On The Euphemisms and Iniquities of Corruption

Vanities are claims of corruption but the iniquities of corruption are not vanish-able in a glimpse because old habits die-hard. While both vanities and iniquities are shadows of a dilemma in a challenging task against the anti-corruption war, the various tendencies for confident and successful learners are dump in a maladaptive environment like Nigeria. To add glamour to my previous article entitled :OBJ on Corruption; A thump up but …the President recent action though commendable must move with a speed of light in order to make various arrest of corrupt possibilities for the war to assume a reasonable impact.

The Euphemisms of corruption are multifaceted finding abode in schools, market squares, bureaucratic self-esteems, traditional settings of both culture and origin, the courts, diplomatic contrast and other far-reaching set-backs of high-effort situations. But one fact remain uncontestable, the leadership had to show it all and followership must see it all into the causalities of the system. The leadership individualist approach should be a replicate of the society’s coincidence awareness- the inevitably means of imminent closure of structural problems that manifest as corrupt tendencies.

An administrator of a school must not abet and aid corrupt practices either consciously or unconsciously or else stand culpable in the crime committed either erroneously or otherwise by the beneficiary(ies) of corrupt practices. The educational institutions in Nigeria presently had fallen a prey of corruption for compromising merit, standard and established rules and regulations that promotes excellence, global competitiveness and survivalist instincts thereby breeding professors even in Universities that lack the pre-requisite of basic standards. Marketing, bureaucracy, traditional settings, the Judiciary and other qualitative distinctions of human endeavours had become past-times for festering psychological aptitude of profound transformations incapacitating the distinguishing talents of cultured determinations for institutionalized expressions of honour and dignity. The notable exceptions had become the inevitable pullout expressions of ill-defined settings for counter revolutionary aims. Not even the President would contest this fact or even the corruption fighting agencies that secure their powers from the Presidency would pretend over the accurately buffered conditional misnomer.

Unknowingly to the Political leadership in the country, be it at the Federal, State or Local councils the issue of nepotism and self-enrichment (either through lucid favours or annihilating egos) are central to major obnoxiousities of corruption that is prevalent. It is the acts taking Nigeria’s multidimensional problems as a crisis unresolved, breeding infrastructure decay, threats of secession, ethnic suspicion and other negative vices that hamper meaningful development and growth. At the society level Nigerians profess and perpetuate corrupt act as a dutiful responsibility that has been enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Peoples’ dreams shatter without corruption, rights are equitable with corrupt tendencies and progress is measured on a barometer of success on tilts of corruption. When the Nation rises to an opportunity of arresting the causes, a counter-revolutionary blackmail and incitement follows the action to pave way for maintenance and protection of the criminally intact system. It happened during the Buhari’s administration when the coup d’etat against the government was hailed openly and severely, it may happen again due to the Obasanjo’s recent renewed fight against corruption if it is sincere and all- inclusive.

No one should think it is an easy battle but with an instrument of power and sincerity of purpose one gets the mercies of God and God’s mercies are crackdowns on sinful routine. However, the Obasanjo’s war would be results-disoriented if it is selective and vindictive. It is therefore only when the nation rises to the very possibilities of the realities of corruption that students caught in examination malpractices at school, if punished, can assume extra judicial victimization at a system that allows open theft of our state resources under the gleeful eyes of the leadership or a petty thief of chicken roaming around lurking darkness caught and jailed will claim inversion of justice when high society gangs operating as cults decide on the fate of the Nation thereby beclouding the morality of institutionalizations.

Clear expectations and credible evaluations must be adopted in a genuine fight against corruption in Nigeria, the evaluation had to go with cleansing the staple of leadership and the expectations must encompass the accommodation of a formidable image-making devoid of trivialities.

This effort-oriented approach must be adopted if Nigeria stands to remedy the critical plan conquered by the iniquities of corruption, which corroded its abilities- a truly bad image indeed!

-Mamza writes from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria