Fighting corruption in Nigeria

FOR the Nigerian Government, fighting corruption is an uphill task, particularly in a corruption-ridden ethos, which has become systemic in the country. The Obasanjo administration came on somewhat boldly to establish government agencies to fight corruption. The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were cases in point. They have been working on the slippery hill to fight corruption since then without any positive effect to show for the all-motion-without-movement efforts. Any attempt that is made to fight the monster creates an opportunity for the cankerworm, which corruption in Nigeria has become, to spread. Some key staff of the agencies are seriously infected with the seemingly incurable disease! The new EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, would, therefore, seem to be very correct when he lamented that neither imprisonment nor plea bargaining would deter corruption. Given these awry circumstances, the efforts of the government in fighting corruption pale into insignificance.  Not surprisingly, therefore, the 2010 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI), rated Nigeria as the 44th most corrupt country in the world, and 28th in Africa! A school of thought is, however, of the opinion that the average Nigerian is not corrupt but that the corrupt system operated in the country (the presidential system and the latter-day robbery gang of a civil service), is the rub. Civil servants prepare for their retirements by brazenly inflating project funds and engaging in sundry manipulations to feather their nests. The Senate, upper chamber of the National Assembly, once alleged that corruption in the civil service gulped up to N3 trillion annually, while 107 Federal agencies had never submitted annual accounts, just as over  N2 trillion was paid to fraudulent fuel importers in 2011 alone!
Instances abound of sources of corruption in Nigeria: A government agency hires ten people for a job designed for two people, resulting in the redundancy of eight of the employees; to compound the scenario, there would be about twenty names for the two-man position on the records. Some government agencies, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), donated N100 million to the victims of the Boko Haram mayhem, in February 2012, and about N500 million to yet another institution a few weeks later. This type of unco-ordinated policy is one of the noisome characteristics of Nigerian body politic, definable in terms of want of sprite for the public good. Some schools of thought would argue that numerous government agencies are deeply involved in acts of corporate irresponsibility. With such schools of thought, we could not agree more!
The Government has no business in establishing hotels and such other ventures that fall squarely in the province of the private sector. You would discover that there are no returns from government investments in such ventures.
Refineries were and are poorly maintained, crippling other related industries. Nigeria has been turned into a consumer country, importing energy in spite of the abundance of oil and gas; importing shoes in the midst of hides and skins; importing starch where cassava is in abundance. Textiles industries suffered by failure to utilize the large acres of arable cotton belts, etc.
Ironically, poverty has risen in Nigeria , with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1 (N158) per day, despite so-called economic growth, as statistics have shown. The National Bureau of Statistics stated that 60.9% of Nigerians as of 2010 were living in "absolute (abject) poverty”. This figure represents about 112.47 million Nigerians. It also stated that figure, in 1980, was 17.1 million; in 1985, 34.7 million; in 1992, 39.2 million; in 1996, 67.1 million; in 2004, 68.7 million whilst in 2010 it was 112.47 million.
What needs to be done to minimize corruption? A drastic change in the mindset of the average Nigerian, who sees public service as an avenue to get rich, knowing full well that you do not take or give what is not yours (nemo dat quod non habet!).
It is the duty of Nigerians to give the direction on how to fight corruption to the barest minimum level. That has to start from the classrooms so that lecturers or teachers must  educate the Nigerian youth and inculcate some public-spirited values in them and emphasizing that corruption is evil. There would, therefore, be need to re-introduce the subject of Civics into the school curricula.
Our prayer is for God to make Nigerian leaders, 'straight and narrow, kind and good' , shorn of clay-footed and selfish men, but men of godly character, with hearts of gold, men whose needs are few but whose hearts are large.
NationalDaily