Strategies for Winning War Against Politically Exposed Persons in Nigeria

Abstract

One major challenge to Nigeria’s search for enduring socio-economic, political and technological development as well as efficient and productive utilization of allocated resources in the new millennium is the pervasive corrupt practices in the polity. The devastating effects of corruption in the nation have manifested in lopsided distribution of wealth, malfunctioning and decaying infrastructure and degrading living conditions among a great proportion of the citizenry. These have impacted negatively on all aspects of the developmental agenda. The country cannot but therefore respond to both domestic and international pressures to confront corruption with all possible strategies available. Ironically, the institutional mechanism offered by the Constitution for the fight against corrupt practices is itself not immune from the plague. Indeed, the creation of extra-legislative institutions saddled with the tasks of fighting corruption is itself an indictment of the constitutional framework and a pointer to the wide gulf of difference between the constitutional prescriptions and the practical realities in an emerging democracy preceded by long years of military rule marked by massive corruption and rule with impunity. The attendant result of such an oversight has been that the major culprits are either unnoticed, or not convicted. The recent reconceptualisation, and mainstreaming of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) to include individuals holding or having held positions of public trust, such as government officials, senior executives of government corporations, as well as their families and close associates has brought about mixed reactions. In Nigeria, such mixed reactions have trailed the release by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of a Graft Advisory List (GAL) of high profile cases involving Politically Exposed Persons, (PEPs). This article is part of the debate. It examines the challenges facing the anti-graft agencies and the strategies in mainstreaming Politically Exposed Persons in Nigeria’s strategy in anticorruption campaign. It explores the concept of Politically Exposed Persons in a thematic form, and highlights the challenges anti-graft agencies face in pinning down PEPs. The paper argues that the emergent strategy of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) is a verticalhorizontal accountability mechanism through which different agencies of government hold other governmental (and political) actors answerable to the law, and citizens, from below, hold their government officials answerable for their conduct. The mainstreaming and development of such a comprehensive international legal instrument against corruption, the paper posits has the potency of bringing about a high degree of global standardization and integration of anti-corruption measures against political corruption.