Dear President Buhari,

In the words of Chinua Achebe: “Corruption in Nigeria has passed the alarming and entered the fatal stage. Nigeria will die if we continue to pretend that she is only slightly indisposed”.

Sir, it has become enormously evident that your administration is bereft of ideas on how to engage a sincere and enduring anti-corruption crusade.

The war against corruption can’t be won by mere rhetoric, propaganda or presidential fiat. Neither can it be won by our President demonizing our nation before the international community, or in the presence of foreign media.

Yes. We have witnessed pockets of arrest and detention of a few members of the opposition party. That alone doesn’t translate into fighting this age-long systemic problem of Nigeria called corruption.

There have been too many barks, but no bite.

Anyway, to be seen as been sincere in your anti-graft campaign, listed below are some actions that Nigerians expect of you.

It’s just common sense.

Yours truly,

Job Nkeki


COMMON-SENSE APPROACH TO FIGHTING CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA by Job Nkeki


Remove Amechi and Fashola from your cabinet.
These two have no business being associated with any serious anti-corruption government. Having them in your cabinet is the greatest act of endorsement any government can give to corruption.


Strengthen Anti-Corruption institutions.
The best way to fight corruption isn’t harassing a few members of the opposition party. Instead, it is strengthening anti-graft institutions like the EFCC, the ICPC, the police, the judiciary, etc. This way, Nigerians can be sure of an anti-corruption legacy that would outlive your administration.


Institute an Act to Protect Whistle-Blowers.
An act to protect whistle-blowers should be enacted. With an assurance of their protection, whistle-blowers would be better encouraged to expose corruption cases such as bribery, violation of due process, tax evasion, kick-backs, extortion, job recruitment contract fraud, over invoicing of contracts, nepotism, etc.

Introduce Toll Free hot lines for Whistle-Blowers.
There is no better and faster way to expose acts of corruption than promoting Whistle-blowing toll-free phone numbers.

Make Examples of your Allies and Cronies.
Your administration and cabinet should have absolutely no business associating with individuals with hefty corruption petitions against them. Neither should you be associated with individuals with questionable source of wealth - even if they bankrolled your ascendancy to power. Keeping company with them negates your entire anti-corruption principles.

Decongest Existing Prisons and Build New Ones.
Nothing sends a clearer signal to the citizens about a government’s resolve to fight corruption than building new incarceration facilities.
Scrap “Plea Bargain”. The practice known as “Plea bargain” should be dispensed with. It makes an absolute mockery of the judicial process. And it appears skewed to favour the rich and mighty.


Be Transparent
Transparency is essential to the success of any anti-graft campaign. A good example of a lack of transparency is announcing mindboggling amount stolen by corrupt Nigerians without making their identity public. Not make the identity of the looters known is as good as aiding and abetting corruption.


Establish Special Courts For Public Servants
Your administration should initiate a bill for the establishment of special courts to try corruption cases against political appointees and public servants. The courts should be designed to grant expedited trials. Stiff penalties should be served on any public official convicted in cases of corruption.


The Judiciary is An Ally. Not an Adversary or Competition
Fighting corruption is not the task that can be undertaken by the sheer willpower of one man. Instead, it requires the concerted efforts of strong institutions. The president cannot be the accuser and the judge. The Judiciary is the only arm of government vested with the right to pronounce anyone guilty of an offense.


Encourage the implementation of the FOI law at state levels.
All States, especially APC-governed states like Lagos state, who, in the previous administration, vehemently refused to implement the FOI law, should be made to implement it. Most grand acts of corruption and privatization of public funds and resources are carried out in these states.


Reform the Police
The Nigeria police, as a matter of urgency, should be restructured. The restructuring should include a better pay and welfare packages for police officers, a better system for promotion, encouraging incentive for performance, regular trainings, re-orientation of the officers, the installation of effective communication and recording gadgets and equipment at all police stations, etc.


