On Corruption

Anyone who grew in South-Eastern Nigeria must be conversant with the NTA series “Icheoku”. The star of the series is a pot-bellied, bespectacled fellow who wore a white shirt and long funny looking shorts. He was the court interpreter. There were hilarious exchanges between the court interpreter and “nwa disi” (the district commissioner). The interpreter usually mispronounced or mistranslated nwa disi’s words, so the original message was usually lost and there was confusion in the court room.

That was parody, but in real life, scores of Nigerian interpreters capitalised on that confusion to generate significant amounts of extra income. If we are going to solve the problem of corruption in
Nigeria, we need a thorough understanding of its roots. Our ancestors (at least some of them) were corrupt and they gave birth to corrupt children who gave birth to us. We could argue over what was tolerated as corruption then, but at least we can agree that our ancestors were not Anglo-Saxon Puritans. Interaction with Europeans was a deeply corrupting, soul-destroying affair. Some of our ancestors sold their children into slavery in exchange for mirrors, whiskey, Dane guns, white handkerchiefs and other low-end manufactures from places like Birmingham and Manchester.

When Europeans perfected modern science, moved into the interior and established colonies, they did so with the help of local collaborators. The African “big man” was born; he was essentially paid off or given incentives and privileges to assist the imperialist in subjugating his own people.  The “big man” ensured the sweat of poor peasants was taxed to keep the “Mother country” well fed
and happy. In response (if he was of sufficient rank), he could be given a Rolls Royce and his sons were sent to Harrow or Oxford.

Old habits die hard – and the “spirit of the big man” still lives with us. Colonial administrators had little time for “critical thinkers” (Lugard was famously dismissive of the Lagos intellectual elite). What they wanted was a steady supply of people trained in the “three Rs” (reading, writing and arithmetic) – so the education system was designed to produce those outcomes. These artisans and clerks faced a new challenge; expectations from the extended family members and other relatives. Colonial administrators had little interest in “inclusive growth” or significantly improving “human capital indices”; they just wanted a year on year increase in the volumes of cash crops sent to industries in Manchester. Consequently, scarcity was pervasive and there was pressure on these clerks and artisans to pilfer or bribe in order to provide the benefits of modernity to
their extended family members. A major psychological driver of corruption – a fear of scarcity, was engraved in our psyche as firmly as markings on a granite tomb stone.

The Second World War exhausted Great Britain and Churchill’s British Empire that was billed to last “a thousand years” could barely make it to the next decade without massive infusions of cash from the United States. The US insisted that Britain divest itself of colonies and the countdown to our independence started. The British prepared us for independence in a hurry, a university was established at Ibadan in 1948 and a generation of Nigerian intellectuals were given the best Western education. They left us with a highly competent Civil Service, but that Civil Service came from Whitehall by way of India, with very few modifications. It was not designed for Nigeria and till today, nobody has bothered
to modify it to suit Nigeria.

A “non fit for purpose” Civil Service is another major driver of corruption – and as the years went by the Civil Service was allowed to degenerate into a parody of its former self. Lee Kuan Yew was aware of this kind of problem, so one of his most enduring legacies was adapting the Civil Service to deal with Singapore’s peculiar challenges – salaries were kept high and regularly reviewed, reward
was benchmarked with performance and only the best were employed as Civil Servants. (Lee Kuan Yew’s interventions were far superior to our “Udoji Awards” – that haven’t been followed up till
today).

So at independence, we had “big men”, a fear of scarcity, cultural acceptance of corruption that would make Scandinavians wince and a lack of appreciation of the need for institutional reform. It is true that we had remarkably pious public servants like Tafawa Balewa
(who vacationed at his village, not Europe), Michael Okpara and Ahmadu Bello, but these men were swimming against the tide – given our history and the psychology of our people, Nigeria was destined to be a corrupt.

Anyone who is shocked that Nigeria is corrupt today must be naive. We could quibble over the level of corruption, but any careful observer at independence would have plotted that trajectory.  If we had skilful, visionary leaders like Lee Kuan Yew, we might have had a course correction – but such leaders are in very short supply.

Independence was granted in 1960. After six tumultuous years, Nzeogwu spoke on the radio in Kaduna. He introduced yet another actor in our drama with corruption: the “Military Messiah”. We put up with that nonsense until the duo of Babangida and Abacha
thoroughly discredited it. However, Nzeogwu was correct; the First Republic was corrupt. But he was wrong about fighting corruption, you don’t “fight” corruption without understanding its roots –
this is a mistake made by a lot of people (like Muntaka Muhammad).  Some local anti-corruption fighters pretend that you can fight corruption without reforming institutions, understanding people’s psychology or even appreciating its roots – all they think is required is to “clamp down on corrupt officials”. That is necessary, but
not sufficient.

Then we have the Western NGO worker with the full complement of car, driver, maid, steward, health. insurance and house at Maitama. He berates poorly paid policemen (who have none of those benefits) for “being corrupt”. Such people should not even be listened to.

This article forms the first part of a series; we need an “honest to God” discussion about corruption. Nigerians are rational beings and respond rationally to stimuli. Corruption in Nigeria (at least a large part of it), is a rational response to something. Once we drastically
reduce that “something”, we are on our way to drastically reducing, if not eliminating corruption.

However, removing the drivers of corruption comes at a cost – what is that cost and is it a cost Nigeria is willing or able to incur? If not, what can we afford and what level of corruption would we be willing to tolerate?

As usual, I look forward to your comments.

Credits ; https://nwachinemelu.wordpress.com/