HEDA has made tremendous achievements, we will achieve more in 2024 – Suraju
The Chairman, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre), Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, in this interview with AYO OLA discusses some of HEDA’s, advocacies, achievements and targets for 2024 as well as the recently concluded COP 28.
HEDA unarguably has recorded landmark achievements, projects, activities and campaigns in the fight against corruption and demand for good governance as well as accountability in 2023. What should the public expect from your organization in 2024 as the leading Human Rights and Anti-Corruption group?
There is no doubt that HEDA has made tremendous achievements. We will continue and even amplify more what we have been doing. So for us, it is very important and we are not going to relent because the survival of Nigeria not just democracy or whatever relies on the ability of the system and the people to contain the greed, the arbitrariness and impunity of public office holders. Unfortunately, it has gone beyond public office holders now to private persons.
But for us at HEDA we are going to consistently ensure that we do not really allow this level of impunity to continue such that we cannot even have any functional institution that promotes or respects the rule of law anymore. Because it is about the deprivation rule of law that is creating the level of corruption in the system.
Does HEDA have an anti-corruption agenda for the new President Bola Tinubu-led government to rightfully tackle the menace as the government is a critical stakeholder in the fight against corruption?
HEDA actually was about the first organization to convene what we call part of the Anti-Corruption Situation Room, to have an agenda setting meeting for the government and that happened in July this year. That culminated to what we call policy briefs and continuing what are our expectations from the government in terms of not just the executive under President Tinubu, the same thing for the judiciary, parliament, anti-corruption agencies, the media and the civil society. So we did a comprehensive agenda setting that that has been transmitted to all of them.
HEDA has been consistent in organizing its Anti-Corruption Situation Room (ACSR) over the years as part efforts to fight corruption in Nigeria, how would you rate the importance and successes recorded through the conferences?
For us, that was one of the innovative things because we ended up starting facilitation of engagement of the different sides of the divide or the supply and demand side. So where you have the civil society and the citizens at the demand side we also had the government agencies who are supposed to be on the supply side. So, the anti-corruption Situation brought together government agencies, anti-corruption agencies, civil society organization the media and citizens to have regular conversation, interaction and exchanges around issues of anti-corruption. It actually is not the first time when are having to sit down together in a room and have conversation. And we use that platform to convey local issues as declaration against corruption in states or subnational level and discuss also international programmes mechanism like the international anti-corruption call. We have actually come to really attract such high level attendance that we are not just talking about the anti-corruption agencies alone but you have the National Security Adviser in attendance with the representatives of the Minister of Justice and the judiciary, the same thing with the National Assembly. So we are really happy that we have achieved is much within the short period that we actually founded the Anti-Corruption Situation Room.
Corruption is a global issue and HEDA is a frontier for the establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), What would you say are the challenges and significance of the IACC formulation in fighting corruption at the international level?
The most critical challenges of IACC has been some of the powerful state that are actually not willing to submit to such a supervisory body for accountability. So some of these high powerful countries believe that their citizens and institutions cannot be appropriately corrected, investigated and prosecuted within the available national mechanism but what they are saying is that even if you are trusting in the system now, you do not know what will happen in the future. And quite a number of states do not have that kind of independence mechanism to appropriately deal with cases of corruption and high level or or high-profile corruption cases. So, the issue of funding, some of us are very clear about that. That funding would not be much of a problem because corruption involves financial issues and financial cases. So if you are able to bring people to book and the recoveries that are made and all the rest, there can always be some form of compensation and commission that will come from those cases that can serve the purpose of funding of the institution. The funding is just by the way. It is just the political will and also commitment of some of those powerful states to also take on board and agree to submit from section of their national power influences and laws to this level of multilateral agencies is a major challenge for now.
Illicit Asset Tracing and Recovery of Crime Proceeds are crucial in the fight against corruption, are these areas given keen interest and attention by the anti-graft agencies to curb the menace?
The leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) particularly under the Ibrahim Magu leadership was very consistent and also achieved substantial results from that intervention and was really commendable for some of the things that were achieved within period. Unfortunately, even though it was operating under a very corrupt Ministry of Justice under the past Minister, Abubakar Malami, which frustrated some of the efforts, we are looking for the possibility of a renewed leadership under the new Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Olukoyede and possible some of the political will and support that would come from President Bola Tinubu, but we are yet to see that body language, po9litical will, motivation or indication of such from President Bola Tinubu. We hope that the new leadership of EFCC can set the tone for us to see and know if the President will be part of that process. But so far, nothing of such can be said of the leadership of President Tinubu’s government.
. Aside anti-corruption campaign, what are other strategies to boost economic recovery and development in the country?
What is really missing and it goes also to the corruption, is actually the observance of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. If you do not have rule of law, there is no investors that would want to invest in the system where you cannot guarantee stability of the system or their investments. If we are not working on that, there is no amount of invitation, compromises, waivers that will attract genuine investors. It will only continue to attract criminal investor who would want to just profit from lapses within the system. The second one will also be stability and sufficient supply of power. There is nothing that would actually and major investments and industries cannot operate where you do not have stability of power generation and supply.
There should also be the consistency of the law and our rules in terms of governing, either the tax system, or the royalties or the duties so that people can know and predict what will be the cause of
Why did HEDA come up with a compendium of 100 high profile corruption cases in Nigeria? Recently, you publicly presented the 7th edition.
We came to the realization about 15 years ago that the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights and the same thing go to civil and political right will always be impacted by the role played by corruption. It was obvious and we have never been more than vindicated on the issues than what we currently has in the country. When the funds for roads are diverted and this is at the point when the fight against corruption was not so popular, when HEDA started its advocacy. That really helped us in shaping our engage with people, organizations and institutions. HEDA pioneered part of the engagement and collaboration with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC); the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and civil society organisations. So, we understood long before now that if you do not fight corruption, you cannot really have a fair and free elections.
We came up with the compendium, realizing that Nigeria is bleeding and people who are responsible for that are getting away with the crime and we are forgetting always that we have people who had been tried for one thing or the other in the past because they then recycled themselves to then go to one loyalty to the higher office. So, we came up with the compendium in a bid to remind the public of those who are actually responsible for some of the misfortune in the country.
Why does HEDA annually honour anti-corruption icons and people who displayed actions worthy of emulation as you recently did Gani Fawehinmi award?
HEDA actually decided to honour people who are considered to be icon of integrity accountability a so when you have a system that is lacking in such, the best recognition can only be our recognition of those few that display that level of rare trait and that was how we came up with that award system named after the leading icon of consistency, integrity and selflessness who happened to be Chief Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory. It is one of the award system which does not involve any form of monetization. HEDA does not even influence the process. We allow the public to nominate and also elect in a very open and transparent manner, the winners of those awards. What we only do is also to recognize those we know off or people recommended based on their exemplary performances in the office no matter how low lever. So that is how you can find cleaners. Deliberately we do not give that to politicians. So politicians are clearly excluded from that process. The prospective recipients are only like civil servants, people in private companies, taxi drivers who we know actually have every reason to compromise either their office or interest but remained upright in doing that. So that was how have consistently continued to encourage people to uphold integrity and accountability and also transparency and impact in whatever, office, private or public that they occupy.
HEDA participated in the recent 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties (COP28) which took place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). You represented HEDA at the summit. What was some of your presentations and the outcomes?
For us, we really have been pushing and have been part of the whole campaign around the methane club and interesting Nigeria has been part of the methane pledge and committed itself to it. For us at HEDA Resource Centre, it was a great opportunity. So, to that extend, we can say Nigeria actually performed creditably well by also providing some measure of leadership and not just at the level of Africa but also at the Global level by giving its support to the cause of global methane emission. The President spoke about that. The Minister of State for Environment was also part of the ministerial and inter-ministerial meeting where he also spoke in favour of one of his position and the position of our partners in making the course on global methane more of threat than just a voluntary commitment. So, it has to be mandatory for countries to make sure that they cut down on methane emission and also the need to set up a multilateral funding mechanism that will support the process of transforming methane emission etc. such as cutting down on methane emission.
