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Scaffolds of Primitive Corruption
By Emmanuel
Franklyne Ogbunwezeh In
the philosophies of Battista Mondin, one of the most
renowned philosophical anthropologists ever to sit on
the hallowed professorial chair of anthropology at the
Pontifical Urban University in Rome, man is a bundle of
possibilities. He may be following in the great
humanistic path charted by Protagoras of old, who viewed
the human being as the measure of all possibilities; and
which has been towed by many philosophers since then.
Martin Heidegger, the German existentialist presupposed,
anticipated, and incorporated this in his philosophy,
which is more of an anthropological metaphysics, when he
realized that the death of man is the end of all
possibilities. This dialectical humanism does not
contradict or nullify what some other admirers of wisdom
would chose to hold and apply; which is that every human
individual is a micro-universe of meaning and
significance. This expression, the way it comports
itself to my understanding, captures the beautiful
essence resident in the human phenomenon. This for me is
because the human individual possesses in himself the
majestic immensity and sovereign infinity of the
universe. In other words, man summarizes the universe.
To
this end, man could be seen as a social animal that is a
micro-universe of infinite possibilities. And the human
society to this end becomes a conglomeration of
micro-universes. This assembly of individual
micro-universes of infinite possibilities transforms the
society into a theatre of possibilities. Every
imaginative creation falls then within the grasps of
actuality. Simply put, everything becomes possible. This
bundle of infinite possibilities, which the human person
is, is capable of transcending the heights of
innovation, plumbing the infinite depths of reality and
mastering the tyrannical hold of inclement nature. These
are on the positive scale. Here, man could be
romantically labelled an angel. The Hebrew sacred writ
and many other religious traditions outdo themselves in
propagating this vision.
But
this angel is equally capable of incredible crudity. In
spite of his fair capabilities, he is equally capable of
the obverse. He could simply matriculate into a social
criminal, without rhyme or reason. But just like there
are infinite universes that ordered or organized
themselves into infinite series of constellations,
dutifully following their ordered charges, so should
human societies. If these universes disobey the laws
guiding their location and orbit, they would collide
with each other, mutually destroying and annihilating
themselves. At that occasion, reality would be
incinerated. Equally as the planets orbit in ordered
trajectories round their various suns, so should the
human micro-universes orbit round the suns of social
legitimacy, or the society would graduate into that
Hobbessian jungle, that forever terrified Thomas Hobbes;
where man becomes wolf to his fellow men; making the
life of man solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.
At
this level of desperation, the society rallies all its
resources and deploys them only to the mass-production
of fractured personalities who amble about as mutual
risks to each other, very busy doing each other in. The
human personalities that should be positively driving
the dynamics of social evolution, becomes nothing but
fractured, dysfunctional egos ever-on the brink of
exploding; incinerating each other, and ripping the
social fabric asunder. In this scenario, social
interaction goes Darwinian. The fittest survives. The
strong preys on the weak. Justice compromises its
majesty; allowing itself to be configured only to the
protection and furtherance of the sick and opulent
indiscretions of privilege. The less privileged are
simply written off, quarantined in the ghettos of
irrelevance as the wretched of the earth; to be used as
fodder for social misfortunes, or as toilet paper to
wipe the undeodorized asses of power and privilege.
Here, the poor are fortified with minimum of the
influence, but shoulder the maximum consequence of the
decisions reached by influence. The privileged,
unwilling to contaminate their delusions, with the
reality of the social jungle created by agency of their
collusion, choose to isolate themselves in high-brow
neighbourhoods reminiscent of their holiday resorts in
the valleys of sin, where they spoil themselves,
embezzling the range of sinful luxuriance cornered at
the expense of the many; and cultivating their
desperation in the process. Such hoods are the social
incubators of desperate housewives, dysfunctional kids
and adult delinquents. But they remain unfortunately
elitist; perpetually influencing the tide of social
affairs.
