Why Nigeria is failing – 1 By Gbogun Gboro

More than a few times, I have said in my university class lectures, and in public speeches, that America is not merely the greatest country in the world but the greatest country in the history of the world. I say it now again. America is simply an incredible country. America is great because America’s systems work. And America’s systems work because Americans are phenomenally loyal to the systems of their country.

I have taught courses on the American Idea in various American universities. Yet, one frozen winter morning not long ago, as I drove in my car and listened to an interview on my car radio about an American public institution, I was still simply awed. The interviewer was asking questions from an author who had just written a book on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – the highest police and secret service institution in America, the equivalent of the Federal Police and Secret Service in my country Nigeria. To listen to that interview about the FBI is to listen to the best expert lesson on how to make a country work – how to make a country stable – how to make a country prosper. For me as a Nigerian the message was clear.  My country does not work because my country’s systems do not work.  It is almost impossible to find a Nigerian public servant who believes that the public system he works for was really meant to do the task it was designed and created for. We Nigerians simply do not have any aorta of concept or consciousness of systems loyalty or systems integrity.

The author who was being interviewed told this story at one point: An American president was being investigated once for some alleged wrong doing. As part of the investigation, two FBI agents went to the White House with authorization to collect forensic evidence (in form of blood) from the president’s person. The president had no choice. He rolled up his shirt sleeve and let the FBI agents pull the blood from his arm and go their way!  Think of it:  The president of America is the most powerful man in the entire world. Shouldn’t he be above that kind of thing? In America, the answer is NO. The American president is the most powerful person on earth, but he is the servant of the American system that is more powerful than any person in America!
The voice of the lady interviewer in that radio interview was quivering as she asked, “Are you then saying that it is impossible for anybody, no matter how high in office, to hide any misdeed done in the American government?” The author answered, “Well, it is virtually impossible for any public office holder to hide anything, or to get away with any misdeed, in America’s government, federal, state or local. Somehow or other, the truth will come out. Someone will do his duty and reveal the truth. And then the justice system will go into action.”

Can we Nigerians imagine that? Can we imagine a country in which even the highest public officers cannot easily hide, or get away with, any shady act they do in the government? Our Nigeria is a country in which loads of crooked deeds are perpetrated, hidden, and gotten away with, hour by hour, in our practice of governance.

But in America, it cannot be done; nobody can do it. The integrity of the system – the readiness of the people to uphold the system – always wins in the end. The justice system is more powerful than any person in America, no matter his or her office or popularity. There is no shrine in America that the FBI, or even the lowest local police, cannot enter. And trying to bribe one’s way out of an FBI investigation, or even out of a local police investigation, is literally like trying to commit suicide.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that Americans, or rulers of America, are above corruption, crookedness, criminal behaviour.  Not at all. Human beings are human beings everywhere in the world.  In the government of any country, there are many individuals who can act illegally or criminally, and who can take advantage of their positions to appropriate some things improperly to themselves or their families or friends.

The difference always is in the integrity of the system – in how much support the system enjoys among its people to maintain integrity; how each person employed to work in the system will, on the aggregate, do his or her little job in it; how, ultimately, the general citizenry, on the aggregate, has been conditioned by history and culture to view and regard the system.

Of course, people do all sorts of inappropriate things, illegal things, crooked things, criminal things, in the portals of America’s government. The beauty of the American experience in this matter is that most, or at least a good many, of such people will find the justice system coming after them and will be made to suffer the punishment they deserve.

For instance, it does not look odd to Americans when their country’s Attorney General, who is appointed by the President, institutes some criminal investigation against the president that appointed him.  I was a young visiting professor in an American university when President Nixon was facing investigation in the Watergate allegations in the early 1970s.  I saw a lot of things that would be inconceivable in my country. For instance, a Special Investigator appointed by the Attorney General was digging up lots of evidence that could destroy the President; the President told the Attorney General to fire the Special Investigator; and the Attorney General refused to fire him.  And in the end, it was the president’s own Chief of Staff that advised him that the game was up – as a result of which the President offered his resignation.

I have seen the American justice system tear a Vice President apart because of allegations that he had evaded taxes years before, when he had served as governor in his state. I have seen them pursue him relentlessly until he gave up the job of Vice President.

Like most Africans of my time, I loved President Clinton during his presidency.  Therefore, I watched every minute, every twist and turn, of his travail at the hands of the justice system during the investigations of his alleged misdeeds with Monica Lewinsky. I was unhappy about what my friend was suffering, but I loved and respected the awesome majesty of the system.

In America, I have seen many state governors facing criminal investigations, I have seen many forced to resign from office, and I have seen some arraigned before criminal courts or sent to jail.  I have avidly followed the cases of many erring members of Congress, many Senators, as the American justice system has dealt with them.  I have seen many popular and powerful members of Congress or Senate, when the justice system steps into their lives, lose the support of their once adoring colleagues.  I have seen many city mayors wriggling in the hands of the justice system, and I have seen quite a few go to jail.

That is the American way. Nobody is above the law in America. And that is one secret behind America’s stability, strength and success.

And, let’s face it; no country can succeed without having systems that have integrity – systems that work as they were designed to work – systems whose integrity enjoys the loyalty of its people.  In spite of Nigeria’s many other weaknesses, if we had made it a high priority from the beginning to make our systems work, we might have given our country a fair shot at stability and success.

We Nigerians generally attach little or no importance to giving integrity to our systems, and that is a major reason why our country has fallen into ruins in our hands. In our country, corruption of all kinds and sizes, even criminal actions as big as murders, have become part of the privileges of men and women in high places.  Just see what our public officials are capable of doing today to stall the ongoing war against corruption. See how accused public officials easily get the support of their colleagues in office, or the support of their political parties, or bribe important functionaries of government for support – and thereby avoid punishment for their crimes against our country. Given all these, what chances of survival and success does Nigeria have in the world?

NATION