In life, some people demonise angels but idolise demons. It all depends on which side you kick the ball. In politics, governance, and the economy, there are many lethal weapons and too many unscrupulous individuals who would not hesitate to deploy them. Sadly, they would do this all for one thing: personal interests, following a deadly greed. Believe it or not, it doesn’t matter whether such personal interests collide with national interests. Often, these persons repackage their interests and hoodwink the people into accepting them as national interests, for the public to join them in fighting those on the flip side of the coin. These are the chilling but insightful lessons I picked from Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous, The Story Behind The Headlines, by Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME) Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Iweala grips the reader by the guts right from the first few pages of the book, where she lays the significance of her story from the preface, “…In writing it, I relived events, reread articles, and recalled conversations that brought back painful memories I would rather leave behind.”
The author begins by giving her readers statistics of Nigeria as at the time of writing her book, and even a projected figure going into the future. She writes, “Nigeria is projected to be the fifth largest country in the world by 2030 (estimated population of 264 million) and the third largest by 2050 (estimated population 410 million). Currently, 63 percent of Nigeria’s population is under twenty-five years of age…”
So, even though her primary focus is to set the record straight about important events that shaped her tenure as the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, as a world-class economist that she is, Dr. Iweala has put together information that should be very useful to policy-makers and development experts.
In very simple language garnished with rich detail, the author tells the story of her role in helping President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s (GEJ) administration — with splattered references to that of President Olusegun Obasanjo (2003 to 2006) — fight corruption. This is something the Nigerian public may not fully know, especially with the constant aspersions cast at the government by the opposition, some partisan actors, and even patriotic Nigerians who did not have complete information about what was going on.
In a non-linear style slightly comparable to that of the fiction writer, Chika Unigwe, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala throws us right into the den of sharks hungry to devour her. She starts by telling us in Chapter One, The Intimidation Game, about how some unscrupulous people kidnapped her 83-year-old mother from her village on December 9, 2012, and the bargain for her mother’s release was for her to resign from her position as the Finance Minister and leave the country.
Thankfully, her father and GEJ encouraged her not to play into the hands of the kidnappers. Recounting the advice her father gave during her mother’s ordeal, she writes, “He said, ‘You and your siblings should not fret too much. Your mother and I, at eighty-three and eighty-five, have lived way beyond the life expectancy in this country, and we have basically outlived our usefulness.’”
Although terribly shaken about what could happen to her aged mother in the hands of those kidnappers, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala walked the path of immense courage and did not give in to their demands. The following event leaves 110 questions in my mind, and maybe when you read the book, you will have even more questions or maybe fewer. It all depends on you. But one important lesson, among many, a reader will pick from this intriguing story is that one can act courageously even in the face of a roaring, debilitating danger.
Another vital lesson to pick is that every evil agenda against a person is almost always schemed by someone very close, or with the connivance of the same.
In Chapter Two, Return to a Troubled Country, the author recounts how GEJ sought her to join his cabinet as the Finance Minister, something she didn’t want to do again. Despite the sound reasons presented to her by the first person to contact her, Atedo Peterside, she didn’t decide until after a conversation with President Jonathan. She says, “The President-elect ended on a note that touched me. He said, ‘I am not asking you to come and work for Jonathan. This is not about Jonathan. It is about helping your country.’ This made his argument even more persuasive than Atedo’s. I thanked him for the great honour…”
This chapter alone can put into perspective for a thoughtful reader almost everything that happened during GEJ’s administration. It paints a picture of a humble president who deeply cared for the country and planned to work with the best minds to move the country forward, but there were people who, from Day One, wanted his administration to fail. They tried to discourage her from accepting the president’s appointment. Under the title, A Strange Warning, she writes, “As to the reason, he said that these people felt that my acceptance would ‘give Jonathan and his government credibility’ and he did not deserve that. If I turned down the offer, the administration would be weak and would likely not succeed.”
Well, as they say, the rest is now history. And she has captured this history so vividly and so passionately for you to read.
Chapter Three, Confronting the Oil Scammers, takes the story right from the beginning of the fight against the Goliaths of this nation. After laying the historical foundation of the NNPC, which she writes, “began life as the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNOC) in 1972, transforming into the present-day NNPC in 1977. Its design and the act underpinning it gave it such latitude and flexibility in the management of its finances that one can only surmise it was designed to act as a source of extrabudgetary funds for those who control it.”
If you are in Nigeria, you know we have been in this mess together—the endemic corruption in this institution is…well, you know what it is. But if you think you know the level of corruption in this important sector, and you’re among the Nigerians who are angry, this chapter will run you mad. Because it is simply madness that runs there, and it has been so for ages.
In this country, we seem to be obsessed with changing the names of institutions without improving their structures and performances.
