Fighting the roots of Nigeria’s corruption

THERE are many wise sayings in many cultures of the world that emphasize the universality of common sense; and at least three of them may be useful in the exercise of the call to reflection that this article is desired to be. These three are as follows: i. Common sense is common enough indeed, only that people prefer to not commonly use it; ii. Only a fool can say in his/her heart that there is no God; for whatever that is essential to know about Him is plain enough to the naked eyes; and iii. An adult man who says that he does not know how to dig a hole in the ground can only be fooling himself.

As many of us will surely know, human beings of all times, until the recent Secular Humanist ideology or atheistic religion of the West, have always believed that human beings are created by God, in His very own image and likeness and by which therefore, all of us can and indeed do know God, and feel Him in our very bones; even though how we eventually come to understand, appreciate or live this out, has been deeply influenced by the public articulation of it in the very cultures that we are born and brought up in, as the popular religion of such a place. Yet, God and the very human nature itself very easily allow us to discard or indeed change those religions to the inner and usually more accurate personal SPIRITUALITY or other religions around us, as adult persons. That is the very basis of the notion of “freedom or religion”. Only inferior or perhaps false religions and merely (abusively) political people try to deny or suppress such freedoms; usually out of their obvious inferiority complex.

Now, every Nigerian knows that we have been in a battle for “change” in the country in the last TWO full years. Even though a reasonable number of people doubt that we have made much progress in it, we must remain positive that some things are truly happening there. We must pray harder that the true and real big culprits in the exercise are finally addressed and truly and CHARITABLY dealt with in full justice and equity. In order to help in this exercise, we need to call to mind that corruption is endemic to every human person; and but for the grace of God, there also we will also be! – even for those of us who have had the privilege of a better moral and spiritual upbringing and so may have found it easier to resist it. For as so many had observed in the past, corruption in so systematic and particularly endemic in Nigeria. Wisdom in another well-known culture of the world puts the endemic nature of corruption in man in these words: “the heart of man is desperately wicked; who can ever know it?” The reason of this wickedness and endemic corruption is what is called selfishness, “the fall of man”, “the human flesh”, “inherent human weakness”, etc. So, in its regard, people must pray hard that they do not play the holier than thou attitude to it. Those who do such wrong must be treated with full justice but compassion also; thus allowing them to repent and restore that which they have stolen.

However, when we want to really deal with corruption in Nigeria, we must come to a reasonable understanding of its extra roots in the Nigerian situation. Without understanding it and wedging the needed wars on those, it would be soon clear that we will only be scratching the problem on the surface. As anybody who thinks about it will easily come to realize, the very deep roots of corruption in Nigeria are tribalism/ethnicity and religious fanaticism. Unfortunately, these two evils have an inherent capacity to present themselves to their sufferers as part of goodness or Godliness; when indeed, they are their exact abuses and therefore very heinous crimes! Religious fanaticism easily deceives people to think that by doing so, they are serving God or doing so better than everybody else; even though by it they foster hatred, injustices, silent and even open murder (of other people, created in the image and likeness of God and so God-bearers also!), etc. By ethnicity and tribalism, the people doing so are truly exercising an important extended human and inherently covenantal love called FILIA (“the love of one’s own flesh and blood”); which in itself is both inherent and largely good. But ethnicity and tribalism are the extreme abuses of this most essential love. So, we must take caution about it; and especially when we begin to use it to feed our inherent PERSONAL selfishness and “wickedness” as is usually the case in its use in political and economic corruption! All these two roots, when used in politics lead to political corruption which is the creaming of all corruptions – resulting in tribal, nepotic, hegemonic, economically and religiously biased (i.e., corrupted) political appointments and gang-ups, etc. It is for this reason that we have the “national character” provisions in laws and policies, even in their continuous abuses in spirit and in truth in the country all of the time still, in spite of all the noise about it!

Having said all the above, all Nigerians interested in truly joining the war against corruption in the country must begin to examine themselves in regard of their involvements in these corruptions, even when it has not involved huge sums of money and political appointments and influences (most likely, because they have not had access to those). When different segments of Nigerians complain of these silent corruptions, marginalizations, etc, how do we react to them? Do we listen out to them and assist them to examine those properly? When we see these perennial elements of tribalism or religious fanaticisms in the country, in our very own areas of operation, do we react positively and try to correct them? Can we in our true consciences say to ourselves before God and man that we are detribalized and religiously non-fanatical persons? Do we genuinely love other Nigerians from everywhere? Does it show in the ways we think, talk and behave – privately and publicly? Do we go out of ourselves to defend and protect Nigerians from other tribes or religions when we see them being marginalized; or do we nurture in our very hearts, minds and souls the tribal, racial or religious supremacies that are Nigeria’s root corruptions?

May God Himself, help us all as we battle with these real basis of our national corruption while any others may also go on! God bless us all, and Nigeria too as we do these!

• Asuzu is Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Ibadan