Their leadership bids no society no good. They
themselves are no good. They are social foxes, with
hypocritical affectations to goodness and social
altruism. Nothing they do for the society ever ignores
their profit in its computations. This profit would not
have been problematic if, it is really the sort that
inspires or lends credence to economic behaviour. It is
really the savage, irresponsible crave for privilege
paid for in the inglorious coins of slothful
non-productivity and grotesque incompetence.
This accounts for the fact that Nigerian Millionaires
are not doyen of industries who rode on the waves of
free enterprise to enthrone themselves and their ideas
on the tribunes of wealth. Neither were they rugged
capitalists, who created wealth out of nothing, nor
great inventors that gave our milieu what it lacked, but
needed; creating wealth in the process and driving the
economic as well. No! Almost all of them are
contractors, rent-seekers, influence peddlers, obscene
sycophants and outright crooks. They are never creative
visionaries, nor courageous pioneer into the frontiers
of the unknown.
To
this end, they spend their lives inventing arcane ways
of conjugating communal wealth into private coffers, in
the most illegal of ways. They elevate the most
primitive and savage instinct to business. And they
create a pillaged society divided lopsidedly between the
hyper-rich and the wretched poor.
The
social poverty that this primitive corruption driven by
elitist greed creates enables a social scenario where
every interpersonal contact among the poor becomes a
context of emotionally wounded personalities striving to
take undue advantage of each other. Here a jungle is
enabled. In the market economics of the jungle, rules
are recklessly broken and contracts routinely breached.
Every theology is created to serve self interest,
although well sugar-coated with altruistic themes.
Potentials for violent conflicts abound. Every point is
lethally contested and is capable of getting medieval
and very ugly.
On
a more extended scale, arms and ammunitions are invited.
Heads get broken. Bodies get buried. And the society
ends up the loser. This is why in Nigeria armed robbery
is on the rise. And the armed robbery enterprise in
Nigeria remains the most brutal in the world. Here, the
rogues swoop on unarmed innocent citizens with
superlative brutality, which cannot even be consulted in
states of war. Their cold-bloodedness, though
inexcusable, is really asymptomatic of a society that
fertile incubator of primitive corruption.
The
operative word “should” in the introductory sentences of
the former paragraph is absolutely necessary to
underscore the ideal envisaged, but in most cases
unrealized in human social set ups. This underlines and
consolidates simultaneously. It underlines that this
infinite human possibility came raw and wild. On the
other hand, it consolidates that the demands of social
existence make its creative education and positive
direction imperative. And that any society that fails to
tame the wild nature of individuals by recommending
rules of social conduct and executing sanctions in cases
of default, has contrived its self destruction. Ethics
facilitates an effortless compliance to the norms of
social conduct. But laws mandate observance with legal
sanctions. Ethics may have no legal teeth.
But
no human law would be credible if it violates the
principles of natural justice, equity and good
conscience, which are nothing but ethical principles.
And obedience to laws, which facilitates social conduct
and cohesion are greatly eased when the ethical
integrity of individuals in society are high. To this
end, when ethics is jettisoned in favour of
Machiavellian rules of social conduct, then laws lose
their sanctity, and become liable to being patronized
with absolute disregard.
This is why it is of supreme importance that a society
cares vigilantly the way it cultivates its ethics,
licenses or manages elitist impunity, checks or
liberates the selfish ambitions of the strong;
acquiesces to certain extreme conducts, cheerleads the
choirs of mediocrity, rewards merit, or confers
privileges. No society which sacrifices merit for
mediocrity, or exchanges honesty for filthy lucre ever
knows peace, development, or felicity. It would
eternally be plagued by social discontent, poverty and
decadence. The demise of social morality in any society;
the allowance of savage greed, as well as the
empowerment of impunity are the scaffolds raised for the
construction and consolidation of primitive corruption,
which will forever haunt any society that allows itself
the sick luxury of entertaining such within her embrace.
