As we now know, corruption re-invented itself in the Jonathan presidency. It became a benevolent act. Slush funds took care of the President’s men and women – politicians, journalists, traditional rulers, the so-called men and women of God, military and police personnel and all those who needed papa’s helping hand. - Dan Agbese
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| Dan Agbese |
(Read full article by Dan Agbese
after the cut)
I know it is getting messier and
messier but still, I am intrigued by the metamorphosis of corruption in our
country. On January 15, 1966, when he and the other four majors staged the
bloody coup that changed the political, economic and social architecture of our
country, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu gave us a simple definition of the corrupt: he
was the 10 percenter.
His crime, in the patriotic feeling
of the young majors, was that as a 10 percenter, he made Nigeria look big for
nothing. The young officers thought that was not nice. We had everything to
lose and nothing to gain from allowing some people to make our country look big
for nothing. The patriotic solution was disarmingly simple: get rid of the 10
percenters and our country would look big for something.
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| Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu |
I am sad to report to Nzeogwu,
wherever he may be, heaven, purgatory or hell, that we are still in the thick
of the battle. All right, there are no 10 percenters anymore. The metamorphosis
of corruption has dramatically changed its face and its architecture too. We no
longer talk of corruption in niggling per centage terms. The sons and daughters
of the 10 percenters have since come of age and taken things to greater heights
and become enormously powerful and influential. Protected by something called impunity,
they have proved impregnable. Human history has no evidence that taking
someone’s hand out of the cookie jar is a piece of cake.
In its metamorphosis, corruption has
laundered its own image. In the days of the 10 percenters, corruption was a
crime. Those who sought to profit by it were furtive about it. But it is now an
open indulgence; an article of faith, no less, in the conspicuous game of
venality in which cheating the system and the people is the new definition of
smart. In the times before corruption successfully sold itself as a struggle
between the smart and the dumb, family name and honour mattered. Now, thanks to
the metamorphosis of corruption, almost every family is prepared to sell its
honour for a plate of eba and egusi soup. No one fears being tarred and
feathered with the proceeds of corrupt practices any more.
And let us be fair: affluence trumps
poverty any day. If it takes corruption to move from Ajegunle to Banana Island
in Lagos, it is the Lord’s doing, simplicita. No one need be told that family
honour, however well protected, does not put choice food or wine or cognac on
the table or give you state, of the art jeeps and saloon cars and private jets.
The well-heeled have cornered corruption and in their hands, it has become a
reserved indulgence for the big men and women.
Corruption has become our way of life
– as if you did not know. That is a great and fundamental leap from being a
cankerworm. As we now know, corruption re-invented itself in the Jonathan
presidency. It became a benevolent act. Slush funds took care of the
President’s men and women – politicians, journalists, traditional rulers, the
so-called men and women of God, military and police personnel and all those who
needed papa’s helping hand. Corruption used to be the cynical theft of our
common wealth. In that administration it became a benevolent act of generosity
on the part of the father of the nation.
You see, corruption is a truly
troublesome problem. See how long our successive rulers have been laying the
cane across its back; from when it was about 10 per cent to its present level
of reputation. You see the effect of this flogging on the pages of our daily
and weekly newspapers. Three-quarters of our newspaper stories deal with who
steals where and how much. You would think corruption was wired into our DNA as
a nation. Corruption is the longest running subject of public ire and discourse
in our country. Problem is that it is one problem that is unwilling to allow
our leaders get rid of it.
No one now appears to remember that
before EFCC and other anti-graft bodies, there was a law against corruption.
Its elegant title was Corrupt Practices Decree, 1975. It’s short hand name was
Decree 38. It is now lost among the welter of military legislations. The law
prescribed stiff penalties for those who gave or took bribes.
I found two things about the law
quite remarkable. The first is that the law had teeth, fangs even, but because
it chose not to sink them into bribe givers and bribe takers, you might
conclude that it was a toothless Alsatian dog. Maybe. The second point is that
the law legitimized our traditional system of saying thank you to those who do
us some favors. Under Decree 38, there was nothing wrong with taking kegs of
palm wine, goats or sheep or bush meat and a little something for the wife to
take care of the house to those who want us to chop too. The law called this
traditional kolanuts. The framers of the Decree did not seem to know that
corruption was a child of this traditional system of oiling the palms before
and greasing them after.
At each stage of its metamorphosis,
corruption has presented us with its laundered image. We still know it as an
evil to be fought and defeated and leave our country squeaky clean. Millions of
people who voted for President Muhammadu Buhari last year believed he has the
courage and the moral integrity to stop corruption. The new sheriff in town recognizes
the moral burden he bears as a leader and as a Nigerian. He has taken on the
fight, as indeed, we expected him to.
We have reached the crossroads. This
is our last chance to give corruption a one-way ticket to hell. We want to see
the metamorphosis of our country from corrupt to incorruptible. It would be
nice for Nigerians to have the feel of what it means to live in a country
relatively free of corruption.
Corruption is fighting right back as
usual through ethnic interests and jingoism. Anyone who genuinely wants to
clean up the country has to butt his head against the worst excesses in ethnic
jingoism. I thought by now, we the people, would agree that corruption is not a
social or political means for protecting or advancing ethnic interests. Those
who freely help themselves to our common purse do not do so because they are
Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba or heck, Idoma. They do not steal on behalf of their
tribes. They steal because they are bad people. Members of their tribes ought
to worry that they are giving them a bad name. Instead, they hail them as victimized
heroes.
I find it amazing that tribal interests
compel people to rise in defense of thieves who happen to be their tribesmen
and women. This is much sadder than you thought. It is shameful. It is the usual and
calculated attempt to sabotage the war against corruption. Those who look for
federal character in the anti-corruption war are themselves evil. The bald
truth is this: if through acts of sabotage among the vocal minority, we
undermine the war now going on much better than ever before and corruption
defeats Buhari, it defeats all Nigerians. It would be our shame; our disgrace.
Written by Dan Agbese:
Nigerian
journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch; he is a co-founder of Newswatch.
Agbese earlier in his career worked for the New Nigerian
rising to become the paper's editor and was also editor of the Nigerian Standard.
He was detained by the Abacha administration in 1994 for
conducting an interview with David Mark that was
critical of the government. An event Agbese later lamented may have been a way
for the new military to demonstrate their belief in the power of the sword over
the pen.
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