Nigeria under the current political dispensation is gradually turning into Somalia of the 90s where warlords held sway. Corruption has eaten deep into the marrow of the average Nigerian. The average Nigerian thinks of corruption from the perspective of those in government, but the insidious poison of corruption is everywhere. Corruption In my estimation can be divided into private corruption and public corruption, neither of which is less corrosive. Private corruption is the dishonesty or criminality that affects an individual or group of people or private enterprises.
The policeman extorting money at checkpoints is emblematic of private corruption. The customs officer who accepts bribes to allow drugs and other illicit products into the country is privately corrupt. The immigration officer who allows foreigners without proper documentation into the country is just as evil. The schoolteacher who demands favors in kind or deed is not angelic; the doctors and other hospital staff who direct patients in government hospitals to their private clinics for exorbitant fees and inferior outcome has a special place in hell. A personal experience of corruption in the Nigerian health care system: my younger sister was diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy in 2017 and on getting to a general hospital, she was referred by the doctor who was to treat her to his personal clinic at Akerele in Surulere. This shylock gynecologist operated on my sister for N1 million. But the surgery was so botched that my sister developed endometrial cancer and needed a second surgery in February 2019 for another N 1 million. I was in Nigeria on Easter Monday of 2019, two days after my sister’s discharge from the second surgery. The sight of my sister was so shocking that I quickly arranged to have her admitted to a cancer center. A consultant at the cancer center confided in me that my sister should never have been operated on. He further stated that the normal treatment for ectopic pregnancy was to terminate the pregnancy and “flush the womb”. He further disclosed that even if surgery was needed, the entire womb should have been removed, rather than remove the upper part of the womb, leaving the dead tissues in the lower womb to fester, and turn into endometrial cancer. The consultant was candid that patients in my sister’s condition usually died from excessive bleeding, but he was hopeful that chemotherapy might help my sister. My sister succumbed to her illness on May 29, 2019.
How about clerics who have turned places of worship into business centers? The corruption of these charlatans, stealing in the name of God from congregants who can barely make ends meet, is probably on the same scale as Nigerian politicians. How about ‘area boys’ using brute force to extort money from the weak and vulnerable? What about the transport union which has turned hooliganism into a respectable profession? The union controls the fabric of daily lives with the threat of violence. How about banks, government parastatals and other businesses dealing with the public? Officers at these agencies will often demand bribes or in-kind contributions before performing their statutory functions. Corruption has even found its way into family affairs where children no longer trust parents and vice versa. Siblings are suspicious of one other; friends and associates are wary of each other, expecting to be scammed at any moment.
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It might be tempting to opine that the love of money is the culprit for this rot, but isn’t the love of money universal? Don’t Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese and other societies like money with equal fervor? The news of teenagers committing heinous crimes in the quest for money is now received with equanimity and the news of adults dabbling into various occults requiring human sacrifices or requiring momentary madness or requiring the ingestion of excrement is widespread. Again, how did we get to this ledge? A brief look at Nigeria in the 60s, 70s and 80s will find a society with high moral standards, where parents worked hard to provide for their children. Children were indoctrinated to the idea that hard work is the secret to success. There was disdain for wealth of unknown origin. But today, the reverse is the case. Money is fervently worshiped and celebrated no matter the source.
We must all endeavor to reverse this trend. Everyone must look in the mirror and ask the question, how can I help Nigeria and not how Nigeria can help me. Public corruption affects the entire population and it’s not unconnected to societal degradation. When the average Nigerian sees government officials become overnight sensations with estates and exotic cars procured with public funds, then the appetite to get rich quickly cannot be farfetched. When the average Nigerian sees the children of politicians jetting off to schools abroad with luxurious lifestyles, then you can understand the journey to our current predicament. When budgetary allocation for power ends up in private pockets, the result is endemic darkness even in the 21st century. When budgetary allocations for housing are used for private mansions, one should not be surprised at the multitude of people sleeping and defecating under bridges. How about budget allocation for education? The list is endless.
The required change to correct this rot must start from the top. My recommendation to turn the tide of our societal cancer is as follows:
1) Abrogation of immunity: The Nigerian constitution must be amended to remove immunity for governmental officials so that anyone convicted of corruption, no matter how highly placed, must be immediately stripped of their positions and made to face the consequences. There are precedents for holding government officials liable for corruption in places such as Israel, France, UK, USA, Mexico, Brazil, to name a few.
2) Death penalty for public corruption: This recommendation may sound harsh but the corruption in Nigeria is such that unless harsh penalties are adopted, we probably will not be able to stem the tide. As it is, the laws against corruption are a joke. There are cases of governors convicted of stealing billions of naira only to be fined a measly restitution by corrupt judges and compromised prosecutors.
3) Abrogation of all allowances for legislators: The legislative branch in Nigeria should be on a part-time basis as they serve no discernible benefits to the population. All legislative allowances except for constituent allocation for the maintenance of their district offices should be canceled. Legislators all over the world including the USA where we supposedly copied our constitution do not pay such obscene allowances to their legislators.
4) Mandatory body camera for police and army officers to record all interactions with the public. If Nigeria is serious about addressing police corruption, we should mandate the wearing of body camera for all police officers. They should also make supervising police officers such DPOs, CPs, IG of police responsible and accountable for the behaviors of their rank and file.
5) Independent and fully funded anticorruption czar: A school of thought might argue that with the ICPC and EFCC, why create yet another agency? It is my submission that the agencies are compromised and politicised, hence the need for a sanitised version of the anticorruption bureau that is accountable to the people. The budget for this outfit should be independent of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches; and the power to remove the head of the proposed agency should rest with 2/3 of the senate.
Corruption has so eaten into the fabric of Nigeria’s soul that unless something drastic is done, it is difficult to contemplate what becomes of generations yet unborn. We must rise and do something now or else the country called Nigeria may be history.
Okhiria sent this piece from New York.
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