Despite the dictatorship of relativism diffusing across
contemporary social discourse and behaviour, all
epistemologies mourn the death of morality. No
gnoseologic tradition would ever canonize immoral
conduct without imperilling social integrity. And once a
society loses integrity, it enables a jungle. This is
because social cohesion cannot withstand an incestuous
rape of its hallowed precepts.
To
this end, no society that erects monuments in honour of
thieves and morally compromised rogues, should expect to
be a paradise of probity and honesty. That society
compromises the foundations of its cohesive equilibrium.
It took liberties with the wrong by elevating primitive
depravities to an ontological level, where it desecrates
all that is good, true and beautiful. Corruption is then
empowered by this alchemy of leadership—orchestrated
brigandage and social laxity to burrow unrestrained, and
infect the genetic codes of such social contraptions;
replicating itself in such quantities as to overwhelm
its social defences.
This explains why in contemporary Nigeria, corruption
seems to grow on trees. That contemporary Nigerian
society mass-produces fraudsters in almost all branches
of human endeavour, and licenses impunity is not because
of our poverty—which is an artificial creation, and
symptomatic of leadership—orchestrated reign of
avarice—but thanks to the fact that in Nigeria we have
allowed our decadence such leeway that the makers,
executors, interpreters and custodians of our laws are
certifiable scoundrels, who are all in league to honour,
celebrate, canonize, revere, and defer to criminals and
mediocres.
To
this end, there exists this mass scramble for privilege
without responsibility. This is because privileged
mediocrity is the only way to survive in a dog-eat-dog
society that Nigeria has degenerated into, where the law
only serves the rich and is deployed in the oppression
of the less-privileged.
The
matriculation of the Nigerian society into the ranks of
decadent nations was never an event. It was like in all
human circumstances, contrived through a process; an
alchemy, which once established hijacked the genetic
codes of our social character, manipulating and
deploying it to the manufacture of social discontent and
collective discomfiture. Our collaboration, and
conspiracy of collective silence at the dethronement of
merit, and worship of unearned privilege, paved the way
for the triumphant entry of corruption into our social
bloodstream.
Nigerians kept mum, when men, who in the words of Okey
Ndibe, “lacked moral capital” formed a coalition of
willing scoundrels to embezzle our posterity and
heritage. These elitist rascals transcend tribes and
stratification. But we cheered them on when they come at
us with crumbs and peanuts to bribe our resolve into
senile acquiescence. Only few voices of reason stood
incorruptible. But their voices were more often than not
drowned in the vociferations of paid cheerleaders. Those
of their interventions which escaped the black holes
created by hired sycophancy peter out in the great
silence of our collective inaction, or get wasted in
engineered tribal bickering aimed at making their
reasoned stands dead on arrival.
Achebe saw the hypocrisy of power amply advertised by
Obasanjo and his PDP. He spoke his truths to power. But
the ogre of Aso Rock deployed his Rotweilers to
discredit one of the greatest sons of Africa—a patriot
extra-ordinary. The same fate met Wole Soyinka, Abubakar
Umar, Adamu Ciroma, Alex Ekwueme, Okey Ndibe, and all
lovers of truth. Nigerians looked on in inaction as they
took the ogre in a lopsided battle. But these guys never
trembled before power. They trembled more at the
prospects of having to lie against their consciences.
Nigerians watched like castrated spectators, while these
courageous Davids took up the Goliaths that oppress us
and keep us tied to the slavery of poverty and
underdevelopment.
Today, the whole social structure is paying the price of
our silence in dereliction, rottenness and decay. Our
infrastructure bears eloquent testimony to this reign of
decadence. Nothing works in Nigeria. Power which
underwrote development in other climes, refused to
function in Nigeria, despite billions of dollars sunk
into it. Water supply which summarizes the presence and
bubbling of life is significantly absent in our cities
and the computations of our government. Our economic has
slid into dysfunctional non-productivity.
