WHY NIGERIANS ARE CORRUPT
Kayode J. Fakinlede
WHY NIGERIANS ARE CORRUPT
By
Kayode J. Fakinlede
More than any other nation, Nigerians probably suffer the devastating effect of corruption most. It is always mind-boggling to me when I read about the untold millions or billions that our public officials steal or misappropriate.
Now these Nigerians are usually church or mosque going. And whenever they leave their respective places of worship, they are often met by a crowd of beggars, asking for something to eat! They don’t care and their pastors don’t care too. Remember the statement, “ If anyone has a billion naira to donate, let him see my secretary”
Once in a while, the hands of the law, in form of EFCC, ICPC, etc. catch up with these Nigerians, but on the long run, practically nothing seems to happen to them in form of punishment.
The question then becomes: Why are Nigerians corrupt in the first place? The same Nigerians may go to other countries and live honest lives, although some of them, for reasons of habit, flout the laws of these other nations and they are promptly put in jail.
Why are Nigerians corrupt? And how do we stem the tide corruption ravaging our land?
The reasons why all people are corrupt are akin to the reasons why fire breaks out. That is, there is something that can ignite; there is a source of ignition; and there is oxygen to perpetuate the burning. If you remove one of factors, there will be no fire. I will use that analogy in case of corruption.
All humans are corrupt because of the following reasons:
1. There are people willing to be corrupt or steal
2. There are things to steal
3. There are opportunities to steal these things.
Before I go on, let me state that these three reasons have a multiplying effect like that of the fire. In which case, if you eliminate any one of these, corruption will effectively be eliminated. Reducing any of the factors to the barest minimum reduces the level of corruption accordingly.
Lastly, if people are not given the opportunity to steal, there will be no stealing, regardless of the availability of the other two factors. On the other hand, if we let any one of these three factors increase without eliminating or reducing the other two factors, corruption will increase proportionately. This is simple mathematics.
Now, in Nigeria, all three factors flourish boundlessly. A lot of people are willing to steal or be corrupt. Of course, in Nigeria, there are trillions and trillions of Naira worth of government properties, ranging from small office pins to large sea-going vessels, from which anyone who is in the right place can help himself. And of course, the opportunities to steal these things are very much available to most government officials and their collaborators.
No wonder, the effects of corruption are so punishing to Nigerians!!!
In many countries around the world where a socialist form of government is practiced, the willingness to be corrupt is often met by the stiff arm of the law. In which case, if a person should steal some property belonging to the government, he is immediately summarily executed. This makes it highly unpalatable to want to steal. In Nigeria, on the other hand, those who steal government property are sometimes made heroes and welcomed with pomp and pageantry by those people -us - who are being robbed.
Of course, there is a lot of government property from which anyone willing to steal can steal. In the capitalist countries, government property is reduced to the barest minimum. Most things, except for roads, bridges, and other implemens needed for national defense, are owned by someone, some group or some company. They are therefore not freebies from which anyone can help himself without some form of repercussion. It is in this area that Nigeria can make a difference if we are willing to fight corruption. The government’s ownership of properties has to be reduced considerably. In which case, properties under the management of governments – government factories, power generating concerns, hotels, petrol refineries and stations, airlines and airplanes, ships, etc, should be sold to people who can manage them efficiently. This enables the government to have less under its management - or mismanagement.
kenneth harrow
there are real measurements for corruption,, and countries are rated. it's ok to flagellate your own country, but i don't think nigeria has been on the bottom of the list.
try cameroon, for instance. or the congo. or chad. i bet there are many states much worse than nigeria
ken
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-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Mobolaji Aluko
--
H O
Nwabuzor
Interesting article and response! Staring "truth" in the face. Always wise to let sleeping dogs lie.
There is no true Nigerian who is unaware that corruption takes many forms, chameleonic and otherwise. Paper robbers and surreptitious manipulations by executive goons: these are corruption from the deepest minds of depraved souls who often masquerade as apostles of probity. They are many in Nigeria and I bet on this forum too!
Patrick Effiboley
De : Kayode J. Fakinlede <jfaki...@gmail.com>
À : USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Envoyé le : Jeudi 9 juin 2016 1h53
Objet : USA Africa Dialogue Series - WHY NIGERIANS ARE CORRUPT
John Mbaku
Original Lyrics - I Go Chop Your Dollar
I don suffer no be small
Upon say I get sense
Poverty no good at all, ooo
Na im make I join this business
419 no be thief, it's just a game
Everybody dey play em
if anybody fall mugu,
ha! my brother I go chop em
Chorus:
National Airport na me get em
National Stadium na me build em
President na my sister brother
You be the mugu, I be the master
Oyinbo man I go chop your dollar,
I go take your money disappear
419 is just a game, you are the loser I am the winner
The refinery na me get em,
The contract, na you I go give em
But you go pay me small money make I bring em
you be the mugu, I be the master…
na me be the master ooo!!!!