Fight piracy and intellectual property theft.
Piracy and the intellectual property theft are some of the greatest economic crimes in Nigeria. It creates massive unemployment and monumental loss of revenues. A ferocious anti-piracy campaign has the potential to throw up a solution to the massive unemployment problem in the country.


No Sacred Cows
Make public examples of those who have mindlessly plundered our collective resources. Even ex-President Obasanjo made an example of his bosom friend, Sunday Afolabi, and his daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello.


The Nigeria Customs
The culture of mind-boggling corruption in the custom service deprives Nigeria of a substantial chunk of her national income. A close monitoring of the activities of the customs service is imperative.


Stealing Is Corruption. Violating the Rule of Law is also Corruption
Lead by example. Ensure a strict compliance to the Rule of Law in the country. Remember, Democracy is predicated on the Rule of Law. A fragrant violation of the Rule of law reduces a democratic system to a junta.


Reduce Access to Funds by Government officials.
Institute a system that will reduce the discretionary powers of government officials and political leaders to have access to public funds.


Follow Due Process
As president, you should lead by example. It’s also your duty to ensure that your ministers and heads of agencies do not subvert due process.


Census fraud
One of the greatest acts of corruption in Nigeria is the falsification of census figures. To demonstrate your administration’s sincerity to eradicate corruption, institute a law to ensure the use of biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers, to capture census data. Since we’ve all agreed that this technology worked successfully to minimize electoral fraud during the last election, there is no way it shouldn’t be used in national enumeration exercises. Its implementation would expose some long-held national lies about our population spread.



Deploy Technology
In the 21st Century, corruption and crimes are best fought using technologies. Your administration should encourage the migration of all government projects and activities from manual or analog systems to digital. Every government institutions should have a website where their expenditures are displayed for monitoring, etc.



NDLEA
Allegations have it that the NDLEA has become the secondary source of narcotics for drug dealers. In other words, dealers don’t need to travel to the countries of origin of these narcotics. Instead, unscrupulous exhibit keepers and staff of NDLEA collaborate with them by selling exhibits to them. These exhibits are then replaced with flour and subsequently burnt during public destruction of “exhibits”.




Expand the EFCC to state level
Create more state-level presence of the EFCC. It should be designed to attend to state-level corruption petitions and cases. They should be structured to insulate them from compromise by the Government of the state and other political pressures.




Put a Cap on Campaign Funds and Spending
Push for a law to put a cap on campaign funds and spending. This will, in no small measure, reduce electoral fraud which throws up corrupt individuals into power. It will also make individuals of moderate means to aspire and campaign for public office.



Abuse of Office
Using one’s office to give some form of undue advantage to one’s ethnicity, religion, gender, cronies, etc amounts to corruption. Such should never be associated with a sincere anti-corruption champion.



Reform the Judiciary
In Nigeria, any effort made to fight corruption would amount to an absolute waste of time if the justice system isn’t subjected to a reform. To achieve this and make it effective, a bill to that effect should be sponsored and vigorously promoted by your government in order for it to be passed at the NASS. The judiciary reform bill should aim at establishing small courts for small offenses, the appointment of more judges, the creation of new courts on emergency basis for accelerated hearing of corruption cases, the elimination of delays caused by bureaucratic bottlenecks in the justice system, the establishment of departments that would be saddled with the responsibility of monitoring and eliminating cases of corruption among judges, etc.


The War on Corruption is not fought on the pages of Newspapers.
Propaganda can never be an anti-graft tool.



Shame your critics. Produce your WAEC result.
Sir, shame all those who claim that you perjured by lying under oath not once, not twice, not thrice, but 4 times that you have a school certificate.

Open letter ? You're not the first though, and am sure more to come..and besides you think he'll read this, a man who's not even hearing any audible lamentations of the nation and you want him to sit down and read this long hand-out..?

You're on point with those you mentioned but you forgot this country is run by some fucking cabals..all they care about is their precious pocket to get fill with golden grains **funds** even if at all buhari listen and want to implement all this.. sabotage will ruin most..

Our government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed citizens,their view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it

Lalasticlala..please we need this to be out there.let's overthrow the statue quo