We
are only marketers of what others produce. Nothing is
produced in Nigeria that can stand international
competition in this age of globalization. The only
product we have to offer is a natural
resource—petroleum—which we even lack the technology and
expertise to effectively exploit. The list is
inexhaustible and rightly so because we kept silent,
when circumstance called for our collective refusal to
be compromised. We sold out when the august occasion
arose for us to save our heritage from the hands of
home-grown plunderers.
Once upon a time in Nigeria, a student who cheats
attracts social disrepute for himself, and does
irreparable violence to his social status. He is looked
upon as a social pariah and an extraordinary deviant.
Today, examination malpractice is so rampant, pervasive,
and mainstream that honest students are an endangered
species. Parents now help and finance the facility of
their kids to cheat. Some parents hire mercenaries to
sit and write examinations for their kids, because the
society now regulates its conduct with the Machiavellian
guidepost of the end justifying the means. These are the
same parents that are wont to hypocritically complain
that this generation is hopeless. But the reality is
that just like charity, a generation’s hopelessness
begins at home.
The
parents or the older generation are not equally
immunized against this Machiavellian conceptual
construct. They are, if not the initiators or
originators of this derailed social train, vectors or
transit reservoirs of its dangerous wares. They
cultivated it, nourished and passed it on to their kids
in a sort of generational relay race, where the good,
the bad, and the ugly are transmitted to the succeeding
generation. An instance is imperative here. A parent who
is in custody of a stolen certificate like Maurice Iwuh,
or who bought and dons an unearned degree with all the
privileges accruing thereto, like Andy Ubah; would not
be in possession of any moral authority to chide his
child if he steals in an examination. It will ring so
hollow due to the profound insecurities that hypocrisy
confers.
And
kids, who by nature see through parental insecurities,
would not take him seriously. And that dismissal of the
authority of this most intimate acquaintance of theirs,
would only serve to reinforce their dismissal of other
social norms, in their bid to fund their unhealthy
indiscretions. A child who sees his parents worship such
discredited models like Babangida, Abacha and other
thieves of their ilk or even the village scoundrel who
suddenly appears with a bag of money and an abundance of
attitude, has been taught in the most visually eloquent
manner possible that thieves are honoured; and that
thievery is not wrong, provided you steal big and with
impunity.
That Nigeria ranks scandalously low on the international
corruption index does not detract from the fact that
corruption is a universal phenomenon. But proves that
the Nigerian exemplar of this social malady is among the
worst instances, both in its depraved depth, incidence,
and trend, as well as in the flamboyant hypocrisy it
generates and empowers in our leadership corridors and
power matrices. Examples abound to convict the perennial
hypocrisy of the Nigerian leadership, once the subject
reverts to corruption.
The
Babangida’s regime was mass-mobilizing (MAMSER(ing)
Nigerians into a Structural Adjustment that meant
tightening their belts due to increasing hardship, while
the sly General was busy attending his health needs in
France; while his wife was donning the most flamboyant
of costumes, which would make the peacock look
hopelessly pedestrian; as they both stole Nigeria blind,
running one of the most corrupt regimes that Nigeria has
ever known. Sanni Abacha, the arch-kleptocrat was
stealing and scouring the Nigerian treasury clean while
docking failed banks chiefs, and conducting a war
against indiscipline and corruption (WAIC). What
impudence?
Under Obasanjo, some of the most sordid ironies were
incubated and hatched to our discomfiture. The man
empowered to catch thieves in this instance,
metamorphosed into one of the greatest thieves ever to
cross our firmament. Tafa Balogun was his name. This
Police chief was an extra-ordinary thief. Obasanjo
himself claimed to be conducting a war against
corruption, while honouring history’s greatest treasury
looter, Sanni Abacha, even though post-humously. Maybe
he hopes to be honoured in the future for his abuse of
due process and his oath of office while presiding over
a civilian dictatorship in Nigeria. Obasanjo is kicking
the ass of his deputy; while his finger is stuck deep in
the same gravy jar he accuses his deputy of decimating.
