Tope Fasua

In the case of Nigeria, we can infer that the existence of the nation itself was based on the corruption of a culture by another, through sheer force, comparative cleverness and love of adventure. And this cultural corruption eventually gave birth to the entity of Nigeria about 100 years ago. The throes that the nation has been passing through is probably symptoms of an abused child trying to break away from its past. Since the contraption called Nigeria was created without the consent or even fore-knowledge of any Nigerian alive or dead, a great systemic corruption was perpetuated. The inhabitants of the contraption have thus been left to find their essence and are hardly making headway of it.

Lets take for example these statement credited to some of the leaders that emerged post-independence over forty years ago and we will see that mistrust, distrust, polemic parochialism, ethnicity, tribalism, clannishness, confusion, half-literacy and headiness had already sown the seeds of various brands of corruption in the Nigerian system. Of course since evil escalates like a malignant cancer, many more brands have since developed such that we can no longer understand what went wrong, hence we focus on the medium of exchange - money. Back to the statements.

It is amazing but true that Chief Fani-Kayode AKA Fani the Power, one-time Deputy Premier of the Western Region over forty years ago was recorded as saying, ‘They call us chop-chop party. So? Who doesn’t want to chop? Don’t you want to chop? Let those who don’t want to chop stay in opposition. Those who want to chop, come over to our side. Ah, me I want to chop o!’ I quoted this verbatim from Professor Wole Soyinka’s book ‘Ibadan- the Penkelemes years’, page 336. The statement is so reminiscent of the famous ‘come and eat’ quip of the late Sunday Afolabi and the present ‘mainstream’ politics being played at Abuja where PDP wins everything and everybody generally defects to that party for want of an avenue to swindle the nation. I doubt if we should be surprised at the turn of events. The same Fani-the-power was also quoted as saying ‘who needs the people to vote for us? The angels in heaven have already cast their votes for our party’, an indication that votes will be conjured. Forty years ago! Forty years ago Sir Ahmadu Bello was so shaken by a terrible experience in the werstern house of assembly that he declared that until the train reaches Ilorin can he breath a sigh of relief. He even wished he will never have anything to do with the west ever again! Forty years ago, some ibos started to openly declare that they were the bedrock of Nigeria’s development, smarter than most, (probably correct), but much to the chagrin of the rest of the tribes- and arguably responsible in part for the uprising against them in the North of Nigeria. Forty years ago, these tripod, who have arguably now become the three legs of a cripple, had already relegated the minorities, who may probably be more in population put together, to the background, in their quest to perpetuate the primordial territorial expansion that their forefathers were used to. In fact, the minorities then suffered more contempt than they do today, as many were seen as slaves.   Contrary to what we were made to understand, Northern Nigeria was deliberately stunted by the British in terms of education. Hear Abubakar Imam ‘In Northen Nigeria today, there are three classes – the rulers who are rich and happy, the peasants who are helpless and poor, and the educated few who are impotent and sad’. Believe it or not, this statement was made to Lord Lugard and Hans Vischer in 1943. The colonialists deliberately educated the children of the Northern royalty only and left the rest to their seeming ignorance, because they needed to wield the instrument of ‘divide and rule’ and were then irritated by the cocky attitude of some semi-educated southerners and middle-belters. (see Just Before Dawn by Kole Omotosho). In essence in order to reverse Nigeria’s corruption monster, the oyibo people who slapped these territories together and christened it a name akin to the now derogatory word ‘nigger’ or at best a name that definitely stems from ‘negro’ or ‘black’, have to admit their vicarious responsibility for acts committed by their ancestors. I’m not trying to seek reparations here. I’m merely stating that it is not good enough for the rest of the world to laugh at Nigeria for the predicament, the awful chicken and egg situation it finds itself. We do not want to break up, but our ‘unity’ frustrates any advantage that may accrue. The people whose ancestors railroaded us towards this abyss then sit back and postulate, and laugh at us, and make bad examples to their children of the way we manage our affairs, and bunch us up like pigs and sardines at their embassies, and treat us like rubbish at their borders and in their country! Let it be known that every human being demands and deserves dignity; at least most human beings. The position Nigeria and Nigerians find themselves today is hardly their own making. The situation is so complex and cannot be explained away with some motivational speech and positive thinking preachment, as issues of tribe, ethnicity, blood, race and religion most of the time, defy logic. Try the Hutus versus the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Catholics versus the Protestants in Ireland and many more. This reason is why singularly Nigerians are among the brightest and most hardworking in the world but coming together, we fail. An antithesis to the saying ‘together we stand, divided we fall’.

