Gone are the days when we were considered the most corrupt
on earth. Oh yes! The statistics once showed Nigeria as the Grande Khan of
global corruption. Today, the rating has improved and those at the helms of
affairs at the federal level will be impressed with their efforts. Nigerians
may feel comfortable with the latest corruption statistics it has only helped
us shield the increasing corruption process. Corruption is not just making a
slow work through the fabrics of the nation but is eating fast into every
facet. Any sensible Nigerian will find the latest corruption index position
very troubling seeing that things seem to be getting worse.
It’s saddening that corruption in Nigeria has reached an
irreparable level. Corruption is now literally a culture or a way of life.
Don’t be surprised if you hear the statement “are you not in Nigeria?” to
support an invitation to join the corruption bandwagon. Now every Nigerian just
wants to be corrupt to at least have a stake in the national cake.
Check out how the average Nigerian thinks. He is asking
himself how much benefit he would enjoy from any opportunity that arrives in
his direction. Nigerians have been wired overtime to think that any opportunity
of service is an opportunity to steal. We’ve learnt to develop tricks and
systems for creating loop holes in any kind of system whether it’s in the
private or public sector.
It seems the natural way of life for Nigerians to seek for
free things they are supposed to pay for. We think it is a right to find a way
to cheat others even if it’s for the least profit.
Checkout our academic institutions we are proud raising
future generation at. From our primary schools through the secondary schools to
our tertiary institutions, corruption now seems the normal. National Common
Entrance and First School Leaving Certificate examinations are now heavily
bribed just so that pupils can get cutoff points even when the exams do not
stop children from getting into secondary school.
Our secondary schools instill the corruption as a correct
process. Students do not need to study to take Senior Secondary Certificate
Examinations. They are certain they’d pass the examinations anyway because
they’ve paid the statutory examination fees asked by the school authorities.
Examination officers are ever cooperative to receive the tokens from school
proprietors. Which school doesn’t want to have the best records in WAEC and
NECO examinations?
Get to our universities and corruption does a graduation ceremony.
Students who get into the university in the first place often bribe their way to
get in. Massive malpractice happens with the matriculation examinations,
lecturers openly ask students to sort them to pass, female students are invited
by male lecturers to sleep with them for marks, admission racketeering is on
the high side and job racketeering too.
When our graduates finally find their way into real society,
it’s not difficult to blend. The corruption development process is concluded.
It just becomes a natural sequence for the graduates to adapt to life in the
real world.
Let’s begin from the police. The police as an institution is
engrossed with escalated corruption. Bail which is meant to be free is been
paid for at our police stations. The fifty naira police toll has now been
increased to one hundred naira. Bribery is the order of the day and police
managed corruption fighting institutions like the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission ICPC have
often been culpable with financial crimes.
Check out the army. The end has not been heard of senior army
officers who do deals with deadly groups like Boko Haram. Revelations from
officers in the field have brought forth gory tales of gross corruption that
has made the mess of the fight against the dreaded group.
And the Navy? The last have not been heard of the numerous
shady deals undertaken by navy officer with oil bunkers, the reason our water
ways are still very much infested with sharks. It’s not even news the fact that
Navy officers want to be posted to regions around the Niger delta where they
can have their share of the oil lacuna.
The Immigration are easily culpable. Officers collect bribe
to allow contraband goods into the country. Even when borders were ordered to
be closed by the president, officers are known to have managed illegal routes
allowing people enter into the country with goods obviously band.
The end has not been heard of other paramilitary and military
organization with gory correction records in their books.
The civil service at both state and federal levels is the
corridor of corruption. Job racketeering, ghost workers, funds misappropriation
continue unabated. You can hardly find a civil servant these days whose goal is
to serve Nigeria with all his heart. He is putting his ears down to listen for
when some windfall opportunity arrives. And how about those workers who go to
work once in a long while? Our local government workers are culprits too; they
collect their monthly wages like they work full time.
Get to the markets and corruption stirs at your face. Substandard
products are sold willfully even when the sellers are aware they are substandard.
The use of faulty measuring equipment is rife so you hardly can get value for
your money. Business is done with fake currencies and the list goes on.
And the banks? Banks are home to corruption. You’d better
check your money at the counter even if you are given bunches else you may be
surprised to get home to see that one or two notes are missing. Bankers use the
money of clients at will and if they know their clients are dead, they forfeit
it. And the wonder debit alerts of N100 and the likes can get you asking why.
Bankers have been heard to manage robbery gangs of whom they attach to wealthy
customers who have just collected money from the bank.
Its normal in Nigeria for contractors to collect contracts
from the government and not prosecute it, after all, they’ve paid godfathers
and other fathers and no one is going to ask. Contracts are even overstated so
that the profit on the contract is twice or more times the amount required to
carry out the job that they would hardly finish.
How about those at the corridors of power, our politicians? Everyone
who is running for political office has the goal of stealing the nation’s
commonwealth when he gets into office. They already develop strategies to steal
before they step into office so that they can be foolproof and not be caught
when they get out of office. And citizens don’t help matters. They expect the
politician to give them what they cannot afford, the politicians are under
pressure to play ball so as to keep his political career intact.
God fathers aren’t helping matters either. They expect
political sons to offer them juicy contracts and do their whims and caprices.
When the relationship turns sour like it always does, we often hear revelations
and counter revelations.
In Nigeria you are god if you have connections with any
politician in government. Once you break
the law and you are caught, all you have to do is make a phone call to your
“oga at the top” and you are released.
The proliferation of cult groups and the need to belong is
rife. It is the new normal to want to belong to a cult, it has become the new
condition to pursue a political career.
And now the churches who should have been the vanguard of
the people is fast becoming corruption’s capital. Pastors sleep with female
members, church funds are stolen wantonly, church leaders live flamboyant lives
and use sugar coated lips to get money out of the pockets of members in the
name of God.
Nigeria is reaching a point where corruption will seem like
drinking water. It is now normal for Nigerian leaders to steal billions of
naira and be considered not corrupt. With corruption at this intensity, we are
certainly sitting on a time bomb. Once this explosion happens, the whole nation
will certainly be taken in its flames. A time will arrive citizens will have to
choose between corruption and life.
If Nigerians survive this corruption onslaught, be sure, one
day Nigerians will develop a way to get corruption out of her system.
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