…As corruption fights back!

By Bala Muhammad …

Whereas in Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras citizens are out on the streets protesting against corruption and calling for the heads of their countries’ heads, worse than the opposite is happening today in Nigeria, the Giant of Africa. Here, it is the government itself that is fighting corruption, but some of its citizens are protesting against that fight. And not ordinary citizens – senior and otherwise respectable citizens who appear to have either been compromised or have descended to the lows of ‘the corruption of my co-religionist or my tribesman is common stealing’.

The August 15th 2015 edition of THE ECONOMIST newsmagazine titles its story of the protests in Latin America “A Central American Spring?” with the subtitle ‘Fury at corruption sparks mass demonstrations’. The Economist says:

“Light from thousands of bamboo torches cuts through the gathering darkness in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital. The protesters who carry them call their demonstrations marchas de las antorchas (torch marches). They have been taking place weekly at dusk since May. Their purpose: to rail against what participants see as grotesque corruption at the highest levels of government…

“In neighbouring Guatemala the protests, and the scandals that provoked them, are even bigger. Every Saturday since April thousands have poured into Constitution Square in Guatemala City to demand an overhaul of the political system, starting with the removal of the president, Otto Pérez Molina.

“The size and stubbornness of the crowds in both countries has prompted some observers to dub the protests a ‘Central American Spring’, like the Arab revolts that toppled corrupt Middle Eastern regimes in 2011. T[he Latin American protests] draw inspiration from Brazil, where hundreds of thousands of people, enraged by a multibillion-dollar bribery scandal involving Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, have rallied to demand the resignation of the president, Dilma Rousseff…”

Now, over here in Nigeria, despite the apparent, brazen and manifest corruption that infested the nation over the last sixteen years and more, there was never a similar united front against this negative social phenomenon. There never were massive protests (like those in Latin America today) against corruption – despite the depth of our ‘education’ and loquaciousness of our ‘civil society’. Most citizens were resigned to it; some condoned it; some even protected the perpetrators for reasons of ethnicity or religion. And the suffering which corruption wrought on the nation ravaged all with no regard to tribe, tongue or creed.

Then sixteen years later, here is a president who was elected primarily on a platform of anti-corruption (though, admittedly, he had to ride on the back of a few allegedly corrupt tigers) trying to say ‘enough is enough’, and that at least the most recent stealing which has not gone too far into inaccessible hiding places should be reversed. Yet here we are, or some of us are, among the ‘commentariat’ and even among the clergy, cautioning caution and speaking in doublespeak.

One is so weary repeating stories of Nigerian corruption. It only just about helps in raising one’s blood pressure. Have we forgotten that it is in this very country that 200 trucks ferrying 120,000 bags of fertilizer in a convoy to a certain state just ‘disappeared’ into thin air! Where would anyone have hidden that type of quantity? Yet it disappeared and was never found and no one was ever punished. Have we so soon forgotten that revenue collecting assistant at Inland Revenue who had five cars and four houses and three wives and two gold wristwatches and one credit in his WAEC?

Almost everyone was happy when, almost thirty years ago, that legendary bastion of corruption among the uniformed class, the Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO) became marginalised with the introduction of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC. But a few years later, many drivers began to rue the loss of that devil they knew, the VIO. At least he was local, and so his collection would be spent locally, rather than the from-out-of-nowhere ‘road marshals’.

Read also: In 30 Days, The Truth Will Set EFCC Free

The saddest aspect of our predicament with corruption was driven home to me several years ago when, at a filling station, a ‘white man’ ,butcers, the Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO) is now marginalised,d in the Falgore Game Reserve, one is ‘ut no one is enamouredand his driver who had filled their car tank asked for a blank receipt from the fuel attendant. To my hearing, the expatriate told the attendant: “Don’t write anything on the receipt. My driver likes it that way.” I was standing right behind them and the bature turned and, instead of being embarrassed, winked at me! He was being Roman in Rome.

During my years at the BBC in London, almost all ‘Breaking News’ out of Nigeria was about corruption. We the Nigerians – among 42 other nationalities as at then – were always embarrassed any day there was ‘breaking news’ out of Nigeria. Sometimes we would find it hard to even go to the canteen as some other broadcasters would genuinely and sincerely come up to you and condole, commiserate and pity you. What higher embarrassment could there have been, when our next door neighbour at World Service, the Somalis, always raised their noses at us, saying ‘war’ is less embarrassing than corruption.

In the whole wide world, there can’t be any other nation that can continue to experience the wanton and despicable corruption like Nigeria and survive. By anybody’s estimate, the combined stolen national funds may well equal all our budgets since independence.

Perhaps there is no single Nigerian who has confidence in the pecuniary credentials of the nation’s National Assembly, past and present. Didn’t they just take billions of our monies in legal ‘robbery’ and made away with them to Dubai and London on working holidays?

By all means, if the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under-returned One Trillion Naira of our monies, he must be made to return it. But how come it is only ‘today’ that the matter is coming to light? How come the petition went to the National Assembly, where principal officers, who came in in a round-about way and are being suspected of the self-same corruption, are the ones doing the probe? Why didn’t the petition go to EFCC’s opposite number, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), or to court (even though the Nigerian Judiciary is long-tainted and painted by the same brush)?

What is happening in this nation today is the proverbial corruption fighting back – at the National Assembly, from the pulpit, and from many other places. And it seems it will continue to fight back.

The bane of fighting corruption in Nigeria is in the punishment. As long as people would steal and get away with no more than a pat on the wrist, people will continue to steal, wallahi. We will continue repeating that the Chinese have the ultimate solution for graft: one looter, one bullet. We remember years ago when China executed the corrupt head of their equivalent of our NAFDAC. He had authorised, for monetary inducement, the licensing of fake drugs which ultimately harmed the people. He was found out, tried, convicted, had all his assets forfeited to government, and shot. The heirs would not even inherit the loot.

For Nigeria, can we not suggest a constitutional amendment to make Five Million Naira theft (or ‘misappropriation’) enough for a shot in the head? Or what do you think of amputating their hands? But who will make the law? Who?

The Chinese had seen the damage corruption could bring on a nation: a writer, Henry Emerson Fosdick, tells this story about Ancient China: “The Great Wall of China is a gigantic structure. When it was finished, it appeared impregnable. But the enemy breached it. Not by breaking it down or going round it. They did it by bribing the gatekeepers.”

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