Corruption: A battle Nigeria must win (2)
Being excerpts of a speech delivered by Dr. Gbolabo Ogunsanwo as the guest speaker at the launching of late Dr. Samuel Odunaike Leadership Foundation in Lagos, on Monday.
A Few days after June 6, (Mr. Jazzar said) he received a visit at his house-which also served as his office from Council x, and he came to me and he said that I had put in an application for tender and if I wanted my tender to be approved, I should give him some money. Then I said, "Oh Well, I will give you some money when my applications are approved. He said no, if I did not give the money immediately, then the application will be turned down and cannot be considered. The amount he asked for was �100 and �200 later when the application is met... I said Oh! If you don't give me any choice and I have my buses lying down, I have to accept the proposal."
The upshot was... that a few days later, he met Councillor X at the latter's house about 8.15pm in the evening, taking with him �100, in one pound notes. He had proposed a cheque, but Councillor CX required cash. Councillor X got into Mr. Jazzar's car, and they went to the house of Councillor Y (a top official of the Highways Committee) and pulled up in the yard at the back. Councillor Y came out. Jazzar handed the money to Councillor X who said everything is going to be all right. Councillor Y said everything will be OK. The two councillors walked into Councillor Y's house, (with) Councillor X carrying the money. In the circumstances, Jazzar felt it would be no good asking for a receipt.
Another commission of inquiry into the administration of Ibadan City Council revealed that a Chief of a town under the jurisdiction of Ibadan District Council, wanted a top official of Ibadan District Council to help him in (1) establishing a native court for his town, (2) obtaining a salary and (3) repossessing certain land belonging to his father.
At an interview with the top official, he demanded �10 for rendering these services and as the Chief had �15 in his possession, he handed over �10... He was told to expect a message from the tope official, but as he heard nothing he sought a further interview the following week. The top official then told the Chief that the sum of �10, he had already paid was insufficient and should be augmented by a further �10. The Chief returned home and came back a week later with the money.
From an eye witness of corruption came the following report: On my way from Lagos to Ibadan on Saturday January 24, 1976 between Ogijo and Shagamu, the minibus in which I was travelling was stopped by some policemen. One of the policemen accused the drive, flimsily, of excessive speeding at a speed of 60 kph (about 36 mph).
He could not have charged him for overloading because these were four passengers in the vehicle. The driver jumped down from his vehicle to show the police his particulars (or driving documents), both of them went to the back of the vehicle for certain transactions. When the driver returned, I asked him if he offered the police any bribe. He replied that he offered him N1.
It is not that corruption is only prevalent in Nigeria. It is just that what is happening in Nigeria has got out of hand.
There are many instances where the payment of salaries continued to be made to persons for months after the date of the retirement, resignation, or dismissal from service.
In addition, the names of some officials were duplicated in the payrolls and at the end of each month, such irregular payments were all drawn by those who perpetrated this fraud.
Where do we go from here Or may be the question should rather be how did we get into this mess Nigeria did not use to be like this.
To understand how we have come to be where we are now, we probably need to go back to the origin of Nigeria.
The Bible says that "if the foundation be destroyed what can the righteous do " one does not like to reopen old wounds but if one were to attempt a holistic diagnosis of corruption in Nigeria, one cannot but look at the foundation of Nigeria.
According to documents recently declassified by the British Colonial office, there are serious questions of equity about the foundation of Nigeria. Anybody who need to be informed more about this should read some of the recent writings of Chief Richard Akinjide on these declassified documents.
Also in a recent book Blue Collar Lawman by Harry Smith, a colonial civil servant on the staff of Nigeria's last Governor-General, Sir James Robertson had this to say: "The official story that the British handed sovereign power in Nigeria over to a democratically elected group of party leaders was written and stage-managed by officials. The true story must not be revealed to the public.
"Even what appeared to be an absolute truth, the granting of independence "October 1960 is not as well founded as it appears."
In the book, Harry Smith detailed various schemes which the British Government employed - which though he as a colonial top bureaucrat he kicked against, but was powerless to stop the hand over of power in Nigeria to a predetermined set of people on clearly well defined and well understood terms.
Therefore, it might not be too strong to say that Nigeria appeared to be a nation conceived in iniquity, birthed in duplicity and sustained in hypocrisy. In spite of this, it is well with her and she will have a great future.
But be that as it was, if the truth is to be told, the British, their found games over Nigeria's destiny et al, still left a better managed, a saner society than we now have, at their departure. We will never be able to find a way out of this maze if we do not appreciate how we got into it.
For me, I think trouble started when the military struck in January 1966. Admittedly, one of the reasons for the coup as given by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu was corruption on the part of the then politicians many of whom were condemned by Nzeogwu and his men as "Ten percenters."
Nzeogwu and his men were horrified at the level of corruption, especially in the public sector at the time. One reflection now, we come to realise that judge against the background of the corruption epidemic that we now have, those first Republic politicians would qualify as parish priests.
The then Federal Minister of Aviation, the colourful late Dr. K.O. Mbadiwe had been exposed to have hired a suite of offices at Ijora in Lagos in 1965 ostensibly for his own private use but had immediately sublet this to the Federal Government-owned pools betting company, Niger Pools. Through this transaction, Dr. Mbadiwe stood to make �2,400 in a year.
On the deal's exposure by Daily Express columnist, Chief Olu Adebanjo a.k.a Mickey Mouse, the whole country was up in arms - university students, organised labour and similar organisations took to the streets scandalised that the man could make �2,400 in a year as a go between or a commission. How on earth could he possible spend all the money We now know better.
