WERE it to be a human being, it would have protested violently the terrible fate that has become its lot. It is clearly not by its own design. No. It is all part of the inequality and fairness that have ruled the affairs of man.
Subjected to scurrilous attacks by many, it bears its scars with unparalleled equanimity, even as more lashes come cracking on its bloodied head. It is scorned, abused and misused.
But, let’s be fair – are we fair to “corruption”? Must it always carry the can of our greed?
Whenever the military intervened in governance, the scapegoat was corruption. Every societal ailment is blamed on it. Indiscipline, examination fraud, collapsed infrastructure and many more, our leaders claim, have their roots in corruption and its corollary of bribery and fraud, not forgetting their cousins 419, theft, forgery and others of like connotations.
The high and mighty talk about it. The poor pour their thoughts on it, ruminating on its effects and how it has kept them on their knees. Our leaders warn us that if we do not block its flourishing path, corruption will someday fight back, landing a devastating blow that will knock the nation off its feet with dreadful consequences. What really is corruption that has seized attention in this amazing manner?
How many of us know corruption? Don’t we think it is all about people putting their hands in the till, grabbing for themselves and members of their families what should be expended for the benefit of the masses?
Former President Goodluck Jonathan laboured so hard to let Nigerians know the difference between “corruption” and “stealing”, which they often confused, despite his passionate protestations. He never really succeeded as his administration was painted as corrupt and inept.
The other day at the ministerial screening, there were many allusions to –unprovoked attacks on, I dare say – corruption. Former Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola was asked if it was true that N78m was spent on a website during his administration. His Rivers State counterpart, Rotimi Amaechi, following a question, said a teacher who took advantage of his student was corrupt.
He provoked a torrent of questions. Can a teacher be corrupt if his students are not? Is a student whose dressing leaves so much to the imagination, exposing her cleavage, not corrupt? How insulated from corruption is the teacher whose pay cheque always arrives late?
At the University of Ilorin anniversary, President Muhammadu Buhari warned lecturers to run away from academic corruption. What is academic corruption? Plagiarism? Or the type Amaechi was describing? Or concupiscence? Or stoking a strike when examinations are right at the door? Or sheer indolence?
A politician, backed by the enormous power of the government at the centre, otherwise known as the federal might, turns an election into a war, killing and maiming many supporters of his opponent. He is proclaimed winner of the election –sorry for that slip; he is awarded victory. He visits churches after churches, proclaiming God’s faithfulness in his political life, kneeling down before clerics for blessings and leading the congregation to sing:
He’s a miracle working God
He’s a miracle working God
He’s the alpha and omega
He’s a miracle working God
Ah! What a merciful God we have. He has the power to get anybody mocking His name to be struck by thunder, but He is full of mercy.
Our man goes to Abuja in a desperate manner to compromise the jury sitting over his opponent’s petition against his bloody victory. His bid to see the Chief Justice fails. He launches a vicious attack on the integrity of his opponent’s camp and boasts that his election was endorsed by his people and sanctified by the Almighty. After all, he went to church for thanksgiving. Suddenly, the tribunal delivers a hammer blow- his election was rigged and it is nullified. His heart sinks.
Heartbroken, he returns home to a deceptively defiant reception at the airport. He then goes back to church for another thanksgiving. Pray, what is this called? Electoral corruption? Religious corruption or corruption of religion? Shouldn’t the clerics ask the politician to just confess his sins and sin no more rather than leading him on a thanksgiving revelry?
Meanwhile, his opponent also gets a massive reception where he lambasts the poll rigger for borrowing heavily to finance his stay in office and starving the economy of funds by misapplying resources.
Reception jams reception and thanksgiving jams thanksgiving.
The other day, there were reports that two bankers had been arrested for allegedly managing proxy accounts that had N2.8b for Pension Reform Task Force chief Abdulrasheed Maina. This is not the first of such mind boggling allegations against Maina, who once shunned a Senate invitation and, strangely, evaded arrest by the former Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, who was directed to seize him. Thanks to our adherence to due process and rule of law as well as our incomprehension of the difference between “corruption” and “stealing”, Maina remains a free man. Whenever he feels harassed, there is always a crowd of people, some of them apparently ignorant of what pension is all about, carrying placards to excoriate the authorities for asking Maina to account for the billions collected by his task force.
The cesspit of robbery that is pension administration is covered in a cloak of corruption. Is it not all simple stealing? Or fraud? Or both?
A father once sang his adopted political son’s song to high heavens, threatening to bring hell down to earth should his son lose an election, but when the son lost, the old man changed his tune. First, he said he would not die because his party lost an election. Then he said his son was weak and could not fight corruption. What do we call a father who abandons his son? Morally corrupt?
Anti-corruption campaigners are deploying all manner of tactics to fight their battle. I got on my phone the other day a message urging the government to reinvigorate the war against corruption. There are two pictures of an ageing woman, deep hollows in her cheeks and her face a mixture of light and dark. Her complexion is the type called “yellow fever” in the language of the late songster, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Just beside this is another picture of the same woman – good looking, far younger, attractive and light complexioned with a heavy red, glossy lipstick lifting her face. Above the two pictures is the caption: “Mr President, as you look for corrupt politicians in Nigeria, try and arrest the make- up artist who arranged this ‘organised crime’. Nigeria must be free of this. EFCC and ICPC copied.”
A friend of mine has just informed me about a renowned professor’s plan to launch a massive research into “the dialectical analysis of corruption in Nigeria’s economic crisis: Facts and fallacies”. Among others, he is to examine the relationship between “stealing” and “corruption”, why the former attracts instance justice, otherwise known as jungle justice, and the latter takes just a stroll to the courtroom where lawyers argue on why the rights and privileges of an accused person should be protected in a circus that often fails to end – a vivid flashback to Fela’s “Authority Stealing”.
A corruption suspect can even go overseas and continue to have a nice time, until the authorities believe they have had enough. At home, even if he is convicted, he may not go to jail – that seems to be for ordinary thieves, pick pockets and car snatchers. He only needs to get a doctor to declare that he has been struck by some terrible ailment. From the courtroom, he drives to the best hospital in town and sinks into a bed at the VIP section –air conditioner, satellite television (to ensure he doesn’t miss his favourite premiership team’s game), dedicated nurse and all that. He cools off, until the Court of Appeal determines whether he should go home or seek justice (for wrongful incarceration) at the Supreme Court.
Corruption will someday urge a court of competent jurisdiction to grant it a perpetual injunction restraining our leaders, their agents, privies, officers, officials or whomsoever assigned the duty of maligning it to desist from so doing or be committed to prison.
Dear reader, will corruption find a willing judge?
NATION
END
Be the first to comment