Diezani Alison-Madueke could have been a well-respected business exec or entrepreneur by now. Instead she is dodging arrest, writes Victor Kgomoeswana.
‘What can ail thee, knight at arms, alone and palely loitering.” With these words from his poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats might as well have been writing about former corrupt Nigerian politicians, especially the former minister of petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
“The sedge is (truly) withered from the lake, and no birds sing”, for her, after a long spell of cat-and-mouse with the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Since leaving office, Opec’s first female president has had to battle breast cancer and dodge arrest, even unsuccessfully trying to bargain with the Buhari administration for alleged impropriety while in charge of the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, oil.
It need not have been this way. Yet, at the same time, it is the only way Africa is going to rid itself of the scourge of corruption.
It is only by nailing our kleptocrats, instead of blaming the West for our socio-economic ills, that we will turn our fortunes for the better.
Looking at some of the pictures of Ms Alison-Madueke doing the rounds in the media, my human side cannot help cringing at the haggard face of the erstwhile siren of Nigerian politics.
However, considering how much money that belonged to the people of Nigeria went missing over the 60 years in which the country has been an oil economy, sentimentality can wait.
The former minister has now forfeited about $153 million (R2.06 billion), or at least temporarily, if the legitimacy of it can be proved.
Justice Muslim Hassan, of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, gave an instruction for the seizure on Friday last week.
The money, says the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission, was squirrelled from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and hidden in three Nigerian banks.
Premium Times identifies these as First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Sterling Bank Plc and Access Bank Plc.
This development is a convergence of three positive trends in the economy of Nigeria.
The first is the ongoing reform of the financial sector. Started during the tenure of Olusegun Obasanjo, it continued under Buhari’s predecessors, namely Goodluck Jonathan and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
The latter, who died in May 2010, was the one who gave Alison-Madueke her first ministerial role, transportation.
She would later move to petroleum resources in April 2010; after all, her first job in Nigeria when she got back from studying abroad was with the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation.
Why would someone with a degree in architecture from Howard University in the US and an MBA from Cambridge University end up in such a mess due to indiscretions while holding public office?
The same can be said for thousands of other African politicians who were educated at the best universities in the world.
It is not their degrees or the universities where they were obtained, but the weak institutions in African countries and the lack of ethical leadership.
The second trend is the drive towards transparency by Buhari. Also, this did not start under him but has been a long grind by his pre-
decessors. Buhari got it right by targeting the National Petroleum Corporation.
By appointing quality leaders and monitoring them as they lead the organisation he chaired when it was founded in 1977, he perfected the cleansing of the heart of the Nigeria’s oil curse.
The third trend is the global quest to improve governance by means of multilateralism and sustainable business leadership, as the world reacts under pressure to combat international terrorism.
Alison-Madueke could have been a well-respected business executive or entrepreneur by now.
However, in a country where the government is the biggest business for the ambitious, she was lured, just like the subject of Keats’s poem, by the mermaid that is self-enrichment in Nigerian politics.
By holding her to account and recovering some of the money that belongs to the people of Nigeria, this case will drive home the message that the battle against grand-scale corruption just might stand a chance.
If Sani Abacha’s billions are finding their way from Europe to Nigeria, why not Alison-Madueke’s millions?
* Kgomoeswana is author of Africa is Open for Business and also hosts Power Hour from Monday to Thursday on Power FM. Twitter Handle: @VictorAfrica
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.