I anticipated  lots of reactions  to my April 12, 2025 column titled  “How the military taught Nigerians the art of looting.” However, I did not expect an avalanche. It was as if I had made a monumental discovery  on corruption. I have not!  

Some of the reactions suggested that multi-party democracy in a  diverse religious  and multi-ethnic  polity with competing  interests like Nigeria, requires compromises which make corruption unavoidable. This assertion, as explained    by Chief Tunde Fanimokun,  in his 2009 book, “Jakande: His Story Is History”, is a fallacy. In  using the example of former Lagos State Governor  Lateef Kayode Jakande, Fanimokun, the pioneer Permanent Secretary for Land Matters in the state, demonstrated  “the practicability  of  incorruptibility under a democratic dispensation, given a good leader.” Jakande, by his policies, pronouncements, actions, example and body language, left nobody in doubt that a cardinal sin anybody in his government could commit was to be corrupt in any way or form.  As he said: “Where there is light, there can be no darkness.”

Jakande  shocked the citizenry when from the podium  he was sworn in, he headed for his private one-story residence    at    2, Bishop Street, Ilupeju rather than the palatial State House.  When he was told it was impracticable, he asked what could be done to make it practicable.  When told a ‘State House’ could not  be in darkness, and he had no generator, he went out to buy one on hire purchase. When the security services said  closed-circuit television is  a necessity, he borrowed one from a friend. The emphatic message Jakande  sent out was that he  sought public office in order to serve and not be served.  At his own expense, he modified his residence and lived there throughout his terms in office, and  for the two years from 1993 when he was  the Minister of Works and Housing.

When his administration built an average    21  new houses everyday for the four years he was governor – making a total of over 30,000 new houses – he did so at the lowest possible cost. This included  making bulk purchases of building materials and fittings using the    state    Building Materials Company, BMC, “at the most competitive prices from all available sources.” Fanimokun wrote that the Jakande administration also    made direct “strategic  importation    of building materials  as and when  necessary”.  These included iron-rods and cement from Spain and flush doors from countries like Cote d’ Ivoire and Taiwan.

  This way, the houses were affordable for the poor and the possibility of corruption in awarding contracts, was highly  minimised. Fanimokun wrote that in awarding contracts, Jakande’s “tender award procedure  was ideal – open, competitive, and very strictly  guided by due process.” Also, there could have been no cases of corruption in the allocation system, as there were far more houses  available than the number of applicants. He said under Jakande,  the annual budget was like an holy book. It was  used as an effective tool  of management, for fiscal discipline, financial prudence and full compliance.  The issue  of ‘unspent budget’, he said, would have been strange under Jakande because  strict budget implementation  was a standard  antidote  for any end-of-year rush for  unspent  balances. Fanimokun posited that  the practice of unspent budget  is by itself “an open invitation  to fraudulent  manipulations, most especially in the absence of any effective control to clean the balance sheet.” He  suggests Jakande’s method of taking steps to prevent  corruption rather than tackle it after, because: “It is a notorious fact  that Nigerian governments  have a penchant  for endless probes  without prosecution  to logical conclusion.”

He also argued that while  new agencies to fight corruption  such as the  Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and  the Independent    Corrupt Practices    and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC,    have been established after the Jakande era to fight corruption,  the country seems to be moving in a circle.  He said even when  such agencies recover looted funds, there are claims that some of such funds are re-looted. The military coup of  December 1983 which overthrew the Shagari administration and ended the Jakande administration in Lagos State, came with a vengeance to deal ruthlessly with leaders of the  overthrown administration. It assumed the former leaders were corrupt. But Fanimokun said the military regime found Jakande to be spotlessly clean.

  Based  on his experiences under Jakande, Fanimokun  made  eight recommendations.  First, is the power of example.    Referring to innovative projects like the Banana Island land reclamation project, he said as governor, Jakande created land from water “without  allocating one single plot of land to himself or his family.”

A second suggestion is that an upright leader should not be found in the midst of villains and treasury looters.  Thirdly,  that a visionary leadership is an irreducible minimum.  Fourthly,  that a good administration must keep    faith with its policy pronouncements. Fifth, that good governance should not under any circumstance be compromised. This, he says, requires  the promotion of the greatest good for the greatest number of the people.  Six,  is a total rebirth  of the country’s value system built on a people-oriented  mass movement  against corruption.  Seven  is a continuous  auditing of public accounts and use of watchdogs  operating    in the form of fund and financial review committees.  Lastly, a demonstrable  ‘zero tolerance’ for corruption.    

While delivering the 2025 Distinguished Personality Lecture of the Lagos State University, LASU, Fanimokun noted: “It is a notorious  fact that corruption remains a recurring decimal in the history of Nigeria. It is widely  acknowledged  as a monster with ferocious  fangs/claws; and an endemic problem of gargantuan dimensions.” He  said it is disheartening    that  Nigeria, the sixth  largest oil producer on earth, has the third largest    concentration of poor people.  Corruption, he added,  has held back economic growth and development in the country.

In gazing across his audience  and, reflecting  on  his life, he said:    “At  80, I feel greatly elated  about a rebirth in Nigeria as imminent regarding the anti-corruption crusade.”    Some of the reasons for his elation are the high profile cases involving    the former  Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele; the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello; and the final forfeiture of assets by Mrs    Deziani Allison-Madueke, former Petroleum Minister under the Jonathan administration.

Fanimokun  said his presumption is that  the younger generations as leaders of tomorrow  are listening to the clarion call  for salvation: “If other wise, Nigeria is irredeemably doomed forever!” To assure the country survives, Fanimokun advocates that the crusade against corruption  should  be elevated to the  status of a war in which drastic measures can  be taken. One direction he directs his gaze is China,  where the wages of corruption is the death penalty.