�Hold government to its promise to fight corruption�
The Executive Director of Africa Leadership Forum, Mr. Ayodele Aderinwale, spoke with SAKIBU OLOKOJOBI on the plans by his organisation to sensitise Nigerian youths against corruption. He stated that among other things, the ALF would create role models for youths to emulate in order to imbibe the culture of honesty and integrity.
You have a project on corruption. Can you give us an insight into it? It�s a project with three components. It is designed first and foremost, to identify and collate and interprete the views and opinion of young people or the successor generation of Nigerians on corruption, corrupt practices and the challenges that they present to Nigeria. In the second place, it is also to document their views through essay writing about what they feel about corruption and how they feel it can be tackled. And three, we also want to use the project to begin to develop a vanguard or network of Nigerians who are convinced that corrupt practices as they currently stand today in Nigeria will jeopardise their own individual and collective future. The project is to indicate their willingness to want to do something about it, in order to secure a better future in Nigeria.
What really informed the project? If you look around you in Nigeria, you�ll notice that there is a gradual and continuous decline and collapse of values. There is the apparent pervasiveness of corruption and corrupt practices among the lots of Nigerians. Quite a sizeable percentage of Nigerians tend to be engaged in these and then Nigeria has the bad image and reputation as a corrupt country. But is this really the case? Are we right in condemning 120 million people to the dustbin as a bunch of corrupt people? Or are we saying on the contrary that there are quite a number of Nigerians that are quite honest, and do not encourage corruption, do not want to be involved in it? That they actually detest it and that these people can be mobilised? Are we saying that this is the way Nigeria is going to continue or that it is possible to seek a re-arrangement of the Nigerian society on a different basis of legitimacy?�..Those are the sort of motivations behind the project.
Why are you targeting the youth? Tomorrow belongs to the youth. In all probability they will outlive the rest of us in the society; they have a greater stake in Nigeria than the rest of us and if they want a better tomorrow, they might as well begin to work for that tomorrow now.
How would you reconcile this with the fact that the leadership is blamed for the level of corruption in Nigeria today? In the first instance, a lot of people misinterprete leadership to mean those in critical position of authority in society. When you see someone in a critical position of authority, he only has a space or platform to exercise leadership. What he does with that space is leadership. The fact that you are young does not make you inconsequential in the scheme of things. If people give you a position, you can exercise leadership from multiple points in the society. No matter what your position may be in life, you are a potential leader to the extent that you can influence your immediate environment or even spread your influence beyond your immediate environment. For us, we recognise leadership as coming from multiple sources and multiple points in the society. If you blame the cause of corruption on the leadership...I ask you, if you say your leader has stolen N1 billion, is it possible for him to physically alone lift N1 billion? It is not possible. He must have other people who are supporting him and facilitating the theft. So, when you now escape by blaming others, is it your leadership that tampers with NEPA metres so that they don�t pay? Is it the leadership that makes parents to hire mercenaries to write exams for the children? Is it the political leadership that makes you drive one-way and when the policeman arrests you, you tend to bribe the policemen to escape punishment? It is not the leadership. It is only when we want to escape, be irresponsible and tend to close our eyes to the problem that we are causing. All of us are collectively responsible for the moral decadence and the corrupt practices we have in Nigeria. That is why the first challenge is that you should clean yourself up first, then you can clean the society.
What is your assessment of the Federal Government�s fight against corruption? To the extent that the Federal Government has shown demonstrable commitment and interest in launching a campaign against corruption. That�s very nice; they are providing the political framework. It is the responsibility of the rest of Nigerians to now hold the Federal Government to its promise. They should say, okay you have said you don�t want corrupt practices, I know of this man or I have information or evidence that this man is corrupt. We are to begin to challenge them, to push them further and encourage them that even if tomorrow they want to slow down, we will make difficult or impossible for them to slow down. That is our responsibility.
ICPC has not been able to probe anybody successfully. What would you say is responsible? ICPC is operating within a particular legal framework and a particular legal context. It is better that a criminal goes than for an innocent man to be punished. Unless ICPC is able to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that XYZ is a thief, it cannot sentence that person to jail or inflict any form of punishment. To the extent alone that people are being hauled before it to stand trial is a good beginning. It is an indication of the possibilities in the future. In the past, you do it, they�ll shout but there will be nothing, but now it has gone to the extent that you can be arrested.
Let�
s go back to your project. How do you think it will impact on Nigerians? I believe that our job is going to be a long haul. It is not going to be something that you will get immediate result in a short term. We want to create new heroes, we want to promote new heroes; we want our youths to have new role models to believe that it is possible and it is better to live a life of honesty and integrity. And that you can be a successful person in life without being a thief. If we can manage to get that message across, then we would have had an impact. The sort of people we will be celebrating will be those who have very clean public image; who are not associated with any form of corrupt practices. We have them in Nigeria today.
