The news that has refused to wash away from the system is the growing corruption that has spread fast, like harmattan wind to catch everybody; the leaders, the politicians, the older ones, students, house wives and even toddlers that are just learning the art of walking and talking.
Corruption looms so large in the horizon that the air is fully charged by it, making an escape route to a saner part of the system for the fairly sane few almost none existence.
It is corruption that has brought several leaders into and sustain them in power, with particular reference to the period covering part of the General Yakubu Gowon’s regime upto the current dispensation.
General Gowon lost power not because he was personally corrupt and or not performing well, but because he was unable to control the corrupt elements in his government. At a point, General Gowon was just a figure head through which some parasites were draining the nation’s financial resources. That was when the idea of opening Swiss accounts by some government functionaries began to manifest.
The tide of corruption led to the intervention in governance by late General Murtala Muhammed along with his compatriots in the Nigerian army. But because the corruption was growing like monster, some young military officers, led by Colonel Suka Dimka, threw off the Murtala’s regime, cutting short his dexterous move to cleanse the country of the Augean stables. Murtala’s life and that of some of his compatriots in the army were wasted.
General Olusegun Obasanjo took over from the assassinated Murtala, with a lot of panic in his mien. Obasanjo appeared to have been frightened by the ruthlessness in the army and the political system then, and had no choice than to carry the Murtala’s programme of transition to the civilian government to its conclusion in 1979.
The transition programme ushered in the civilian regime, led by Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari on the political platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
Of course, like the Gowon’s regime at the tail end of its tenure, Shagari’s government also created a leeway for people with avarice for corruption to grow and thrive. In other words, Shagari might not be corrupt, but he presided over a government in which all manners of corrupt elements were stealing Nigeria blind. And, in any case, there was no difference between being clean while the vault is being infested by corrupt people and the corrupt people themselves!
The history repeated itself when another upright military officer, General Muhammadu Buhari, along with his compatriots in the army struck, and swept off the parasites in the Shagari’s regime. What the Buhari government did, which of course, was decried in many quarters as high-handedness, was its herding of all the political leaders and their allies into detention, as it began to cleanse the Augean stables. The regime began to beat Nigerians into line, in conformity with the best behaviour in the civilized world: the behaviours, bereft of corruption and corrupt tendencies that would have set the country on the path to physical and structural development in all human endeavours.
But, before the country could settle down to acclimatize to the new sense of directional and positive attitudinal reformation, General Ibrahim Babangida stepped in, along with his team. It is on record that Babangida set the tone of his style of governance by pronouncing that he understood Nigerians as much as he understood his palm.
True to type, General Babangida threw the nation’s vault open to whoever threatened his position. All he needed to do was to beckon on such people who were considered before as being incorruptible, and give them positions in the government, with a lot of money to entice them. Such political calculation was invented to make such people keep quiet about the wrong policies that had the capacity of retarding the progress of the country. The erstwhile vitriolic social critic of the government, Tai Solari was one of those that caved-in to Babangida’s policy of bread-and-butter politics or arm twisting.
The fire-brand, anti-corruption Nigerians who could not be so quietened by appointment and or monetary inducement took to their heels and went away to other countries on exile.
With the proper institutionalisation of corruption at the higher level of government, Nigeria began a backward journey because it became clear that nothing would move anywhere until someone or a group of people got something, usually money and contract, in the bargain.
The nation’s politics was and is being oiled with corruption, so much that even the leadership of the country is being considered from that prism.
In deed, the trend has remained the same from the second coming of Olusegun Obasanjo as the civilian President from 1999 up to date: the President pretending to be fighting corruption and making deafening noise about it while corruption grows in leap and bound. Or using the anti corruption agencies as attacking dogs for political opponents or enemies as those who are political friends or conformists swim in it.
As a matter of fact, corruption has taken several dimensions so much that it is now threatening not only the socio-economic well-being of the country but its corporate existence.
In fact, the argument is no longer that corruption does not exist and grows but it has been on who are benefiting from it. The basis for the people from Niger Delta’s push for President Goodluck Jonathan to seek for a second term in office has been, understandably, that people in the North had enjoyed the leadership of the country, with its attendant favours in the award of contracts and others to the Northerners for several years. To them, the continuation of Jonathan tenure would mean the elongation of their chances to continue to enjoy the same favours, which are of course, heavily decked in corruption.
As the 2015 elections get nearer, stories are rife that politicians have stored a lot of money which they would use to bribe the electorate which has been termed in recent time as ‘stomach infrastructure.’ What the politicians do, which of course is not new, is to go to the villages, distribute the sum of “insultive” N200 together with six cubes of magi and in some cases, with clothes to women in particular so that they would vote in favour of their political parties.
The sad thing about it is that such politicians would always make sure that they impoverish the poor masses so much that when they (the masses) now see N200 and cubes of magi, they would jump for joy! And, from that lowly point, corruption climb up to the highest man in the land, and of course, it goes round all the systems.
With corruption cutting across all the strata of the country, one cannot expect the government to defeat the insurgent; one cannot expect the country to move faster forward like its peers, such as Indonesia, India, Malaysia etc, with which it started the journey to Eldorado in the early 60’s. One cannot talk about justice and truth, the drum of which the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubabakar III has been beating at every opportunity in recent time.
The story of Nigeria today sharply contrasts that of many countries striving to find their feet in the context of real development, with corruption holding it down to the ground.
Take the case of a junior television reporter in Qatar, a country in Middle East for example. The reporter had the privilege of conducting an interview with a top Nigerian leader in his country. After the interview session, the Nigerian leader offered him the sum of $10,000 (about N1.6 Million) as bribe, but other nice name.
The reporter, shocked by the gift of such huge sum of money asked the Nigerian leader what was it for.
When the Nigerian leader told him it was a special gift for him, the reporter diplomatically turned it down, saying that his monthly salary was enough for him. He however sought one favour from the Nigerian leader: “please write to my employer, commending me for the job I did well.”
Or take the case of a Nigeria driver at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Mr. Imeh Usuah who found the sum of N18 Million forgotten in his cab by a passenger and he returned it intact to the owner hours after.
The question has always been, when are Nigerians, the leaders, the business people, the teachers, students, market women and men, house wives and husbands and many other citizens in their millions going to be like the reporter in Qatar and the taxi driver at the Abuja airport?
Of course, it is obvious that any Nigerian claiming now or in the near future that he can wipe out corruption in the country through whatever instrumentality is either pretending, playing ignorance, or telling known lie or is confused or looking desperately for who would kill him and or a combination of all these.
However, with God Almighty whose attribute is “when He just says be, to anything, it becomes instantly,” wiping out corruption to allow Nigerians breathe fresh air, would be like lightening.
[myad]
