Corruption: A phenomenon that must never define Nigeria, by Tope Fasua
I jumped right into typing this midway through reading a long‑bookmarked article, which I thought could offer insights into the workings of Nigerian local governments, drawing from experiences from that level of government in other countries – especially the advanced ones. The article – written by a Nigerian and a Briton with some credential around Africa – simply regaled about how corruption was the problem with Nigerian local governments. I mean that the article started off by reminding readers about just how corrupt the local governments are in Nigeria – blah, blah – reiterating in every paragraph how corruption is the biggest problem in Nigeria. I decided to truncate my reading of this long‑winded paper, as I had had enough somewhere in the middle. It was obvious that the writers had already made up their minds about the conclusion from the get‑go, thus they were simply working to the answer. I couldn’t stand the torture. This was not an honest, intellectual work.
The said article could have considered several approaches before concluding on corruption being the problem. Simple questions like, “why are Nigerians corrupt?” or “why is the local government level of Nigeria plagued by corruption?” could have helped in opening the minds of the writers or their readers alike. But no. The matter was approached with a closed mind, which meant that Nigerians are fundamentally and innately corrupt – perhaps born that way. It had to be in the DNA of Nigerians to be greedy and unthinking. That is the inference that most readers will come off with. And once that premise has been established, there is no escape route; not even a chance of redemption or progress.
Meanwhile, there is an industry in Nigeria that feeds on that predetermined intellectual inaccuracy, for want of a better expression. There are civil society organisations whose line of finance can only come from the continuous non‑interrogation of this narrative. There are also prominent individuals whose claim to fame comes from heaping the blame cavalierly on Nigerians and brooking no further information to the contrary. And I guess our own academia is too tied to global finance to be able to state our side of the issue and redefine the narrative.
My humble contribution to the debate is simply that corruption is and will always be a symptom in Nigeria or any other part of the world. And like every symptom, the pursuance of it does not equate to solving the underlying problem. But chasing the symptoms can actually take one’s time and efforts, while achieving little. On some other occasions, treating symptoms while avoiding underlying problems could worsen the situation. I am not asking, therefore, that corruption should not be treated through a very strong, loud, and popular approach. I am only concerned with the psychological burdens that some folks – foreign and local – are trying to dump on us as Nigerians; burdens that will weigh us down and never allow for real solutions. And I will show examples from my sojourn around the world, that the best that any country can aspire to is to try and reduce incidences where people try to get a leg up on the next person, because that is what corruption is.
In Nigeria too, there is this great idea that once one can dump all the blame on government, or politicians, or civil servants, the problem is solved. We often put out information like only the public sector harbours corruption, up to the point that more and more of our brightest young people now avoid careers in the public service – including politics – because they don’t want to bear the blame and the curse for Nigeria’s perceived inadequacies.
And so, even people whose businesses thrive on some sort of corruption or rule breaking or the other, feign holiness and often get away with nefarious acts once they can invoke those four-letter words – politician, government, civil servants. It then behooves on one to ask, “are we truly seeking solutions? Or are we merely interested in exonerating ourselves, while we sweep our own evil deeds under the carpet?” Is it sufficient, and will the problem be solved once we can tar everyone in government and every politician – even sometimes setting the people against them or asking that they be harmed by whoever can – while we cannot stand to any scrutiny as private citizens and businesspeople ourselves?
Corruption is defined as ‘taking advantage of one’s position for personal benefit’. That position could be in the private or public sector. Understanding corruption in this manner is important towards achieving a reductive trajectory – because again no society is perfect and all simply strive to reduce the incidence of corruption in society to a bare minimum. So, a policeman on a Nigerian highway uses his uniform and Kalashnikov to instil fear into drivers and then makes a tidy sum daily – perhaps for himself and his mentors. A powerful civil servant who withholds files until ‘settled’ also does the same. A politician in a big Babanriga or other native attire can also intimidate contractors to collect bungs.
But what about the lecturer who demands sex or money for grades? Or the pastor who intimidates church members with spiritual jiggery pokery to collect their monies, cars, and sometimes even for sexual favours? What about the procurement officers of oil companies, banks, manufacturing concerns? Or even low-level employees who find every means to make a quick buck in their normal duties and on every assignment they handle for the SMEs they work for? What about classroom teachers who inflate the cost of projects and squeeze parents through their students? Or the automechanic, plumber, electrician, bricklayer, furniture maker and others who have perfected ways of bilking their customers? Are they not corrupt too?
When viewed this way, we see a sociological problem, which can be helped over time if we stick to the straight and narrow, and log our achievements. And we will see that this is not principally a Nigerian or African problem. It is a human problem. It is also a developmental problem that disappears the more an economy achieves sustainable and inclusive growth and development.
Nigerians like the good life alright. In our culture, we have several beliefs that emphasises that good life and how we all are entitled to it. We also have cultures that require that we spend resources in unorthodox fashions. But we live in a global economy in which the majority of people are meant to struggle, and live from paycheck to paycheck, credit card to credit card. So how does that pan out? Where do we find the monies we spend on expensive parties, week in, week out? How do we afford the financing of whole extended families, friends and sundry dependants?
