The officials of Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), have stated that their morale and commitment to work have been negatively affected.

This said apathy isn’t unconnected with the controversial presidential pardon granted the former governor of Taraba State, Jolly Nyame and his Plateau State counterpart, Joshua Dariye, by President Muhammadu Buhari

It’s noteworthy that both men had been convicted and jailed for stealing state funds during their reign as governors of the aforementioned states in Nigeria.

The officials of the two institutions lamented over the pardon and accused President Buhari of sabotaging the anti-corruption fight, though the personnel who made the outcry asked not to be named for fear of victimisation.

“We used to say our problem in our work against corruption is the judiciary but we see a lack of political will by the president,” one EFCC official said.

It would be recalled that, penultimate week, at the National Council of State’s meeting held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Buhari granted pardon to the two middle-aged former governors, as well as 157 others, on the grounds of health challenge and age.

One official said the anti-graft officers would now merely attend work to earn their salaries without passion.

He said, “People will be taunting us now that a president can pardon a big thief whom we seriously try to prosecute.”

He seriously lamented that the prosecutions of the two former governors took up to 10 years and their eventual convictions were a high point of their work.

“Staff are angrier because the two former governors were tried for over a decade and got convicted. They are saying that the corrupt public servants even made appeals but their conviction was affirmed by Nigeria’s apex court.” the official stated.

The official added that some members of staff are querying their moral ground to go pursue other cases of corruption.

On his part, another official said he doubts Buhari reviewed the implication of his actions on operatives of the anti-graft agencies.

“People risked their lives and friendships to investigate the ex-governors. They refused to be compromised. Now it appears all the efforts were in vain,” the anti-corruption investigator said.

Meanwhile, some non-governmental organisations such as the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), and Transparency International (TI) also condemned the pardon granted to the corrupt politicians convicted by the Nigerian courts.

The civil society organisations are worried about what they called “the effect such ill-thought political pardon will have on the anti-corruption efforts, which constitutes the major agenda and commitment of the current administration”.

“We sincerely hope the processes and objectives of such Presidential pardon will be re-examined and made transparent to avoid bad precedence, especially as the nation moves towards a political transition in the 2023 general elections,” a statement signed by CISLAC’s Executive Director, Auwal Musa reads in parts.

In the same vein, a human rights lawyer and activist, Mike Ozekhome said the official pardon is a major setback to Nigeria’s fight against corruption. He argued that pardoning the corrupt politicians had only validated the public perception of Buhari’s administration’s lop-sided corruption fight.

“This move goes further to demoralize our anti-corruption agencies who are already facing challenges prosecuting high profile cases of corruption,”

He also added, “In one case, for example, a witness had to be flown from the United Kingdom to Nigeria at different times with funds from taxpayers. Furthermore, operatives of anti-corruption agencies had to put their lives at risk even to the point of facing physical attacks while these cases were on and suddenly, we read that these individuals have been pardoned.”

On the other hand, in its statement on Sunday, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) urged President Buhari to use his “good offices to urgently review and withdraw the pardon granted to former governors of Plateau State, Senator Joshua Dariye, and Taraba State, Rev. Jolly Nyame who are serving jail terms for corruption.”

According to the SERAP, “Presidential pardon for corruption cases is inconsistent with the rule of law, and the public interest, as it undermines the principle of equality before the law. It will undermine public confidence in your government’s fight against corruption, and the justice system.”

Like I earlier stated about this gesture made by Buhari, presidential pardon is good and sound only when granted to deserving individuals. There are people who truly deserve pardon from the government.

We must understand that many innocent Nigerians are currently languishing in various jails, yet no one is talking about them, but the government would always be quick to grant pardon or clemency to the country’s convicted corrupt politicians.

It becomes more appalling when realized that the Buhari-led government rode to power via the campaign of fighting graft and corruption squarely.

The Nigerian Police Force (NPF) has announced a new plan it intends to use to curb the excesses of its personnel. The Force said hence, senior officers would be held responsible for the criminal actions of their subordinates.

On Saturday, the NPF public relation officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, said the thriving impunity in the Force is partly a result of superiors’ lenience in handling the misdeeds of their men.

“In a bid to reduce or possibly put a stop to extortion, harassment and brutality in the NPF, we will henceforth hold DPOs (divisional police officers) and Commanders responsible for the misdeeds of their men.

“In as much as we don’t promote vicarious liability, we have equally noticed that some superiors fail or lack the willingness and/or wherewithal to supervise and manage their men,” he said.