When Oyinbo play wayo,
dey go say na new style
When country man do him own,
them go dey shout: bring em, kill em, die!
That Oyinbo people greedy, I say them greedy
I don see them tire
That's why when they fall into my trap o!
I dey show them fire
Translation of Original Lyrics - I Go Chop Your Dollar
Translated by Azuka Nzegwu and Adeolu Ademoyo.
I am suffering greatly
and I get this idea (or wise)
poverty is not good at all
and I decide to join this business (scam)
419 is not a criminal act but a game
Everybody will play
but if you are fool
I will chop your money
Chorus:
I own the National Airport
I built the National Stadium
The president is my sister's brother
You are the fool and I am the master
White man, I will eat your dollar
I will take your money and disappear
419 is just a game, you are the loser and I am the winner
I own the refinery
I will give you the contract
But you will have to pay me a small fee before I bring them
You are the fool, I am the master
I am the master!!!!
When whites scam
it is said that it is a new style
But when the country man does the same
White people shout: bring them, kill them, die!
White people are greedy, I say they are greedy
I have seen through them deeply (or very well)
So, when they fall into my trap
I will show them fire (or showing someone who is the real boss by treating them harshly)
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax
kenneth harrow
hi john
i know your recommendations are good, but listserv business is
chat.... not research. we have to rely on experts like yourself to
get informed opinion, and then we go about our own business, which
for me is mostly african film and lit., not poly sci. i know this
is your area of expertise and publication, and appreciate that
fact.
i can say the song you posted is great, and i appreciated the
translation as well. i enjoyed, you be the mugu, i be the master.
that's trump, i suppose, a mugu who boasts about being the master
after having scammed us all. after all the revelations about
jonathan and the missing billions, i guess it is many besides
trump who qualify.
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
John Mbaku
kwame zulu shabazz
The scholarly literature on "corruption" is fatally flawed. Why? Because it rarely conceptualizes the inherent corruption of US/UK/France imperialisms, global belligerence, and fraudulent "democracies." The assymetry is obvious and ominous.
Brother Shabazz
Kayode J. Fakinlede
John Mbaku
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kwame zulu shabazz
John,
Happy to read them but, if I understand you correctly, your argument doesnt go far enough. I'm making a more basic point. US/UK/France's fraudulent democracies are fundamentally corrupt governmental systems. What Fela called "demo-crazy."
Brother Shabazz
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kenneth harrow
dear kayode
i agree with your general premise. you are concerned over your country and want to call our attention to a real problem. there are two ways to think about it. one is a general appeal to others to work for change, and you are right to make such appeals.
a second way to think about it, as i did when i saw your posting, was through the work of those who study this in a scholarly or professional manner. your opening sentence, in the posting below, states perhaps hyperbolically that nigeria was the most corrupt place on earth. well, rhetorically that is fine, if you want to mobilize people for change. factually Transparency International has a listing that places nigeria as 136th out of 167 countries 31 are worse--much worse. some of them suffer from war, like somalia or afghanistan, which is the worst; or from one of the most aberrant of regimes, which is north korea. the countries whose names i threw out are listed as more corrupt than nigeria. it is important to assess this by asking what are the causes, what can be done--what are its impacts--all questions i expect john mbaku and others like him to answer since he has actually studied it.
but aside from the science, the human side is important, and your appeal shouldn't be ignored.
ken
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-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Samuel Zalanga
Samuel
Steve Nwabuzor
Abubakar Momoh
Abubakar Momoh
Sent from my iPhone
--
Cornelius Hamelberg
A little preachment,some preachin' blues Some of the views that have been expressed in this thread, part of an on-going national dialogue,
are very disturbing, based as they are on unfounded premises such as John Mbaku's Cameroonian view,
that even the poor and marginalized don't want to see a corruption-free society, “Why? Because they
hope that one day they too would be able to capture the apparatus of government and have the opportunity
to chop.” Just when the stigma of 419 scammers was easing (we don't hear so much about them any more) the unsaintly
reputation of Nigerian is on the ascendancy, gaining momentum again, after President Buhari's accommodation
of the British Prime Minister's condemnation of Nigeria concurring with him that Nigeria is one of the most
corrupt nations in the world – “ fantastically corrupt” although he (diplomatic Buhari) stopped short of saying,
”But not only Nigeria” - as this could have soured relations between the two countries, but I daresay that a
Shabazz of the Zulu nation would have said about some of the loot being stashed in British banks, “Looka here Mr. Prime Minister, this is straight talk Africa: Black is black, We want our money back” Indeed,”The scholarly literature on "corruption" is fatally flawed” Marcus Garvey went a little further with The Tragedy of White Injustice
(“lying and stealing is the White Man's game”etc) All this talk about corruption, the unrelenting headline “Nigerians are corrupt”
repeated as the devil's mantra is hurting the image of Nigeria and Nigerians.