Let’s take a peek at the international scene. Many systems are also corrupt there. The political system in the United States of America is corrupt. The Presidents, Senators and Congressmen are arguably installed by private sector election financiers or Corporate America for purely Capitalist reasons (see Michael Moore), and this is probably why the USA was the first country to congratulate Nigeria over its terribly rigged 2003 elections. I’m sure they know this brand of democracy which they sold to us is a farce! In terms of monetary corruption, that also abounds in the developed countries. Someone once said the best things Americans are good for is earning money without working, or how to sue governments and each other for money. But why do developed countries not portray themselves as corrupt, even though they are more corrupt than we are? Yes, this is a surprising statement but I will explain. Nigeria is probably one of the most corrupt countries in the world, only in terms of the propensity for an average individual to want to subvert the law (because he feels neglected by the system in the first place), or to collect monetary and other gratifications (because he may be grossly underpaid or sees himself as first from a certain tribe and maybe ultimately a Nigerian). That is the propensity for a policeman to shoot to kill for N20 or 14cents. Most are indeed greedy, but so are many people from the developed countries. ENRON, a company that bankrolled the first coming of the Bush administration in USA, was a gathering of the biggest Harvard-trained, First-Class wielding, greed-driven, women-mongering rogues in recent recorded history. So were Worldcom and a rash of others. Some of the guys in ENRON paid themselves salaries in excess of $100million yearly for doing next to nothing, and eventually ripped off the unsuspecting public of billions of Dollars in one of the biggest ever insider-trading stocks scams ever (the executives cashed out while they paid rating agencies to continue to give rave reviews of the company’s stock). The company also paid the biggest and best accounting firm in the world, Arthur Anderson a yearly fee of over $100million thereby coopting that company to shred vital documents in order to cover up fraud. What fazes me is that that level of avarice and callousness could be possible in a country with all the shock-absorbers intact- bankruptcy protection, social security, boundless opportunities etc. It must also be recorded that this great ENRON always bribed the Governments of any country they have business with and did arrange several fake trading floors (with off-line computers and play-acting commodity traders shouting their heads off!), just to fool visiting statutory inspectors. See ENRON, Anatomy of Greed, by Brian Cruver. The amount of money lost in the ENRON saga, a company whose Chairman, Kenneth Lay is a great buddy of the Bush family and whose jets were used for the election campaign in 1999/2000, is more than Nigeria’s 3 years budget. Pray then, who is more corrupt? In terms of the frequency, I give the cake to Nigeria, but in terms of sheer volume, USA should carry the day. How then are they lecturing us about corruption? Why does every beautiful newscaster on CNN talk so despicably about Nigeria and our affiliation with corruption even as they fail to see the corruption of their company, in twisting news around the world for their government (mental corruption of the viewers) and in rejecting other opinions that are not ‘politically correct’. As I write this, Sky News is broadcasting the cancellation of 6 councillorship seats in Birmingham for, wait for this, election rigging. In one of the most civilized societies in today’s world! Okay, the annulled elections were won by Indian and Arabs. Also just last week a report came out of Britain that fraud rose to 756 Pounds Sterling (200billion Naira) last year alone. The most cynic amongst us will say Nigerians living there did that, but I disagree. Note that country also has social security and what have you.

I realized that once again you are what you call yourself. Since these developed countries mentioned above have not tagged themselves all sorts of unsavoury names, then the world’s attention is diverted to the good things they do. USA does not feature on the corruption index despite the fact that it does more volume than Nigeria, and its large corporations go corrupting governments around the world thereby creating a vicious cycle of irresponsibility (See Halliburton’s deals in Nigeria, Iraq etc. Vice President Cheney was the Chairman/CEO in those deal making days when they openly bribed governments around the world). Lets use native intelligence which our people understand better: If a man runs into Oshodi market, shouting ‘I’m a thief, an armed robber, I robbed and killed yesterday, please kill me now!’, I bet he wont finish the sentence before being doused with petrol and set on fire. The scenario will hardly be different if he does that in a market in New York. He surely won’t escape without a scar. That is the case of Nigeria.

Our leaders go abroad and despite the fact that they embezzle public money here, begin to castigate, demean and derogate those Nigerians living there as thieves. You hear ‘…You people better do good business!’; ‘…Well, I’ve told them any of you that steals should be jailed and deported!’; ‘…Are you sure you’re doing genuine business here? Don’t steal o!’, ‘Shut up! Who are you? You don’t know who you are addressing? What is your age? I was already a something in the Army by then, you fool!’, even at corporate interactive fora organized by our people in diaspora, be it in USA, UK, Germany, Japan, or even lately Botswana. Haba, why diminish our collective self worth? The other day, President John Kufour was in the UK to thank Ghanaians living there for, wait for this again, sending money home thereby reducing poverty. Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan advertises his country on CNN, personally. Why the self-immolation, indeed the self-asphyxiation? We have allowed the acts of a few bad eggs, our own share of what is spread almost evenly in every race, nation and tribe, to colour the rest of us, permanently. Yet, many foreigners come to Nigeria and all they get is respect, courtesy and sheer love! Why shouldn’t the whole world close down in winter and head for Nigeria? And Dr Martin Luther King Jr said ‘…we shall have to repent in this generation, not for the wicked deeds of the bad people , but for the appalling silence of the good people’. He must have been talking about the present generation of passive Nigerians who of course are in the majority.