This is the apogee of hypocrisy. And that has never been
a recipe for any social revival or economic reform.
At
the beginning of the Obasanjo administration’s war on
corruption, hope seems to have finally dawned on our
hitherto dark horizon. But at the twilight of this
administration and its war on corruption, all may now be
construed as a Machiavellian ruse designed to keep the
populace busy in timid inaction and postural unconcern.
There are ample reasons for that construction. The PDTF
scandal that rocked the presidency shows the duplicitous
underbelly of the Obasanjo administration. The president
and his vice were taking turns in plunging their dirty,
corrupt hands into our common weal for uses unintended
and un-envisaged by the laws setting up the fund. And
they do not even deem it fit to give us a rational
account of what happened in this impious transaction
that was the PDTF slush fund. And when these criminals
strain their ankles, they rush abroad to receive the
best medical treatment, after embezzling the funds that
would have given Nigerians many functional hospitals.
This government has like all others before it, not only
broken our hopes to our faces once more, but has
reinforced social corruption by making its war on
corruption so selective that the corrupt friends of the
man of power are insured against prosecution, while his
opponents are liable to being harassed, framed up and
discredited. This increases the unhealthy competition
for unearned privilege, which sycophancy, and hypocrisy
confers. Everybody who wants to retain relevance then
scrambles to join the party in power. The party that is
in the right is deserted because it most times lacks the
requisite ruthlessness to attain the kind of power we
advertise in Nigeria.
By
allowing raw power and naked might the leeway to gain
admittance into all privilege attainable, even when it
is unmerited, we unwittingly took our society to
Golgotha to be crucified among thieves, and brigands.
This is why economic development will always be a toxic
utopia unattainable in Nigeria. The thieves would always
cast lots for our commonweal and divide it up among
their various interests. And the country would never
muster enough resources to channel into meaningful
development. Her human resources would always waste
itself emigrating from the mess at home, or busy
vegetating in the sloth occasioned by the rot. Her
material resources would be crated and bundled into the
private estates of the winners of the power game. The
losers of the power game, in this case, a great majority
of the population, are left out in the cold irrelevance
that powerlessness makes possible.
The
most painful realization is that Nigeria and Nigerians
lack innovative and dynamic response to this social
quagmire, which our collective guilt renders current.
Those, who have an honest inkling into our pathology and
are ready to devote their competence in service to our
interests, are an unfortunate minority. They are never
allowed to smell the power and authority they need, to
set functional reforms in motion. But the crooked
rascals are allowed to meander their way into our power
epicentres, and stay there to generate nothing but
visionless amblings and dysfunctional policies that
serve narrow, parochial insularities, instead of the
interests of the greatest number of Nigerians.
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For instance after missing
begging opportunities of at least placing
Nigeria on the ladder towards escaping
poverty, Obasanjo has now decided to
sacrifice Nigeria to protect his ass. He has
concluded plans to impose Umaru Yar Adua, on
Nigerians as his successors. For this august
emperor, Nigerians must have Yar Adua
whether they want him or not. After all, the
opinion of Nigerians has never mattered. By
this crude act, he is teaching generations
of young Nigerians that if you have power,
you could consult the most scandalous
impunity that your knavery can muster or
contrive, without fearing consequences or
reprisals. This is the Nazi concept of
power.
Umar
Musa Yar’Adua (left) |
And
yet, this president claims to be fighting corruption.
Corruption starts with injustice. It then eats up the
moral fibres of the society by infecting every available
social orifice without exception.
Another example recommends itself to our expression
here. When Obasanjo succeeded to the Nigerian presidency
in 1999, he promised to go after corruption wherever he
could find it in Nigeria. Then, there were two icons of
corruption within his crosshairs, waiting for him just
to pull the trigger and set an eternal example of what
would happen to corrupt individuals in Nigeria.
Nigerians held their breaths in apprehension. Nigerians
waited for him to act. One of the corrupt ducks was
Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, who single-handedly
installed the reign of brazen corruption in Nigeria. The
other was the estate and heritage of the defunct tyrant,
Sanni Abacha. We waited for these guys to be docked,
with their privies, agents and loot.
