Olusola
Adegbite in his regular analysis of the state of the Nigerian state examines
the arrival of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and tags it in part: “…WHEN
CORRUPTION OVERPOWERS GOOD-LUCK, ONLY TO SURRENDER TO COMMONSENSE.”
Anyone
who at anytime had thought this day would come, must have been laughed off as a
dreamer. Whoever had imagined that the Republic called ‘Nigeria’ would one day
run on the fuel of commonsense, the same commonsense that is ordinarily taken
for granted in other climes, must have been simply scorned, regaled and
dismissed with a wave of the hand. Why? It was those days when certain Men were
at the topic of their game, huffing and puffing, rolling in stupendous oil
money that would never be accounted for. It was those days when a microscopic
few ran amuck with the treasury of the country nearly reducing the nation’s
currency to a mere tissue paper; dipping their hands into the cookie jar at
will and removing same to empty it in private accounts; ferrying billions of
naira clandestinely through hundreds of bank accounts illegally created and
partnering with their friends and cronies in the banking sector to gang-rape
the country, while at the same time intimidating anyone and everyone, who dared
to ask questions about how they became to frighteningly rich even with their
meagre salary. While the entire bazaar lasted, Presidents came and when, and
all they could do was to either claim ignorance, feign helplessness, or
sometimes brazenly pat the pen-thieves on the back, giving all manner of
excuses to facilitate their getaway and in some of the most shocking scenarios,
defining the serial pen-crimes of their acolytes as mere stealing and not
corruption.
After
48 years of serial constitutional breaches, which occasioned the operating of
multiple revenue accounts since 1967, President Muhammadu Buhari finally issued
a Presidential directive to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on
August 7, 2015, to comply with government’s instructions on the Treasury Single
Account (TSA) by September 15, 2015 or face sanctions. This means that in line
with Sections 80 and 162 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
1999 (as amended), all receipts due to the Federal Government or any of her
agencies are to be paid into the Federal Sub-Treasury Account maintained in the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Thus, after 48years of wanton recklessness,
asphyxiating profligacy and prodigal indulgencies, it has taken only one
spartanly honest leader, to show that Nigeria isn’t a hopeless country after
all; it has taken one frugal man to demonstrate that what others had passed off
as rocket science, is an ordinary thing that may have just required
extraordinary courage to make happen. Just about four months ago, policies of
the last government could hardly be obeyed or carried out by those under it.
Strangely, the same public servants now dispatch government’s policies and
directives with fear and trembling. Such is it that since the Buhari government
announced its firm and fire-breathing directive to all Ministries, Departments
and Agencies of government to revert to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), it
has been rhapsodic frenzy all over the place. A new form of panic, that one can
best describe as ‘tear-rubber panic’, has seized the spirit, soul and body of
the nooks and crannies of government circle. Heads of parastatals and
Director-Generals have been running from pillar to post to straighten the
books, wipe out hundreds of accounts and close down different financial storehouses
that had hitherto been the den of many shady deals.
Prior
to this time, Nigeria’s accounting books and treasury infrastructure was a
total mess. It would only have taken the worst of men, to have let a country
degenerate to the level where some Ministries had more than 50 accounts, run
and managed via the whims and caprices of the cabal within. A country only
needs the misfortune of the kind of leaders of the last 16years, to get to that
point where an ordinary Agency of government simply charged with managing
tourism will have tens of accounts, yet there is no meaningful tourist
attraction in the country, except for a Director-General always running around
in green-white-green. The last 16years had been a free for all and an unending
buffet of the nation’s treasury. It was a perfect conspiracy in which the
looters in government simply perfected plans with their surrogates in the
banking sector, and the rest was history. For many years, Nigeria had had the
misfortune of been burdened by Commercial Banks who at best could be regarded
as the Shakespearean Shylock, who had no meaningful object of trade but to
feast on the ordinary peoples’ misery. They did not help small businesses grow;
neither did they promote policies that economically empowered individuals
involved in one trade or the other. Their loan structure is one of the worst
slavery anyone can find himself in. These Banks littered the country in their
hundred, every one of them clutching and clawing at the haggard looking
Nigerian economy, to have their share. It was a shamelessly grand deceit.
They
erected flamboyant offices at strategic locations; cast their net into the
ocean of vast unemployment and carefully employing both the qualified and
unqualified. The qualified was employed to perfect the books, while the
unqualified as long as he/she had the face and body was equally employed to be
shipped off to the moneybags in government to shop for accounts. Destinies were
crashed, lives were destroyed, while many marriages were ended, but it didn’t
matter, as long as the accounts kept coming in. Outrageous targets were heaped
on hapless graduates who were only too grateful to at least have a job, while
the banking sector became an arena of the dirtiest fights between bankers from
different banks, fighting ugly over who gets which account or the other. Bank
Managers and other top Bank Executives started carrying out vigils in
Governments house, trailing Federal allocations going to states, while offering
dirty deals to snatch the funds before any other of their colleague shows up.
Ladies became the worst victims, as tons of them were unleashed on both the
Federal and State Ministries to go after Ministers and Commissioners, quietly
encouraging them to use all means possible, both diabolical and fetish, to get
the job done and not return without the account. Corporate Prostitution became
a means of livelihood in the Federal Capital, such that even banks that had no
single branch in the city still ordered their members of staff to relocate to
hotels in Abuja, from where ‘operation meet your target’, were mindlessly
funded.
Banks
fought tooth and nail to become the favourite of politicians, donating billions
of naira to fund political campaigns, stampeding wedding ceremonies of
President’s daughters and Governors children with all manner of mind-blowing
gift items, bank-rolling the re-burial ceremonies of the long-dead parents of
Heads of powerful Agencies of government, all in a bid to get the juiciest
accounts. It was a time when it was not unusual to see Bank MDs and CEOs
monitoring the itinerary of a President all over the world and breaking
protocols to book presidential suites next to the President’s hotel room, all
in desperation to corner accounts and even force the opening of new ones. The
system was a total misnomer, where no reasonable banking business was done
except the garbage in garbage out of accounts. The matter came to a head under
the last government where hundreds of accounts littered the Federal government.
As a matter of fact, it cannot be gainsaid, that if the former President,
Dr.Goodluck Jonathan had as much as even toyed with the idea of mandating a
Treasury Single Account, it would have taken just a few of these powerful Bank
CEOs, to have told him not to try it. They would have subtly sent him a quiet
warning not to dare spoil their business and the same man would have simply
replied them that they shouldn’t have taken him seriously, and would have
wondered how come understanding a simple joke was a problem for them. Such was
it that the account-chasing game became the dirtiest thing in Nigeria’s
financial sector and one of the most secretly guarded routes of corruption,
which many had thought was an untouchable matter.
A
leader does not need to take many steps to show that he is in firm control, all
he needs is just one decisive step, and not only will many bad heads roll,
there will correspondingly no longer be room for new ones to be formed. Such is
the decisive step that President Buhari has taken through the Treasury Single Account,
and it is unimaginable that this type of commonsense was there all this while.
It is a total waste of effort, time and resources, advising, cajoling and
persuading men not to steal. No serious-minded country does that. All that is
needed as the first step, is to give a mandate that all revenue accruing and
expenditure to be incurred, pass through one single channel, whose final
vetting and authorization ends on the President’s table, and let’s see those
who will want to commit mass suicide by doing otherwise. The Treasury Single
Account (TSA) is a master-stroke policy of the current government and the
ingenuity behind it must be widely applauded. It can only take a brilliant head
on a sincere and courageous shoulder, to have pulled this off.
The
TSA policy is more than simply close down accounts, it is the most potent
anti-corruption weapon under any government, given that it is a double-edged
sword that would not only cut loose all the fingers of corruption in
government, but is also an ingenious policy that will fumigate the banking
sector that continues to reek of filth and rot. Where there no longer exist
hundreds of clandestine accounts hidden in several banks, it therefore becomes
impossible to launder money as there will be no platform to do so. The gain of
this policy is unimaginable. A new era will arise where billions of dollars in
revenue from major MDAs such as the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Federal Inland Revenue
Service (FIRS), Customs, Immigration, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), e.t.c are all moved through in a single file, to
a single account, without the usual too many cooks dipping their hands into the
broth. This can then be followed up with an unveiling of this government’s
economic blueprint to be marshaled by a Minister who has an immediate example
to call him to order, tighter laws running alongside stricter regulations, and
a more disciplined fiscal and monetary regime. How best can a country prosper,
except with this kind of commonsense? And to say that this government has not
even started its anti-corruption war? Definitely, the days ahead promises to be
interesting. Once again Mr.President, welcome on board Airforce One.
Olusola
Adegbite, whose posts will appear on this blog, is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile
Ife, Osun State, Nigeria
