The flurry of tales around the sordid revelations around the NDDC
sleaze, Magu’s accusations, with a bifurcation towards Malami, the
Attorney General, has set the country stirred around whether or not, the
world’s poverty capital, Nigeria may sink under its moral morass. To
compound our dilemma, Buhari, the seeming anti- corruption champion,
merely sings about “fighting corruption” in a broken record fashion, and
has no seeming ability to stem it, punish for it, on a commensurate scale
or find the right engagement to curtail it, and this, neither now nor ever.
Corruption for all we care in Nigeria, is a “directive of State policy,” if we
may borrow a line in the Constitution.

To say corruption in Nigeria is endemic is merely not just to say the very
obvious; it is a national behavior. It is a National culture. It is not odious.
In fact it is a desirable, even if it is“ others” who tell us that, it disfigures
the Nigerian character, globally, and it is a prime cause for our massive
underdevelopment.
Our condition may have been helped if like “Lot and Abraham” in the
Bible we could be asked to look for ‘fifty, fourty, thirty, twenty, ten good
persons in the society. Much as we like to the vilify and ridicule our
“Police” as the poster child for corruption, you would be hard pressed to
move to any other institution in the Country and not find “corruption
blood stains”. This is about institutions, as it is about the ages, even
down to the “calm down” boy.

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The moral turpitude of the Nation is tossing about in the sea. And there
are sadly only but few shining examples. Even the “saint” dressed in a
borrowed garb and we are all told, is “squeaky clean”, is merely a myth
sold as a political gimmick, we are finding out. It is patent before our
eyes, where the truth lies.
We moved out of our old cultural “stronger” values and we are moored in
the cesspool of who gets to steal the bigger billions, in the speedy rate of
NDDC’s Interim Management Board. The Society has no underpinnings.
Political office holders are not selected for moral rectitude, but the one
with the fattest purse. Where from ? No one cares. In fact you are
given juicy “Ministries and positions, so you can be a “dirtier pig and with
your loot, you can return to your State to became “The Governor”, “The
Senator”, the next bigger office holder, in a no holds barred “rapacious
treasury riler”. And today, religion does not seem to restrain anyone in
the public space. Times was, when you could vouch for some ethnic
group or some religion. Now, not anymore. Education in Nigeria has no
moral or ideological content. And so from weak homes, we course
through schools, into public life, unhinged morally. Like the American’s
would say we behave like the ‘shit’ that hit a rotating ceiling fan. We
have lost it and we are collectively not deeply sorry. If only we all, as a
society could see that the over $600billion dollars stolen from Nigeria
into the ”outer space” of the Western World, since 1960, could have
made Nigeria a double “Dubai”, we may have developed a compunction
and a sense of responsibility.
Pardon me, if pathetically, we linger on the sad examples of what could
have been a better Akwa/Ibom and Rivers States. In terms of earnings
from IGR, Federal Statutory allocation and VAT, these two could have
been model States. But then, corruption is a habit and so States that

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could have set the examples of transformation are just as niggardly as
others. Lagos makes an awful lot, as much as a trillion naira is budgeted
annually, but is Lagos in a transformatory shine? Perhaps it has also to
do with the level of intelligence of those who say they want to be leaders.
And that is a critical point to make and take note of. The choices they
make inside the inner closets of the cabinet, the lack of the people’s
ability to make critiques of public policies and the coercion of the people
never allowed to demonstrate to state their rights- all leave both the
Federal Government and States, at an abysmal level of shame and
underdevelopment. As time passes, we have no reason to blame the
young ones. For want of engagement, the young ones drift into yahoo,
kidnapping, gangsterism, the hit Boys for politicians. The girls go into
“lesbobo” or outright prostitution; into a life of crime and unproductivity.
Hardwork does not appeal to them. They prefer instant gratification.
Travelling out of Nigeria is their easiest dream, instead of “imagining” a
better future.
Our society is structured around corruption, come to think of it. You get
nothing as of right, in educational institutions, government offices and
institutions not to talk of the famous “wetin you bring, wetin you carry” toll
gate security stations. Examine the life styles of top civil servants and
the political elite. For the top civil servants, they consider “the civil
service” as a business posts and as for the political class, it is the ‘raison
d’être’, the reason why they sought public office, for aggrandizement and
primitive accumulation. After all, it is easier to acquire wealth by
“stealing” aka “akpabioisim” and “pondei-ism” rather than investment,
hardwork and waiting for results. Then it all cascades to the children of
the elite who live above their means. Heard of the Aso rock super bike
story or the weddings of the children of the anti-corruption and law watch

