{"id":11876,"date":"2016-10-11T20:52:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T20:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=11876"},"modified":"2016-10-11T20:52:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T20:52:45","slug":"corruption-nigeria-as-it-was-and-now-prof-chidi-odinkalu-chair-of-national-human-rights-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=11876","title":{"rendered":"CORRUPTION: Nigeria, as it was and now &#8211; Prof Chidi Odinkalu, Chair of National Human Rights Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lawyers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11650\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lawyers-300x203.jpg\" alt=\"PIC. 2. A CROSS-SECTION OF SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES AT THE APRIL AND MAY 2015 BAR FINAL EXAMINATIONS, DURING THE CALL TO THE BAR CEREMONY IN ABUJA ON TUESDAY (20\/10\/15). 3724\/20\/10\/2015\/BJO\/NAN\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lawyers-300x203.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lawyers.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;There is a lot about Nigeria, the judiciary &amp; the legal profession that requires correcting. All I want to offer is a bit of historical context, especially for younger Nigerians here:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(a) In 1970, Gen. Gowon had won the war. He was riding crest of a wave. He released a 9-point programme preceding his hand-over of power in 1976. Item 3 on that programme was &#8220;eradication&#8221; of corruption.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11071&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(b) In 1974, Gowon said 1976 was no longer feasible as handover date. Murtala Mohammed, who succeeded Gowon as Senior Prefect in Barewa College, overthrew him in 1975 (July) &amp; went on a spree of purging everywhere including the courts. Taslim Elias CJN &amp; another Sup Crt judge were fired. In his place, Murtala appointed Sir Darnley Alexander. A naturalised Nigerian, Sir Darnley loved a bit of a beverage &amp; was a happy man! Nigerians were excited. We were an ecstatic country!<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(c) Murtala was tragically killed in Feb 1976, Obasanjo took over &amp; by 1979 the view was settled that Murtala&#8217;s purge had worsened corruption not solved it.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(d) when Obasanjo handed over in 1979, Shehu Shagari launched &#8220;Ethical Revolution&#8221; to attack corruption. Corruption, it turned out, was worse not healed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(e) by 1983, Buhari had overthrown Shagari because&#8230; You guessed it: Corruption got worse under Shagari.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(f) <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1069234357\"><span class=\"aQJ\">19 months later<\/span><\/span>, IBB overthrew Buhari accusing him of corrupting &amp; abusing his powers. He initiated review of security agencies &amp; enacted in 1986 the National Security Agencies Act, creating, among others, SSS. We are now fighting over its powers.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(g) By the time IBB stepped aside in 1993, Ike Okonto wrote memorably that he had &#8220;corrupted democracy &amp; democratized corruption.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(h) Gen Abacha took over promising to hand over power but hung on &amp; wanted to use corruption to make himself civilian President.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(i) By the time we returned to democracy in 1999, President Obasanjo told us it would &#8220;not be business as usual.&#8221; <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1069234358\"><span class=\"aQJ\">3 years later<\/span><\/span>, he was using Justice Egbo-Egbo to sack governors at night. Another years later, he was plying the NASS with billions in cash to change the constitution &amp; give him a third term.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I could go on. But what is my point? Without a sense of history, Nigerians are always suckered by the next strong man promising to fight corruption in even more &#8220;inventive&#8221; ways.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11071&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;There is a lot about Nigeria, the judiciary &amp; the legal profession that requires correcting. All I want to offer is a bit of historical context, especially for younger Nigerians here: (a) In 1970, Gen. Gowon had won the war. He was riding crest of a wave. He released a 9-point programme preceding his hand-over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[3113,1464],"class_list":["post-11876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-prof-chidi-odinkalu","tag-the-national-human-rights-commission"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lawyers.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-35y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11877,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11876\/revisions\/11877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}