The Military's incursion into the political arena in Nigeria has been a moment of great moral disaster. Unlike civilian politicians who at least ostensibly fought elections and competed for power based on programmes, the military came into the political scene as members of a conquering class, descended on a conquered enemy territory. They were practically not answerable to anybody or authority. There was no better illustration of Lord Acton's saying that "power Corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely" than the Nigerian military.
The nation's values, which had been under assault from the First Republic Politicians now, came under complete and total battering.
The Nigerian military, misusing the financial and other resources of the state created thousands of millionaires and multi-millionaires through reckless and irresponsible government contracts given to hitherto social derelicts. These people flaunted their new-found wealth through what Professor G.K. Galbraith called "conspicuous consumption." They bought and rode the must flashy limousine, erected gaudy and outrageously obscene pleasure palaces, seduced and corrupted young ladies. Through their connection to the ruling Pharaohs, they were accorded social and political recognition that were totally beyond their wildest imagination. Along with their military friends, they used their new found positions to humiliate the intellectual and the political elite.
Vesting in themselves power to appoint, discipline and/or dismiss University Vice Chancellors as well as judges, the new military Pharaoh compelled their intellectual superiors to crawl before them and cringe for favours.
Two notable examples would suffice to illustrate. One was the mass retirement "with immediate effect" of the top echelon of the civil service, many of whom were so traumatised by the experience that they never recovered. There were reports of a few including an extremely favours medico, a British Knight, who died as a result. There was the shameful and precipitous dismissal of the nation's then Chief Justice, the extremely distinguished Professor Taslim Elias through a radio announcement. Of course, no sooner was he dismissed then he was immediately snatched by the World Court and appointed as one of its eminent Judges.
Vice Chancellors were also dismissed and appointed through radio announcements.
On his own part, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the man who said that money was not Nigerian problem but how to spend it, in response to a strike by the academic staff of Nigeria Universities chose to draw their attention to their impecunious helplessness by asking them to vacate their University residence as if they were mere labourers within 24 hours.
Another military regime chastised the university community for "Teaching what they are not paid to teach and receiving pay for teaching what they are not to teach."
The military went through the university system with a strong broom in an anti-intellectual purge, cleaning out "radicals" and "bearked men." That was what led to the dismissals of the Professor de Wilmot, Dr. Ola Oni, Edwin Madunagwu, Opeyemi Ola, and Billy Dudley among others. Possibly, the closest parallel in history was when barbarians took over the old Roman Empire. Wole Soyinka, one of the most distinguished literary men of the last and current century was locked up in a dingy cell by Gen. Gowon for two solid years.
There was also the celebrated case of a Federal Permanent Secretary, who in the hallowed tradition of the civil service stood stoutly against the desire of an extremely top military officer to award what was considered an outrageously inflated contract to his buddy. He lost his job ignominiously.
All of a sudden, the traditional security that people had hitherto associated with the civil service collapsed.
There is a law of physics that says that: "Action and reaction are equal and opposite." The equivalent in the Bible is found in Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 6 verse 7 which says: "Whatsoever a man plants, the same he shall reap." Because man through the ages have always striven for self preservation with the same force with which the military sought to destroy the job security of civil servants, they began to make provisions for their own security as they knew retirements could come at anytime and often by radio.
Thus, practically everybody in the civil service became businessmen and women using that friends, classmates, neighbour, family members, in-laws as either fronts or joint-stock owners.
For the civil service, this is the forbidden fruit and because of the dominance of the public sector in all aspects of Nigerian life, the socio-economic and political decay of the society which was then in infancy went into high gear. This is the beginning of what we how have today.
The public sector in Nigeria is the engine room of the Republic. It determines the character of the society at large-industry, commerce, banking and finance, the academic and the educational sector, the military, the police, national intelligence organisation, the media and even indirectly, the ecclesiastical. Once it is touched, things will no longer be the same. If you are looking for why a kilometre of road in Nigeria costs at least 7 times its equivalent cost in Kenya or any other part of Africa this is your answer.
A close examination of this situation will reveal that a common factor in all is money, which in Nigeria "answereth all things" but not in the way the bible intended.
The result of the birth of Nigeria's unofficial national anthem - seek ye first the kingdom of the Naira - and every other thing (social recognition gubernatorial/senatorial or any other political office, the hidden treasures of dark places (sorry the treasures of the nation's virgins), national honours, unearned academic laurels, the front seat in many churches, even ordination in some) will be added on to you."
When you encounter the policeman threatening to kill to get his N20 from the "danfo" driver, the customs officer who allows in fake and/or expired drugs or the passport officer who is willing to issue Osama bin laden a Nigerian passport if the price is right, or the immigration officer who lets in an Indian battery charger as a badly needed technical expert, or a judge who grants bail to a man serving life at Kirikiri, do not rush to do a superficial analysis.
All the above named factors have come to be codified formally as 'the Nigerian factor' before whom even the President himself is helpless. That is why the ICPC would not work. Poor Akanbi. He was complaining the other day that his commission was starved of funds. He must have taken the job too seriously. Why should he get the money he needed to work with That is why armed robbers had to be official killers of Alfred Rewane, Marshall Harry, Dikibo-and ultimately Bola Ige.
That is why the Oputa Panel's result will never be released. It will eventually get lost like the Okigbo Panel's report. That is why there are more ghost getting salaries than flesh and blood workers.
