Our talking point, not prayer point, this time is about corruption, which has remained not only intractable but continues to spread with aided gloves of both Nigerians and foreign allies. The last talking point, and no open indication of discussion yet, was on electricity, while the next and, of course, the last one will be on political economy. At his inauguration in 2015, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), warned that if we failed to kill corruption, it would kill us. He gave a speech of innocent intent, a speech that seemed to confirm why we elected him as our President, a speech that gave hope that the citizens who voted for him were quite right in doing so. That speech sent jitters into the fabrics of the guilty. It looked like a turning point for Nigeria. Today, however, corruption and the corrupt ones are enjoying tea parties in open arenas, implying that statement was just a political swagger.
Let me recall an event with a taxi driver in Abuja. Just a few weeks after Buhari won the election that brought him to power in 2015, I attended a conference in Abuja and noticed massive work on the erection of CCTV equipment in the city. I was surprised that the Goodluck Jonathan administration was just awarding new contracts when it should be concerned about how to move its massive baggage out of the presidential lodge. Within the one week I stayed in the city, I noticed that the speed of work on the project was much faster than the way Nigerian contracts are executed. The normal pace of work on projects in this country is always at a very slow pace and, later, a claim for variation in cost due to inflation is made apart from the initially inflated project prices.
On my way back to the airport, I asked the taxi driver if he noticed the execution of the CCTV installation and he enlightened me that the project had been awarded over a year ago without execution but, with Buhari elected, the contractors had to move to site to avoid going to jail after the swearing-in. Any time I went to Abuja thereafter, or even just thought of the project issue, I felt deeply distraught that President Buhari had disappointed millions of Nigerians who pinned their hopes of extinguishing the flame of corruption in Nigeria on him. I am sure no politician is coming up to promise eradication of corruption to win our votes again. Since it is now difficult to trust anyone or any party to fight corruption, it becomes imperative that we must discuss or ‘talk about it’ publicly. Let me provide some background information from my earlier articles on the subject matter.
Corruption appears in many forms and the possibility of overlooking some activities as normal and legal could be damaging. Ruzindana identifies the following forms of corruption that people engage in: bribery; extortion; illegal use of public assets for private use; over- and under-invoicing; payment of ghost workers and pensioners; payment for goods not supplied or services not rendered, which is called “air supply”; underpayment of taxes and duties on exports or inputs through false declaration or invoicing, purchase of goods at inflated prices; fraud and embezzlement; misappropriation of assets; court decisions awarding damages in excess of any injury suffered; removal of documents or even complete case files; red-tapism and patronage. Which one of these is absent in Nigerian society? Actually, there are many more. Students earning undeserved marks; voters getting paid before or after voting; civil or public servants asking for favours before moving files or allowing a visitor to see a superior officer, et cetera.
Susan Rose-Ackerman identifies four stylised types of corrupt states, viz., kleptocracy, bilateral monopoly states, mafia-dominated states and competitive-bribery states. She explained that in a kleptocracy, state corruption is entrenched at the highest level of government. Even then, in a pure kleptocracy, the head of government runs the political system in such a way that it maximises the possibilities for extracting rents and relocates the resultant benefit for personal aggrandisement. Sometimes, such rulers tend to favour an excessively large state to maximise their rent-seeking opportunities. While they prefer to avoid waste by their subordinates, they may not be able to prevent the subordinates from taking bribes either.
Under bilateral monopoly state, the corrupt ruler faces a single major briber, who, in a large number of cases in developing countries, is a multinational corporation. The relative share of the gains expropriated from their collusion will depend on the relative strength of the actors— the ruler and the briber, with the former using the state’s apparatus and his position to intimidate the latter who can also threaten to engage in violence. In some bilateral monopolies, rulers form an alliance with a Mafia group that engages in crime to provide protective services that in ordinary societies are provided by the state. Depending on the strength of the two actors, the state may become an appendage of the large investor, incurring distributive and efficiency losses as well as forfeiting the ability to tap the profits of economic activities for the benefit of society. Nigeria was one time, before 1999’s return to democracy, at that level.
In the mafia-dominated state, many officials are engaged in freelance bribery and they face a monopolist briber in the private sector. The briber could be a mafia group or a large corporation that dominates the state. The mafia may be powerful but organisations of corruption may limit its ability to purchase the benefit it wants. This is because reaching an agreement with one official does not preclude another official from coming forward. The competitive-bribery state, the highest level of corruption, is one of loose relationships. Here, many corrupt officials deal with a large number of ordinary citizens and firms. A fundamental problem, in this case, is the potential for an upward spiral of corruption. The corruption of some officials can encourage others to accept bribes until all but the reconstructed moralists are corrupt. This seems to be the state we are in presently and it is a state that only the society can cleanse itself.
The present situation is where everyone is a suspect and every action to be taken or being taken is viewed with suspicion. Corruption results in weak monitoring of subordinates in workplaces affecting the quality of work and general performance in the public and private sectors with one robbing off the other. Official corruption reduces expected punishment for offences and, therefore, further promotes commitment to such offences. It is on record that hardly any of the EFCC bosses complete their tenure before being forced out and without clear cut offence. It is a sign of corruption fighting back.
Corruption generally reduces economic growth as it retards long-term foreign and domestic investments, promotes inflation, depreciates national currency, reduces expenditures for education and health, increases military expenditures, misallocates talent to rent-seeking activities, increases income inequality and poverty, reduces tax revenue, increases child and infant mortality rates, distort the fundamental role of government and undermines the legitimacy of government and of the market economy. These are clear characteristics of the Nigerian state today.
When corruption is allowed to thrive uncontrollably in society, and particularly at the top, it moves down the ladder so rapidly that it becomes an endemic disease that only a revolution can cleanse. Such revolution requires self-rediscovery and taking corrective actions. This is the point we are at but who is to start the corrective action? The modus operandi for this has to be the same as suggested for electricity. The use of Zoom or Microsoft class platform for global discussion will have to be employed but who— or which organisation— will moderate the discussion. I hereby take the liberty to suggest that an NGO should volunteer and past EFCC and ICPC chairmen should present the background papers. Let’s talk about corruption with the possibility of getting out of the logjam. Again, nobody will solve our problems for us.
Felicitation: I rejoice with my alma mater, Ikeja Grammar School, Oshodi, Lagos State on its Diamond Jubilee (60th Founders Day). I felicitate the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Alhaji Waheed Kadiri, former Rector of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, the Old Students Association and current students of the school.
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