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dogs? Mind you, we are not speaking of the weddings of the superrich!!
Such a shame of a country!!!.
All these leads us to talk of values-societal values which should form the
real bulwark. We have in error been talking of having “morality” as the
defence, for our “corruption tendencies”. These morals are more often
derived from religion and ethical norms of cultures and religions. If I do
not belong to a culture or religion, how can I understand or ascribe to
those values? Values, that are the real bulwark, are national values-
which would tell all Nigerians of whatever States, of whatever location, of
whatever religion or ideology, or culture to decide and evaluate what is
permissible and can be done and what cannot be done. As long as we
are in our disparate cultural enclaves and arguing and never uniting as
Nigerian peoples, so long will we have varied perspectives on values,
that favour our location, ethnic group or faith. So national integration
prevents us from resolving the corruption war, meaningfully.
The war against corruption mantra of either APC or the Federal
Government is a ruse. Institutions are so rife with graft and corruption
that compromised people and institutions cannot be fighting what
benefits them. Unknown to many of the other faiths and in the south, the
conversations of Buhari on corruption are not political or moral but
derivatives of his “Sharia” convinctions and imperatives. This is a
fundamental assessment from his Tunde Idiagbon-Buhari days. It is still
his learnt and perpetual thoughts. And since we are not of the ‘Umra”,
how can we drive the moral and behavioural putsch against corruption
from his perspectives? If only he had the intellectual capacity to drive
the ideology of a corruption war on a national scale, driven by a national
consciousness on progress, evolution, increased productivity,
development and shared prosperity. Relying on EFCC and ICPC is a

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sheer waste of time. Wish we could learn from the Singaporeans, how
they solved their “corruption” problem or the Chinese, whose zero
tolerance for corruption means tying the guilty to the stakes. In Nigeria,
we all want to go to heaven or ‘al Jinnah” but no one wants to die.
It therefore means we must pull ourselves by the bootstrap. The
Americans simply say “it is the Economy stupid”. We should get going
with the challenge of equity, fair economic distribution and improved
national productivity. We are simply not addressing the fundamentals of
our corruption challenges. You cannot allow this insane wealth and
reward distribution manner in a Third World country and expect
corruption to stop. The President earns N1million a month, but with
others perks and security vote (more on that later) and you leave the
average paid worker on N30,000 a month. What do you expect to
happen of the least paid worker? You have asked him to steal, cheat
and do all he can to make-up his needs deficit. This is a country of
nearly 80 million unemployed graduates of various educational levels
and they see the politicians living well and big and their children are
enlisted into CBN and NNPC. What system of fairness is that ? And
again, the unemployment level is so high that we are leaving gaps for
corruption and crime. Added to COVID 19 lay- offs, with no succor in
sight, are we not promoting the environment for corruption? There is no
recipe for ending and stopping corruption, than an economy that works
for all. An economy that is visibly seen to grow and can capture the
poor; 100 million of them at the moment, according to an NBS statistics,
and improve employment opportunities for the millions. We need to
improve the internal investment climate, and stop expecting FDIs which
in a post COVID era, is a will-o-the-wisp. With so much being stolen by
the politically exposed class, you would think, investment in productive

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ventures, that would resolve unemployment should strike them. But
then, that is – waiting for Gordot. This is a country whose potentials are
being undermanaged and whatever comes out is mismanaged and
siphoned. So with the economy in a minus growth, the country can only
reap corruption in an ascendant proportion. At National and State levels,
we have mismatches between responsibilities for the economy and the
managing personnel. Fancy at the National level, a lawyer Professor is
in charge of the National Economic Council. And at the National
Finance and Economic Planning office, the two at the helm have other
trainings and experiences, outside of economic management. To
compound our woes, Buhari seem focused on a Sharia economic
philosophy of “ZAKAT” and hence his hell bent approach on a “Social
Investment Programme” to distribute public wealth (which is not growing
and dwindling) on the poor, who incidentally are more of the unskilled,
and untrained “talakawas”, which can never recycle the wealth nor
expand our GDP base or the economy. So with the corruption question,
“it is the economy stupid”. Many are underpaid, under rewarded and
unmotivated in the present system. Corruption is the net effect. We
either pay the right living wages, and provide appropriate rewards and
incentives or we reap the rich dividends of corruption. It is to be
maintained that if the rightest wages and salaries were offered in the
system, there would be less to steal or to be corrupted with, either in the
public service or the private sector.
However, should we be interested in stemming the haemorrage of
corruption, four key institutions must be handled differently in what I
would style as the bastions and anchor to stem corruption in a backward
integration methodology.

