Corruption or ethnicity, which is killing Nigeria most?

PUNCH
BY NIRAN ADEDOKUN

Niran Adedokun

Over the past few years, arguments over how much corruption has contributed to the undevelopment of Nigeria has become progressivelyrife. Within and outside the country, analysts, including organisations such as Transparency International have repeatedly identified corruption as Nigeria’s major hold back. A conservative sum of $400bn is said to have been pilfered from Nigeria by corrupt political and public officials since independence in 1960.

The perception of Nigeria as a terribly corrupt country has grown even worse during the current administration. And there are justifiable reasons for such belief. One is the fact that during the tenure of this administration, no public official has been successfully prosecuted and convicted in spite of a myriad of accusations that fly around about officials of the administration.

More than that, some utterances of the President seem to be in denial if not in acquiescence of corruption. If President Goodluck Jonathan is not saying that corruption is overrated in Nigeria, he is saying that it is not the country’s most serious problem or trying to make some incredible differentiations between what is corruption and what is the mere theft of public funds like anyone of them did the country good.

His critics would also say that in spite of reports that the whopping sum of N5tn is said to have been stolen under the administration, not one appointee has been removed from office or allowed to face prosecution on the strength of allegations of corruption.

For instance, a November 25, 2012 report in the Sunday PUNCH attributed to the newspaper’s poring over various committee reports submitted to the administration said as follows: “… Five trillion naira is the summation of government funds said to have been stolen, according to the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Task Force report; the Minister of Trade and Investment’s report on stolen crude; the House of Representatives fuel subsidy report and investigations into the ecological fund, SIM card registration and frequency band spectrum sale…” Yet, not one person has been made to pay for any of these infractions. In spite of all these however, there are Nigerians who, like the President, believe that corruption is not the devastating challenge that Nigeria faces.

In reaction to my article titled, “No Mr. President, corruption is a very big problem” published in The PUNCH on April 4, 2014,a reader, Mr. Charles Obuh, wrote me an email claiming, “Corruption is not our major problem in Nigeria. Ethnicity is our major problem, as we have no love for one another. If we have love in Nigeria, then we would not take what belongs to another or the people. People feel cheated and once they (have the opportunity), they want to take as much for themselves and their people. The moment the pressure of ethnicity goes down in Nigeria, the level of corruption will automatically go down. It is only when you thoroughly understand what ethnicity is that you can really know the impact it has in Nigeria. The thing is so devastating that we can’t move forward without the resolution of its fangs.”

I found Obuh’s intervention both curious and interesting such that I have not stopped thinking about it. While we cannot deny the negative effect of corruption on our country, ethnic rivalry amongst our people is perhaps a more hazardous impediment to national growth.

For instance, reports of corruption in Indonesia even as it strived to get classified as an industrialised country with membership of the G-20 major economies and become the largest economy in Southeast Asia is almost as alarming as it is in Nigeria.

The public sector is as ridden with corruption as for half of the number of people in the public service to have allegedly confessed to taking bribe at one time or the other. In 2011, Indonesia was said to have lost the equivalent of US$238.6m to corruption.

Wikipaedia, the online encyclopedia, says about Indonesia: “Companies are concerned about red tape and widespread extortion in the process of obtaining licences and permits, and they often face demand for irregular fees or concessions based on personal relationships when obtaining government contracts… Companies have also reported regular demand for cash payments and expectations for gifts and special treatments by Indonesian officials… About one-quarter of ministries suffer from budgetary diversions in Indonesia. Households spend approximately one per cent while enterprises spend at least five per cent of monthly company revenue on unofficial payments…”

It is also true that no country in the world including the United States of America, which is regarded as the sparkling example of accountability, is free of official corruption or widespread corrupt practices. The only difference between Nigeria and most of these countries is the unity with which their citizens fight corruption. They know that it’s a cankerworm sure to ruin whatever gains they have currently made and that the poor are those who would always bear the brunt. Hence, no act of corruption is seen as trivial.

But, welcome to the forest of ethnicity called Nigeria and see how tribal groups protect their own even when caught red handed in the attempt to pilfer our collective resources.

Each time someone is accused of corruption in Nigeria, his community comes around him, as Nigerians ask that such people receive punishment commensurate to their infractions, protests are organised by his or are clansmen, his ethnic group goes on the defence, and begin to call what we all agree to be corrupt another name-victimisation. Nepotism and such ethnic loyalty have therefore become a major undoing for this dear country called Nigeria. There is just nothing that could be referred to as the Nigeria resolve to fight anything. We generate new standards to perceiving and addressing issues depending on the part of the country from which the person involved is. A clear invitation to the perpetual stagnation of our development as a country.

And hope is gradually diminishing that it would happen. In one week, Nigeria would have kept an assortment of its citizenry in Abuja for a National Conference, one which I considered as having the potential of initiating the integration of ethnic groups in Nigeria for four months. At the cost of N7bn!

Unfortunately, as this conference made up of 492 delegates representing ethnic nationalities, political representatives, professional groups, civil society groups, and other interest groups winds down, there are no prospects that things would change.

Just last week, delegates from the Northern part of the country were said to have considered pulling out of the conference, not for any significantly commendable reason like how 10 million out- of- school children would get into school and remain safe in school for instance, but for the ways in which resolutions on the creation of states and other sectional issues were passed! It is about how many of them or their stooges would become governors and have unfettered access to the commonwealth.

Follow me on twitter @niranadedokun

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