There were side events such as food security issues and also impact of climate change which was convened as side effect between us and our partners, the Oxfam. It was a well-attended event where we represented the interest of our small holder farmers, in also having the necessary support that will assist them in understanding of the global situation with the impact of climate change on their trade and other forms of exposure to other variables.
These for us, are very critical issues. Some of the issues were given adequate attention and consideration.
What are some of the gains Nigeria got from COP28 and lessons learnt?
The lesson for participation in COP 28 for majority of the countries that participated and went with a clear agenda is that it provided an opportunity to raise some of the critical issues bothering around the threat and catastrophe of climatic challenges to specially situated countries like Nigeria and some other developing countries and the challenges of not dealing appropriately and accordingly with the issues, without peculiar considerations for some of these countries.
The other point is looking at loss and damages issues that are mainly to address concerns of those countries that have not really contributed to the threat we all face but also having to deal with the consequences of it. This is naturally an opportunity for many of the countries and also especially when we look at the more high impacting pollutants that are different from carbon monoxide. That is looking at methane and hydrofoil carbon that are more potent than carbon dioxide and also capable of distorting the climatic condition of the world.
But it provided an opportunity to have individual negotiation in dealing with some of these issues. So it is a function of how much the country has succeeded in dealing with the issues and also being able, at the government level to also work away with some of the things.
Were there gains Nigeria made from this summit?
Unfortunately, we are yet to see how much of what Nigeria would say it gained because some of the negotiations and issues are not even available in the public domain for instance. So it is only when the country is able to bring to the world what it has actually benefited from that before we can then know what has happened in terms of gains or otherwise.
But Nigeria has not been with the culture of actually consulting with the public. Meanwhile what is actually expected is that countries like Nigeria would have actually consulted widely with citizens, National assembly and at the same time, the civil society organizations on some of the things that were presented at such gathering. It is not only for inclusivity and public participation, it is also a form of mobilizing support so that the civil society van also supports the government in some of those critical reforms, solidarity or even policy engagement that will be needed in the whole process. But unfortunately, it has not yet been part of the understanding of the Nigerian officials to realize that this is more in the interest of the country than about being transparent alone.
But government functionaries involved in climate issues that attended the summit said Nigeria made a lot of gains and struck deals? Is that real or another propaganda?
It could be real but you will only hear the figures. You do not understand the details, maybe they are even loans, grants or investment opportunities, you do not know. You just say Nigeria has attracted so amount of money or deal. But from where, who and how? You do not get the details. There opportunities and commitments and rest of that. But mostly important thing is that you do not even get to know about many of these things. So it goes beyond just brandishing figures. It is also important to have details so that people will be able to monitor, follow and appreciate it. Others can also build on such achievements to have greater impact and additional support and even complementary funding. But when you just hear figures, is it sufficient? No!
There have been controversies over marginal field bids licensing round in Nigeria. What are your findings about them?
Our finding was to the extent that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) that became the offshoot of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has actually succeeded significantly in transforming the allocation process of oil blocks in the country. That 2021 marginal field allocation was a great transformation from what has been the practice and it was so shocking for us. This is one of the things that we really could not hide as much as it was really bitter for us and unpalatable to some extent seeing how the thing went and what have been the experience that the NUPRC under the current leadership performed up to 90 per cent of the expectations of what could be called the standard that will qualify it for a standard process. Unfortunately, the DPR had started a process that was extremely flawed, but NUPRC eventually succeeded in correcting to a greater measure some of the shortcoming of that process.
So, it is important that we all now engage and make sure that the NUPRC does not depart from that standard.
Secondly, we must also continue to make demands to ensure that it does what is expected and we continue to get the benefit because this is the process we can use to get the benefit of our natural endowment, now the oil and gas. We need to make sure that other agencies of government are able to deliver and ensure that we get the same standard of operation from them.