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A whopping N241.8 billion ($670 million) is being spent annually by the
Federal Government as “Security votes” (This Day, August 7 th , 2020, p.
15) “The Executive of the Federal and States channel their security
votes into political activities or outrightly embezzle them” so states the
Transparency International Defence and Security and Civil Society
Legislative Advocacy Centre. The States spend an average of N6billion
to N7 billion annually on security votes. These sums are spent without
any accountability on issues that have nothing to do with the security or
welfare of the people. The security vote is a sore issue as the Federal
Government and States are granted the discretionary spending rights
which is the ”letter” of “security votes” in the constitution. But the “spirit”
is that office holders will exercise this discretion with utmost fidelity in the
public interest. It turns out that for public office holders, the security
votes have become a clever way by which they in collusion with security
agencies defraud the public. This same syndrome sadly is found in
academic institutions. This profligacy must be remedied constitutionally,
through appropriation, Fiscal Transparency systems, public auditing
systems and proper reporting and accountability systems. Security
votes are the reasons for why many desire public officers and why they
want “second terms”. The constitution must be reviewed on the issue
and civil societies, like SERAP and ANEEJ who stand for anti-corruption,
accountability and transparency must drive the process to end this
officially sanctioned graft.

No monies as humungous of this magnitude in our corruption stories
moves within and outside Nigeria in form of money laundering and
transfers without Banks and Bankers in the know. We now need to
fasten the noose, legally and constitutionally on the Bankers to cause

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them to spill the beans. If with money laundered outside of Nigeria, we
have through International co-operation and anti-laundering measures,
forced the hands of foreign bankers and Governments to return “our
stolen assets” or famously called “the loot”, we must force our Bankers
to reject by Law, any co-operation for corruptive assistance with
politically exposed or high net worth individuals on public monies that is
suspect. This pre-supposes that we have scaled up national values and
consciousness to drive this new behaviour. EFCC and ICPC were set
up, albeit, with a public interest intentions and with anti-corruption in
mind. But they have, like all things Nigeria, turned to be political
institutions. No one says EFCC Chairmen and operatives must come
from the Police, a derided institution by all national accounts. Why can
the constitution not empower, the citizens to so choose who chairs and
who works in both institutions and make them accountable to the public
and the society. As long as the Chairmen come from the Police and
from a particular religion and from a particular section of the country,
EFCC remains an untrustworthy institution. These critical institutions,
EFCC and ICPC must be made national institutions. Their funding, to
ensure their independence, could cease to come from the budget and be
sourced from concerned Nigerians with higher values and national
purpose.

If ending corruption is our objective, can we ‘delete’ accountants in all of
our enquiry into finding alternative institutions that can withstand the
corruption behemoth? If accountants are faithful to their callings, in
terms of proper, clean and fair reading of values of any organization and
have them audit and query appropriately, without caring whoever is
involved and with an eye on integrity, addressing national values,

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posterity and value for money, books will never be cooked, thereby
enabling the public to readily have a fair and true value of any public or
private institution who must account to the public or the shareholders.
The sorry details of the NDDC only came to light too late. If only the
accountants were faithful to their calling!!!!
To complete the tripod for a new, cleaner and a better society, where the
society has people of good conscience, imbued with uprightness and a
desire to make a difference, any suspect wrong doing, can easily be
exposed through the dual role of “whistle blowers” or the “investigative
journalists”. That these are not budding in the system, or entrenching in
the society, hence what may have escaped the eagle eyes of the
Accountants, Bankers, or the new EFCC, gets caught in the web of
whistle blowers and the investigative media.
Just about some ways we can talk of building enduring institutions that
are nationally value laden and are morally free; the way and road to a
less corruption free Nigerian society, so that we can breathe, and have
funds for real development.