But
like all things Nigerian, the Nigerian factor crept in
and Obasanjo developed cold feet, proffering flimsy
excuses for his monumental ineptitude. He became smart
by half in Babangida’s case, challenging any Nigerian
that has evidence of Babangida’s corruption to come
forward with his evidence. The government he headed that
has all the resources to achieve a successful
investigation and prosecution of such delinquents,
bucked at its responsibility shifting it to private
citizens. This shameful abdication of responsibility by
Obasanjo’s government was the prologue to an eight year
reign of executive recklessness, irresponsibility,
dereliction of duty and breach of oath of office.
Babangida remains a free man clutching at his loot. He
would one day use this stolen resource to attempt buying
the Nigerian presidency again, someday.
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Abacha’s
case calls for Obasanjo’s head. This is the
one of the most unfortunate advertisements
of hypocrisy that really discredits
Obasanjo’s personality and casts questions
on his sanity. Obasanjo hunted Abacha’s
estate at the inception of his
administration. He offered a deal to this
estate for them to keep about a hundred
Million dollars out of the over five billion
dollars, the crude tyrant pilfered from the
Nigerian coffers, and return the rest to the
rightful owners—the
Nigerian people. But the estate headed by
the conniving matriarch Maryam remained
recalcitrant. The government went about
tracking down the stolen funds.In
some the government succeeded. In some
others it met brick walls. Abacha’s son was
clamped in prison in relation to the crimes
and the illegal liberties he took under his
father.
General Sani Abacha |
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But
few weeks ago, this same Obasanjo, clad in military
uniform, awarded a certificate and a military medal of
honour to Abacha, apparently as daily independent online
of 20th March, 2007
Independent Nigeria Online satirically surmised; “in
recognition of his dedication to duty, hard work,
loyalty, and leadership qualities." We would not
attempt to analyse this laughable double-standard. The
fact is that Abacha deserves nothing but eternal
forgetfulness. He deserves an excision from our
collective memory, not honour. Honouring Abacha
represents honouring the worst affliction ever to grace
our national memory. Honouring Abacha is licensing
impunity. And this is scaffold for primitive corruption.
Obasanjo by that singular ill-advised act, told
Nigerians and generations yet unborn, that you can steal
with impunity and hope for some future rehabilitation.
Until this fateful that on which moral outrage was
eclipsed from our national firmament, we never knew that
Obasanjo’s war on corruption was a comforting illusion;
his way of taking us for a Machiavellian ride. Our
fatal shortsightedness never reckoned with this arrant
volte face. Midway into this anti-corruption war, many
observers started dismissing Obasanjo and his pet war as
a shabby swindle. And casting aside their cares has
proved to be some catastrophic folly. We applauded when
Obasanjo docked Osuji and Wabara for bribing and
desecrating the Senate in the education budget saga.
When Obasanjo fell on Abachas, they felt that it was
because their estate had become cheap game consequent on
the demise of their patriarch. They doubted the notion
that they are in reception of just recompense for their
heritage of knavery, since Babangida who contrived the
same indiscretion like Abacha, was breathing free air.
Today, Abacha is honoured while Kudirat Abiola who was
murdered by this rogue is buried without consequence.
This kind of government’s approval for rascality will
always dissuade any opposition to mediocrity and social
knavery. That is the greatest disservice that Obasanjo
did to our social ethical clime. And this is the kind of
cosmic stupidity that nature never forgives any nation,
as citizens would forever be fed with mediocrity as role
models. And when mediocrity and criminal rascality
install themselves as social role models and sources of
social legitimacy, the scaffolds of primitive corruption
are then enabled to haunt the trajectory of social
development with impunity, crudity and viciousness.
Honouring Abacha remains an eternal insult to all that
is good, true, and beautiful.
updated 4 February 2008 |