Maybe you are yourself of such moral rectitude that you say about Nigeria/ Nigerians,
”Speak the truth and shame the devil”? Well, the devil knows that not all Nigerians are corrupt and it's not as if at passport control
the immigration police officer is going to ask you at the Heath row Airport, “Are you Nigerian”
and if you answer “Yes” then is going to say “ Stand over there!” - a special queue for Nigerians
in accordance with the syllogism (like all men are mortal) All Nigerians are corruption Chika is a Nigerian Therefore Chika is corruption old ladies hiding their handbags when he is near, and Chika making eloquent protestations that he is a pastor,
“a man of the cloth”... A nation of priests, a holy nation. Avoiding the question Are you Nigerian - No I'm from Zimbabwe ! Yet when Mugabe asked rhetorically, “Are we now like Nigeria where you have to reach into your pocket to get anything done?"
Nigerian officialdom at least, was furious! And rightly so. How does Nigeria go about re-branding her image? All the news about the “repatriation” of staggering sums of money that has been looted, and about the hundreds of
thousands of ghost names that the government has been paying monthly salaries only add to exacerbating the image
of a country in which corruption had gone haywire. IT takes time, would take time for this kind of news to subside
and we are aware that there is a mountain of corruption cases still pending, just yesterday I read Goodluck Jonathan
lamenting that he is “ under investigation” - President Buhari's manifest mission is to “ Take it from the top and bring it to stop” but since it inheres in the fabric of society from tip to top (Goodluck Jonathan said that Boko Haram “is everywhere”
: “Boko Haram is everywhere, in the executive arm of government, in the legislative arm of government and even in the
judiciary. Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies” Ultimately (book peoples' discussions of moral prescriptivism (advice versus influence) must move it
from the academy to the street: apart from rigorously applying punitive justice (and they must also vomit the money)
it will take nothing less than a protracted moral crusade targeting all levels of society, taught in school and
religiously delivered from minbar and pulpit,to stem the tide and to ensure good citizens awareness of the national
perils of corruption against which society must take a collective stand or together we fall – as a nation. It is this kind of moral collapse that heralded the fall of previous empires…. Cornelius We Sweden
kenneth harrow
hi all
the beating of the west for all the ills in africa strike me as 60 years out of date. there are indeed powerful global forces, like the imf and world bank, that imposed structural adjustment on the continent. that was 30-40 years ago. there are still powerful ties of the eu or individual countries like france, that heavily impact african states. not all of that has anything to do with corruption or with it originating in the west. colonialism done finish. neocolonialism might have some places, but globalization is much more significant now, and the largest donor/trade country is china.
more to my point, i am remembering a wonderful study by allan and
barbara isaacman called Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of
Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique,
1965-2007. It won the Herskovitz award 2 yrs ago, and is a
brilliant study of the dam at cahora bassa. the project began
under the portuguese, and frelimo opposed it. when completed it
displaced enormous numbers of people, of peasant farmers, who lost
their homes and lands and received inadequate compensation. worst,
the dam wasn't to deliver the goods to Mozambique but to s africa
who bought the electricity, and imposed an enormous loss of profit
on mozambique.
well, guess what happened. s africa became free, under mandela.
mozambique became independent under frelimo. the dam project
continued, anyway, and the profits went mostly to s africa, the
development and electricity to s africa. poor mozambique had to
sell the electricity to s africa for a pittance, because the
conditions of financing demanded it. why did frelimo buy it? well,
they thought long-term development required it. the isaacmans give
another perspective.
we are beating a dead horse in blaming colonialism for africa's
woes.
