official and later founder of Transparency International.

According to Obasanjo, Eigen approached him because of his experience at the World Bank, where he had witnessed what he described as “grand corruption.”

“He came to me and said, ‘I want you to join me in fighting corruption.’ I had never met him in my life; I had never known him anywhere,” Obasanjo recalled.

He said Eigen told him that his World Bank experience had exposed him to the diversion of funds from loans granted to countries, prompting both men to establish Transparency International.

Obasanjo said he became chairman of the organisation’s Advisory Council, while Eigen served as chairman.

He recalled that when they approached Bob McNamara, a former United States Secretary of Defence and World Bank president, for support, he told them they were attempting the impossible.

“He said, ‘You two are trying to do the impossible,’” Obasanjo recalled.

According to him, McNamara eventually promised to provide moral and financial support if they could demonstrate results.

“He said to us, ‘I will promise you both moral and financial support when you show results,’” he said.

Obasanjo said he and Eigen subsequently travelled to different parts of the world to seek support for the anti-corruption organisation, visiting countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

He said one of their early targets was the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which, according to him, had allowed companies to deduct money paid as bribes as tax expenses.

“We then decided that the first thing we ought to do is to get OECD not to support money paid for corruption to be deducted for tax purposes,” he said.

Obasanjo said the campaign took almost three years before the OECD abolished the practice.

He added that the success helped Transparency International gain wider recognition.

The former President also recounted his administration’s efforts to establish the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.

He said Transparency International provided him with a model anti-corruption law which became the basis for the ICPC legislation in Nigeria.

“I went to Transparency International, and they gave me a model of a law. And that law that became—or that brought about ICPC,” he said.

According to Obasanjo, the Bill faced resistance in the National Assembly because some lawmakers feared its consequences.

“They said to me that if they pass the Bill as I gave it to them, most of them will end up in prison,” he said.

He said it subsequently took the lawmakers 18 months to pass the legislation.

Obasanjo said he later established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to strengthen the country’s fight against corruption.

“Then to strengthen it, I came up with the EFCC,” he said, attracting applause.

He also commended Nuhu Ribadu, whom he described as a “corruption fighter,” for his role in the EFCC from its inception.

Obasanjo said the trilogy authored by Shittu appropriately focused on three critical components of the fight against illicit wealth: law, prosecution and recovery.

• From classroom to construction site: The child labour journey from Benin Republic to Lagos
• Lagos club robbery: Police arrest one, hunt accomplices
• Atiku, Skelewu and Oladejo’s dance of fallacy

He said strengthening the three elements would help societies tackle unexplained wealth and illicit funds.

The former President said Nigeria had taken some anti-corruption measures even before the United Nations later adopted a global anti-corruption framework.

“It took about three or four years for the global body, the global organisation, the United Nations, to propose and pass the anti-corruption framework and mandate each country to make laws against corruption. So, we were even ahead of the United Nations,” he said.

Obasanjo said his decision to accept the invitation to chair the book presentation was informed by his belief that corruption remained a major obstacle to national development.

“When Wahab Shittu, SAN, the author, came to see me and invited me for this occasion, I gladly accepted.

“Because I know one big bane of development of any human organisation, and particularly of a country, one big handicap to development is corruption. Corruption and development are strange bedfellows; they don’t go together.”

He lamented that “Those who suffer most in the corrupt society are the poor. And it makes them poorer.”

He said Nigeria could not make meaningful progress while corruption was allowed to thrive.

Obasanjo said there was no country where corruption had been eliminated, but countries could prevent it from becoming entrenched.

“There’s nowhere in the world where corruption is totally eliminated. But there are many places in the world where corruption is not allowed to grow,” he said.

He urged Nigeria and other African countries to strengthen their laws and institutions and sustain the fight against corruption.

“We cannot make progress in our development as long as we allow corruption to lead,” he said.

Obasanjo congratulated Shittu on the trilogy, saying publications of such nature were needed to support the continuing fight against corruption in Nigeria and across Africa.

Also speaking, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, said legal reforms to tackle unexplained wealth must be accompanied by political and judicial reforms.

Sanusi warned that good laws would have limited impact if investigators, prosecutors and judges failed to apply them fairly and transparently.

He said, “We live in a society where if you have unexplained wealth and if you have the right political cover, nobody asks you. And if you are on the wrong side of politics, you get into trouble.”

The Emir urged the authorities to ensure that anti-corruption laws are applied consistently to everyone, not only those in government.

Representing former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, his former Chief of Staff, Ade Ipaye, said Nigeria needed a fair and constitutionally sound system for recovering stolen assets without criminalising legitimately acquired wealth.

Osinbajo said, “What we need now most urgently is a clear, fair, and constitutionally sound approach that can recover what was stolen without threatening what was lawfully earned.”

Book reviewer, Prof Olanrewaju Fagbohun (SAN), similarly warned against treating lack of conventional documentation as automatic proof of criminality.

Fagbohun said the enforcement of unexplained wealth laws must balance asset recovery with the protection of legitimate property rights, particularly for people operating in Nigeria’s informal economy.

He said the absence of an orthodox paper trail did not necessarily establish that wealth was unlawfully acquired.

In his remarks, Shittu said the purpose of the three-volume work was to help create a system capable of distinguishing legitimate wealth from illicit enrichment.

He said reliable records were essential to the fight against corruption, warning that without them, society could end up “suspecting everyone and proving nothing.”

Shittu said becoming wealthy was not a crime, but acquiring wealth through dubious means was.

“Making wealth, becoming rich, is not a crime. It’s not a crime at all. But becoming rich and making wealth dubiously is a crime,” he said.

The SAN concluded with a call for a system in which honest citizens could establish the legitimacy of their wealth without being presumed guilty.

“The fight against corruption is won not on the day the thief is convicted, but on the day the honest man is believed,” he said.