Corruption as a relay race in Nigeria

Successive Nigerian governments including military regimes have had laudable frameworks for fighting corruption. Surprisingly, the more intensified the fights, the more the number of reports on massive corruption in the nation. The general feeling that the most corrupt Nigerians are the politicians is oblivious of numerous public service officials especially Chief Executives and top management staff now facing corruption charges. Corruption in Nigeria is also not restricted to the top level of government as many low income workers are also involved. Men and also women have been accused of corrupt practices so the argument that corruption is a male affair erroneous just as corruption as a public sector affair is debunked by several insider abuses in private sector bodies like banks and allied institutions. What this suggests is that it is hard to identify where corruption is to be found in Nigeria. In June 2015, President Buhari’s Transition Committee led by Elder statesman, Ahmed Jodah said they found corruption everywhere. Perhaps that explains why the war against corruption has ever since been waged without success. If so, perhaps it is time to take a second look at the roots of the monster and accept the inevitable conclusion that the Nigerian environment encourages corruption. It is no longer rational for instance to think that our policemen are fantastically corrupt because all agencies that are found at check points, be it police, military, customs, road safety commission etc behave the same way on location. So, the problem does not entirely lie with the operatives but with the nature of the assignment and the posture of society. Both the officials in question and those who posted them there know that the deployment is ‘lucrative’ as many officials pay huge sums to be so deployed. How will they not be corrupt? Why does Nigeria in this age of technology still rely on analogue checkpoints that are not too dissimilar from the ones mounted by our Edo ancestors in 1897 to stop the British from invading Benin? The other day, a fellow traveller was extolling the virtues of the law enforcement bodies in our airports for being so respectful to him in not insisting for him to open all his suit cases for inspection before boarding. Unknown to him, as another traveller opined, the team was not being respectful; what an elite gives out in appreciation of courtesies accorded him has turned out to be more than what an average traveller gives for being allowed to travel with illegal goods. But why must such officials abuse their offices by extorting money from fellow citizens? To think the officers are greedy is simplistic because Nigerian salaries are so unrealistic that our workers are forever in search of where to augment emoluments that cannot settle even one of their unavoidable items like rent. The implication of this is that the fight against corruption is likely to remain a mirage if the take-home pay of a worker cannot meet his basic needs. Where that is so, many procedures are introduced to public services so that those in a hurry and those really anxious to get served have to pay for an otherwise free service. Corruption by officers who misappropriate public funds is condemnable but more to be deprecated is a government that deliberately appoints malleable persons into strategic positions to serve as conduit pipes to raise revenue for the next set of elections. An unqualified Chief Executive is aware of the unwritten guarantee that how he runs his organization does not matter. So, he is not bothered about the job; his own personal mandate is to use desk officers to amass wealth for the powers that be. Such desk officers that are so empowered also help themselves in the process while other members of staff of the organization watch for loopholes for their own raining day. In such an organization, it is only those who know how to greet the otherwise common gateman that can have access into the premises. In short, the entire institution is bedevilled making the arrest and prosecution of the unlucky few ineffectual. The smart ones may not be caught but when luck runs out on them, they have friends in the judiciary who will turn theirs, into ‘prosecution without end.’ The point to be made therefore is that sting operations against judges as recently done by the Department of State Services (DSS) are good as they offer temporary reliefs to society; the panacea remains improved conditions of service for judges The private sector is not necessarily a better place. An examination of the sector will show that our gsm service providers for instance often inflate costs of calls etc. The online site of a typical Nigerian airline hardly works. It either it does not open for business or when it does it compels one to buy a business class ticket as the only seat on display or the airline workers on ground will conjure a fully booked flight to coerce stranded passengers to pass with money. On board the flight, the passenger would shockingly find that he is alone in the business class cabin in a half-filled flight. The sector is thus not different from universities that run illegal campuses in the public glare or those that enrich themselves through levies on unapproved courses. Driving a car with an expired licence is an offence but if a citizen decides to renew his driving licence, the temporary licence he gets pending the printing of the original would expire over and over again without getting the original. Under the circumstance why would a law-abiding citizen pay for licence to a Road Safety Commission that operates above the law? Again who owns the insurance company that these days has the franchise to undertake third party insurance within the precincts of a licensing authority? Why are licensing authorities across the nation formatting their software to reject renewal of old number plates thereby forcing citizens to buy new number plates in breach of recent judicial pronouncements on the illegality of such an act? The answer to all these questions is that the entire Nigerian environment encourages corruption which ought to be addressed by turning the searchlight on institutional corruption which continues to give birth to persons who successively hand over the relay batons of corruption to others?