How do we send our children to those elite schools and colleges that are supposed to train them to dominate the world? What about those exotic cars outside our houses that show that we have arrived, as promised by God himself through our religious leader? How about our cash-down mansions in the major cities of the world? These are not the kind of aspiration that an average Caucasian will bother much with, yet we share the same global economy. I agree that the Caucasian is helped by centuries of history that has shaped him and his economy.
And so, the absence of a credit culture makes our lives harder here in a weird sort of way. We don’t get the camouflage that a credit culture offers. We have to buy our cars, and build our houses, cash down. This is a great feat we perform each time we achieve such things. The average Westerner cannot understand why it has to be so – why you cannot pay down 10 per cent and take a car you desire, while you pay monthly or obtain a 25-year mortgage on a terrace house, with barely enough space to swing your arms. But we take our achievements for granted, ask for more, and condemn our country for not being able to afford all of our fantasies immediately.
This is where I disagree with many Nigerians. We even blame the government for not being able to solve all our problems at the scale that we want this done. And, of course, just like the average Caucasian described above, we are all products of of our history and how we have interpreted events such as our colonisation, our independence, civil war, military coups, and the several types of government we have had as a nation. All of these facts send us in one direction or the other. But if we want to solve or reduce our problems, the first thing to do is to be very honest, and then suppress emotions and biases in our analysis, so that we are not blinded to logic and reasoning.
Nigerians should never willingly don the filthy garb of corruption to please anybody. We are normal people who will improve over time with the help of some honesty, technology, and discipline. The last time I was in Rwanda, I and a friend wanted to buy some Rwandan perfume at the airport. I gave the young man in the shop R₣2,000 in R₣500s and my eagle eye caught it as he slipped one of the notes under the shelf, claiming that I gave him R₣1,500. As a Nigerian, my radar is fully alert, so I only warned him strongly that I could make him lose his job in a jiffy. He apologised and retrieved the note. Imagine that in Paul Kagame’s no nonsense country where everyone is meant to be straight?
When I did a business that required buying sundry items from customers in London, I recall how many of them tried to evade taxes, tried to deal only in cash, and sought to bend the rules at every opportunity they found – some were Indians, others were pure British. The immigration staff in Ghana’s Kotoka Airport are super smart, but some of them demand tips. America has a thriving black market for everything, and people are ready to do deals at the drop of a hat. Sometimes corruption comes in different manners, usually underlying the values of the society concerned. I always wondered why tipping is normal in America but viewed as corruption in Nigeria. I recall one American cab man pocketing my $4 change in 2014. I was miffed. He said it was his tip. In Nigeria I would have shouted, “oleee!” on him. Lol.
It is our carelessness around our image that has made all sorts of people impersonate Nigerians while perpetrating scams around the world. Just last week, we saw on social media a scenario where some Filipinos were busted in their scam factory while they claimed to be working from Abuja. There was also the case of Mr Michael Neu, a grandfather from Louisiana, who was slammed with 269 counts of wire fraud some years back. He scammed as a Nigerian. In fact, the global statistics for scams does not have Nigeria in the first five most rampant cases, but we seem to be drawn to tragedy as a people. We love us a good tarring with the wrong feathers. I have been to many seminars where I cringe as Nigerian after Nigerians get up to start apologising about our corruption when we should actually be pushing back.
So, no one is trying to use the fact that there is detritus in every country as an excuse to continue in iniquitous ways. My own appeal is that we stay on the path that brings solutions and that we acknowledge that reduction to minimum is what we can feasibly achieve. We must never bog down our spirits and minds with any guilt trip. And no, we are just as normal as everybody else – sometimes even our culture is better and, if activated, can help solve this corruption problem faster. What is more? These powerful countries that often pontificate have been known to engage in real corruption at very high levels. The COVID-19 contracts were awarded to the friends of leaders in many countries. Trillions of dollars were made – the entire budget of all African nations came nowhere close. They have also been known to wage wars leading to the death of millions of people, based on sometimes dodgy or deliberately falsified data; Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere are examples.
I believe that over time, as standards of living improve, and Nigerians get more productive, as values shift, and even as the corrupt people of today realise that their offspring don’t connect with all the earthly toys they have acquired, Nigerians will engage less and less in the annoying public demand for cash for favours. Yes, we could use some strong-armed treatment and deterrents – maybe not up to the level of people getting killed off in China (yet the Chinese are astute dealmakers who understand the value of greasing palms). Also, as values shift positively, politicians and public servants alike will serve more and more for posterity.
Today’s politician was yesterday’s normal citizen by the way. We should stop discouraging our best brains from serving their country by hurling curses at every politician and public servant, while hypocritically being worse than they could ever be. Hopefully too, this shift in values will positively clean up our private sector space as well. The fault is certainly not in our stars. And we shall progressively get better.
Tope Fasua, an economist, author, blogger, and entrepreneur, can be reached through [email protected].
