HOW DRU CATCH SEES IT

Nigeria's Most Ambitious New Policy: Following the Old Policy

Nigeria's federal government has done something genuinely remarkable: it has issued an urgent, formally numbered, publicly announced circular to instruct its own officials to follow a guideline that was already the guideline. The BPP Director-General's warning that anyone who 'bypasses the debarment registry' will face sanctions is - and we mean this in the most collegial way possible - an admission that people were bypassing the debarment registry. You don't warn officials about a thing that wasn't happening.

The circular mandates all Accounting Officers to 'ensure full compliance' with rules already on the books. The DG states the government 'will no longer tolerate compromises' - a useful phrase that implies it had been tolerating them, presumably across a series of prior circulars nobody followed. The Public Procurement Act being enforced here dates to 2007. The guidelines are not new. The announcement is not new. The announcement of the announcement is the news.

Blacklisted Abroad, Apparently Still Open for Business at Home

There is a particularly rich detail buried near the bottom of the directive: contractors already sanctioned by multilateral organisations - such as the World Bank - may now 'be considered for debarment' by Nigeria. May be considered. The implication - that a firm could theoretically be blacklisted by the World Bank and still be collecting Nigerian federal contracts - is not a DruCatch invention. It is a logical consequence of the evidence and the explicit direction of the new guidance.

That word 'considered' is doing a lot of work. Not 'shall be debarred.' Not 'are automatically excluded.' Considered. So the same procurement apparatus that, per the DG's own warning, was routinely bypassing its own domestic registry, gets to weigh in separately on whether an internationally blacklisted firm deserves a second look. The answer, historically, seems to have been yes.

Who Certifies the Document-Forger's Change of Heart?

The reinstatement clause deserves its own moment of appreciation. After serving a debarment period for, say, falsifying procurement documents, a contractor may apply for reinstatement supported by 'evidence of reform.' The question the circular does not answer - and possibly cannot - is who assesses that evidence. The answer is: the same procurement system this circular just acknowledged was not following its own rules.

This is the closed loop at the heart of Nigerian institutional accountability theatre. The rule exists. The rule is ignored. A circular is issued to enforce the rule. The circular warns of consequences. The consequences will be assessed by the same structure that produced the original non-compliance. And somewhere out there, a contractor with a fresh stack of blank forms and a letter describing his spiritual journey is already drafting his reinstatement application.