Adejobi explained that the leadership gap resulting from the insouciance of senior officers is not in tune with the leadership styles of the IGP and his repositioning drives, thus, counterproductive and condemnable.

The Nigerian police has a long history of brutality, corruption and extrajudicial killings among other ills.

In 2017, the World Internal Security and Police Index International, (WISPI) rated the Nigerian Police the worst in the world. A record it has failed to significantly redeem itself from.

In October 2020, Nigeria witnessed the most successful demonstration in its history – the End SARS protest – a movement triggered by incessant police’s brutality, extortion and malfeasance. The Nigerian youths, who are largely the victims of police’s action and inaction, had taken to the streets demanding a police reform.

Although the Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit was disbanded, the protest, which ended with a government sanctioned massacre of protestors, has so far, failed to achieve its aim as the NPF operations have continued unchanged.

Nigerians have accused the police hierarchy of benefiting from the nefarious activities, thus shielding guilty officers from punishment. The idea of holding divisional police officers, commanders and commissioners of police responsible for the offenses of their unit has long been advocated.

Thus, the move to implement the idea is believed to be a bold step in reforming the NPF, since it will force the police hierarchy, in a bid to protect their job, to shun impunity.

In May 2021, it was reported that a 21-year-old Dominic Ngene Joshua defrauded some investors over N2B using investment platforms. He asked his victims to invest in his companies, promising them that they would become shareholders in the company and get monthly returns on their investments.

We are still on the Chinmark case, the CEO Marksman Chinedu Ijeoma who is on the news to have (allegedly) defrauded his investors billions of Naira and he is still going about his daily business and now the recent (alleged) con-artist making the new who is (alleged) to have defrauded her investors over N500m is a 28 years old Imu Ovaioza Yunusa, who claimed to be an agricultural produce distributor.

Safe to say that if you want to get rich overnight in Nigeria don’t waste your time doing rituals or yahoo-yahoo or going into politics; just come up with an investment scheme and make up a “too good to be true” unrealistic return on investment/ profit margin for the prospective investors. Then, hire influencers to advertise and influence the investment platform for you.

Make sure you have an innocent look, appear to be rich, show off fake documents and wealth (after all nobody will verify or bother to check their authenticity), and sprinkle it with a dose of religion. Make sure you go around with cameramen to take quality pictures and videos for you to post on social media for your followers and prospective prey to see that you are doing well.

If you follow this process, believe me, that you are on your way to becoming an overnight billionaire; your prospective investors will gladly give you all their money without asking questions.

Marksman Chinedu played this game very well. He showed he is rich, always showing off unverified wealth on Facebook, then he added that he’s an empathic man and a philanthropist to his resume; he is always doing giveaways; he will always stop his convoy to give a random hawker on the street some bundles of cash.

He also showed he’s a religious man and a born-again believer too; he is always posting himself in church, praying, or in some religious gathering, then he came up with the (killer cliche) “all we have God gave us”. This swayed Nigerians into sending him their hard-earned money without verifying the genuineness of his person or his investment platforms.

Oviazo also played this game quite well too; she showed to be a philanthropist that runs a skill acquisition NGO, then she proved to know a lot about Agricultural products, then she was able to gather many followers on Facebook; although she didn’t add religion to her antics but she did add some sprinkle of emotional manipulations.

As for the 21 years old Joshua Ngene;  his antics and mode of operation will be a story for another day because I just can’t make sense of it. Some of his victims claimed that they had no idea what they were doing when they were investing in his investment scheme, that it seems they were under some spells or some unexplainable spiritual influence. 

Why people fall prey to these cheap frauds eludes my imagination. You fall for a cheap scam cooked up by a 21 years old who is still in secondary school learning in geography that “the earth is shaped like a ball”.

It’s all greed and “make money quick” syndrome that makes people fall prey.

Many Nigerians are gullible, greedy, and quick to believe everything and trust anyone. Quick to be carried away by what they see especially on social media platforms, quick to be swayed by social and peer pressure. The FOMO syndrome is a huge sickness in Nigeria and this is what these uneducated and backyard local fraudsters prey on.

“confido sed cognoscere” ( trust but verify). This popular statement is not for Nigerians. They trust blindly and are too lazy to verify or make some underground checks because if they do verify, some of the victims of this fraud wouldn’t have been a victim at all. 

I know in counseling and therapy, blaming the victim is not permitted but it should be said that in this regard the victims always play a huge role in them getting defrauded and that should be pointed out. 

If you really work hard for your money then you should verify, and carry out due diligence inquiry before you invest your millions of Naira into any investment scheme.