The author’s attempt at getting this institution to perform better as it should began in her “first term as finance minister (2003 to 2006) … I found this so anomalous that I created an oil and gas unit in the Finance Ministry, directly in the Minister’s Office, to interface with the Petroleum Resources Ministry and the Oil and Gas Companies, gather data that could enable us to model our oil and gas sector better, and improve our budget and financial planning…”
The fight was long, fierce, and it left her with deep-rooted scars that outlived GEJ’s administration. But through it all, she has emerged as the hero, as seen not only on the pages of her book, but on the streets of Nigeria, as some consequences of not doing the right things in this regard hit Nigerians in 2016, during the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
One major thing that strikes me in this chapter is the endless seasons of missing millions or unaccounted-for billions that plague the oil and gas industry. Being the major source of Nigeria’s foreign exchange and or revenue, one doesn’t need angels to give insights into the woes that currently bedevil the nation.
In this chapter, Iweala also narrates the story of GEJ’s attempt to phase out the troubling fuel subsidy regime and the subsequent outcry that followed it. Through these pages, a reader will see the hypocrisy of many so-called Nigerian leaders, especially the governors, whom we almost always ignore for the issues of good governance and accountability.
Even though GEJ made his mistakes, he was not the terrible leader that many people painted him to be throughout his tenure. Iweala’s book gives a consistent account and description of what kind of leader GEJ was.
If we hadn’t already seen it through their actions and inactions, I would have loved to say that the book would give you insight into the character of many of the politicians who parade themselves as leaders even till today—the same governors who pushed the president into hurriedly removing the fuel subsidy were mute when the backlash erupted.
However, as a genuine leader that he was, GEJ took the bullets alone and didn’t transfer any blame. As could be expected, Iweala automatically became the scapegoat in this episode. “I told my husband that I was sure that I would be blamed if things did not go right because everyone would feel that in my rush to implement so-called neoliberal policies informed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, I had rushed the President into this decision.”
But of course throughout the preceding chapters such as A Twisted Budget Process (Chapter 4), Opaque Deals and International Scams (Chapter 5), Public Service Scams: Ghost Workers, Ghost Pensioners, and Embezzlers Masquerading as Reformers (Chapter 6), Antifeminists, Ethnic Jingoists, and Economic and Political Ideologues (Chapter 7), Reflections from the Frontline (Chapter 8), and The Epilogue: The Battle Continues, the book gives a detailed, shocking account and a lot of insight into so many things we face today and will probably face in the future.
Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous, The Story Behind The Headlines doesn’t come across just as one of those memoirs that aims to set the record straight, narrate a story, or put out a defence of some events and actions involving the author. It is a deep, incisive commentary about the character of many of the political and business actors who were involved in the unfolding of events that shaped Iweala’s tenure in office.
Should I explore all the chapters the way I did the first three, this writing will run into a whole book, and that will spill out of the scope of a book review; summarising each chapter is not something I set out to do as a book reviewer.
Like a stinging onion, Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous, The Story Behind The Headlines peels out layers of complex and often myriad challenges that have held Nigerians captive for decades. The consuming greed and the killer corruption that have seized Nigerians by the throat, by the wrist, and by the ankles have festered since the discovery of oil, which, inadvertently, forced every other sector of the economy to take the backstage.
The titles of the chapters are as self-explanatory as possible – the book delivers excellently on the issues raised.
Many Nigerians know the author as someone who is versed, well-experienced, and excellent at using numbers or figures, but this book reveals a woman who is not only great with numbers but is completely at home with effective emotional intelligence. Her choice of words is deeply reflective, sensitive, and unbelievably charitable even when describing the clear evil of her adversaries.
For instance, in describing the staggering resources consumed by the Nigerian legislators, she writes (page 74) “…the difference was in the additional 90 percent – or ₦135 billion – ostensibly for the running costs of the National Assembly and other expenses for which there was little public visibility (italics my emphasis). If this sum is divvied up among legislators, it would amount to about ₦288 million ($1.46 million) per legislator. Thus, on per capita income basis, Nigerian legislators were some of the best supported in the world.”
At first, I was uncomfortable with the title of the book because I felt it was just stating the obvious and could scare people from the idea of fighting corruption. However, the author understands that the beauty of a bird can be better appreciated when the bird is alive, and not when it is dead. She writes, “Finally, as I reflect on the journey that I have tried to describe so imperfectly in the pages of this book, it is clear to me that fighting corruption is indeed dangerous and risky. But it can be done! It requires integrity, courage, determination, and relentless focus on results. And yes, it requires God’s protection…”
Because I can, I would like to end my review with these timeless and heroic words of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, whose rare leadership qualities are revealed in most of the pages of this beautiful and inspiring book, and the final commentary of the author. “… ‘I have always said that power for Jonathan is not worth shedding a drop of blood of a single Nigerian.’ With that bold gesture, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan committed a selfless act for all Nigerians. He averted what probably would have turned into bloodshed. He turned away from partisan politics. He looked beyond ethnic and regional rivalries for the good of the country. This action put Nigeria on the map as a maturing democracy in a continent where such peaceful transfers of power to an opposition are rare.”
This is a book that every lover of history, politics, the economy, national growth, and development should read.
A people who can’t learn a thing from their history are much lower in brain power than animals.
Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous: The Story Behind The Headlines is a wake-up call for all right-thinking Nigerians and, indeed, Africans, if we are to take a bold step out of these shitty gutters.
Save as PDF