The Danger Of A Single Corruption Story

By Moses E. Ochonu

There is a danger in equating corruption in Nigeria with the infractions of a single corrupt individual. At different moments of our national life, we tend to narrowly and naively unload our anti-corruption angst on one individual politician. We then pummel this individual like a piñata while seemingly forgetting that Nigeria’s political corruption is a group act, an orgy of theft involving whole groups of politicians and bureaucrats.

*Buhari and Saraki

We inculpate some politicians while inadvertently exculpating others. We do so to assuage our emotional exhaustion at corruption’s stubborn persistence, and its devastating consequences.

In the second republic the individual stand-in for corruption was Umaru Dikko. In the Peoples Democratic Peoples Party (PDP) era, it was James Ibori. In the unfolding All Progressives Congress (APC) period, that personification of Nigeria’s corruption is Bukola Saraki.

To hear some people talk about Bukola Saraki one would think that the Senate President is the very embodiment of Nigeria’s corruption problem and that his removal from office and/or conviction would magically banish graft and restore probity in the polity.

Reading and listening to some of these folks one would think that Nigeria’s corruption virus originated with Saraki and would end with his conviction. You’d think that Saraki’s ongoing trial was some seminal event in a revolution against corruption and that the reclamation of Nigeria hangs on its outcome alone.

Never mind that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was charged with exactly the same offense as Saraki in a similarly politically charged atmosphere and that over 70 lawyers invaded the courtroom to defend him and eventually succeeded in intimidating the judge into acquitting him. Mr. Saraki is rightly berated for trying to wriggle out of an actual trial, for seeking to have the charges corruptly dismissed. But it’s now a distant, rarely revisited memory that Tinubu, the architect and champion of change, if you believe the hype, had used a mix of legal maneuvers, bully tactics, and other shady shenanigans to evade justice on multiple occasions when the late social crusader, Gani Fawehinmi, sought to subject him to an open court process. He, too, was afraid of a trial. Today, he issues periodic sermons about how corruption has hobbled Nigeria and needs to be defeated. Depressingly, many Nigerians cheer these sanctimonious pronouncements.

President Zuma And Nigeria’s Endgame

Presidents Zuma and Buhari (pix:ThisDay)

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

 What clearly is more tragic than the excesses of the leaders our nation is saddled with is the ease with which the citizens rationalise them. We do not take umbrage at the fact that our leaders who are supposed to deploy our resources to improve our lot have unconscionably appropriated them for themselves and their families. But occasionally, we are rebuked by fellow African countries. We are reminded that we do not need to go outside the black continent to get models of good leadership and citizenry. We do not need to go outside Africa to understand that it is possible for a nation to have stable electricity.

In most cases, these are nations that are not as big as Nigeria. For instance, Ghana has stable electricity, resulting in some industries relocating there from Nigeria. Yet, it is Nigeria that supplies Ghana gas for its electricity. We do not need to go outside Africa to understand that university students can have uninterrupted academic calendars. This is why Nigerians prefer to send their children to Benin Republic for their education.

Perhaps, we have become used to these aberrations. And that is why there should be fresh cases to remind us of our crisis of leadership. It is in this regard that we consider as cheery recent developments in South Africa. Nigeria was at the vanguard of the campaign to break the stranglehold of the apartheid regime that dehumanised black South Africans. Yet, in less than two and half decades after the blacks assumed the leadership of their country, they are now in a position to show Nigerian citizens and their leaders how to behave. This is why while Nigeria continues to provoke the contempt of the rest of the world due to the failure of its leadership, South Africans are telling Nigerians how to hold their leaders to account. South Africans are bristling with rage at President Jacob Zuma’s spending of some of the nation’s funds on the upgrade of his private Nkandla home. A court ruling has indicted Zuma and ordered him to make the refund and he has apologised to the nation.

Of course, Zuma behaved like a typical African politician. Instead of being bothered about how to improve the lot of South Africans, especially the blacks who are still wallowing in poverty after apartheid, his worry was how to upgrade his home. He is like Nigerian political leaders who neglect the citizens and rather deploy their state resources for their selfish ends. But it is a good development that Zuma has apologised. More importantly, it was the citizens who brought the conviction and made him to apologise. The challenge here for Nigerians is that if their leaders spend their time and the state resources on what negates the common good, it is the citizens who allow this as they often demonstrate a lack of capacity to check the excesses of their leaders.

The Magnitude Of Corruption In Ghana

By Nana Akwah

It must be our ultimatum duty to uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials and also to a great extent willing to resolve the abnormal and harmful inclinations and corruption problems which happen all around people.

*John Dramani Mahama

The economy of Ghana is at its worst since it independence. Most of our people poor and they are wallowing in stark poverty and starving on account of the expensive consumer goods.

Basic commodities prices are always on the increase however wages for workers still remain. It is inhumane and unfair for all the hardships the people are going through. All basic needs are continually increasing and the present NDC government is not taking actions but to corrupt!

The economy is down owing to corruption as it is very rampant at high places. The problem with our society is that we can not absolve ourselves from the evil practice. Almost the entire country is caught up in the menace as we find ways to engage in the act.

I sincerely believe that most people will fall prey or get compromised if they had chance to get to the position where they have access. I could vouch that about 75 percent of the people are compromised. Although corruption could be said to be very prevalent among the citizens however, it very sickening to observe the profligacy exhibited by these officials. The least said of them the better.