PAD|People's Alliance for Democracy
This is the unofficial/personal blog site from one PAD member.

One would like to submit that, the challenge before the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies at this precarious time is to take a cue from the Asian example. Notable Asian countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, to mention a few, have all been able to wage a successful war against corruption and other financial crimes solely because of the will and spirit of national consciousness that forms the major ideologies of their anti-graft bodies. That is one lesson we can learn. If Shinawatra, with all his wealth and international connection could be brought to face justice, one sees no reason why living past leaders having a multitude of allegations on their neck, can’t be made answerable to their sins.

Nigeria: Lessons From Thaksin Shinawatra’s Conviction

A couple of weeks back, a former Prime-Minister of The Republic of Thailand, in the person of Thaksin Shinawatra, was sentenced to two (2) years imprisonment by a Court in the country, on charges of corruption and fraudulent embezzlement of public funds, throwing a wide section of this struggling Asian nation into wide ecstasy and jubilation.

It is noteworthy that ex-PM Shinawatra, who was alleged to have shamelessly looted the treasury of his country, siphoning huge sums of monies abroad, had all along been evading arrest and playing the game of hide and seek, as regards returning back home to answer to these charges. Instead of owning up to his sins, he has preferred to remain in exile in England, where he has continued to live large, throwing money around in reckless extravagance, and at one time even became the owner of topflight English Premier League club side, Manchester City, before he later sold it to the Abu Dhabi Group.

Though Thaksin Shinawatra may have been convicted in absence, however, the Shinawatra’s case quickly reminds one of the peculiar corruption in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, and of how many of how leaders have in time past plundered the economy and looted the treasury, and still got away with it. Even though it is not usually unusual for the new governments to quickly institute some phony probe panels and investigative commissions, but the undeniable truth is that they usually fade away as quick as they have come, and only end up been another source of distraction from their real job of governance, deceit, and unnecessary stirring up of the people’s hope.

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