on the other hand, we are not beating a dead horse when we ask about imf, world bank, the u.s, eu, china, etc., in the economic structuring of africa. but how much of this can be understood as externally driven. this is where we need experts like john mbaku to reveal the results of his research. when i put this question to an african economist, claiming that the forces of the world bank were inexorable, he stated that i missed the point. both ghana and guinea-bissau, for instance, might be seen as subject to similar external pressures, yet one thrives and the other is a narco-state. african states still have agency within parameters they don't determine entirely. like states everywhere. like everyone on this list, i am curious to know how nigeria, its govt, and foreign forces construct this model.
a last example. the fishing industry off the west coast has been
decimated. when i complained about eu and asian trawlers
swallowing up all that fish off the coast of senegal, and asked
why senegal permitted it, i was told the govt minister was bought
off... true? horrible to even contemplate since we all know the
devastating results of fish prices going sky high and thousands
seeking to emigrate north.
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Cornelius Hamelberg
Hi y'all, Re - “the beating of the west for all the ills in Africa strike me as 60 years out of date.” (Professor Harrow, complaining about
the White Man's Burden ) Nobody in this forum has blamed or been blaming the wild west for all the ills in Africa.
About corruption and the West,it's an issue that so much of the loot that has been acquired criminally,
is being stashed, unmolested, in Western Banks and this corrupt money is supposedly contributing to buoying up
various economies. This would suggest the connivance of the British authorities to some extent. (Consider how
sensitive PM Cameron was about his non criminal dealings in connection with the Panama papers?) Back home, two days ago Professor Bernard Porter (an anti-imperialist) was writing about “greedy capitalists”
and two weeks ago I suggested to him that the issue of looted money being stashed in British banks should be on
the agenda for the next Commonwealth Summit - maybe not such a bad idea (he was not averse to it) but
the anti-imperialist insisted that it is not the province of Britain's Prime minster to issue a decree for
the return of any alleged illegally acquired & stashed loot, that it would/should be entirely a matter for the Police… I suppose that it would eventually require a degree of co-operation between the Nigerian authorities, Interpol
and the British People. If money was being looted from Great Britain and stashed in Nigerian Banks, in no time at all the British
Police would be breathing down the Nigerian Bank managers necks or extraditing them to face criminal justice
in the UK Where is Biko Agozino when we need him? Cornelius We Sweden
Mobolaji Aluko
Cornelius Hamelberg
"And, quite frankly – though it pains me to say this too – Britain’s imperial subjects, in those colonies that were ruled directly by her (they weren’t all), benefitted from it. Any corruption there is in countries like Nigeria and Kenya and India today can’t be said to have been inherited from their colonial rulers, but is more likely to be the result of indigenous ‘greed’, and the withdrawal of the ‘discipline’ that British imperialism provided. Which is why you need some kind of external sanction, though preferably not colonial, to rein in corruption. That’s even when such a sanction might seem to be stifling the capitalist ‘freedom’ to act in your own interests, which may be an engine of progress; but can also be destructive of that progress, through corruption, in the longer term." (Corruption and Greed)
John Mbaku
kenneth harrow
i wonder about the fictional forms of representation of corruption in nigeria (and elsewhere). what do we make of them?
the most obvious to spring to mind is No Longer at Ease. the corruption of obi might be said to function on two levels: his own personal failings, and the system which was both inherited from the british and corrupted.
you can't go back to that world to explain today's. it was published in 1960, and seems so very distant from now. another is teju cole's One Day Is for the Thief. His portrayal of corruption there is pretty close to, if not completely, afropessimism. it sees the world very much through the protagonists' westernized eyes, and small bribes to the larger dangers in nigeria are all seen as part of some kind of falling away from a moral order to which he was accustomed in the west.
without seeing the larger systems at play, how can we make sense
of what is happening in these individual's lives? in americana
there is another kind of corruption, if you will, when the
protagonist ifemulu is driven to prostitution. against her will.
the system completely fails to attend to her, to her survival. is
corruption the right word? or something like it, an unjust social
order. and as she continues, the injustice becomes configured on
racial, not simply economic, terms. injustice? corruption?
lastly, is the bribery of a poorly paid govt official, who supplements his income, the same as the corruption of a large-scale corporation? what if the salary of the official doesn't come regularly, isn't enough to live on? teachers across africa have attested to this, and at the extreme, in places like congo, without parents paying teachers can't, or couldn't, survive.
the word corruption becomes too broad a brush sweep to define all
these situations.
that's why novels, that humanize the context and characters, their motivations, give life to the question, make sense of it, and can change us. the very worse, i believe, if when we take what would be considered corruption in our own societies, and use it as a measure for others.
on another note, if you were to ask how western societies, their economic instruments, function in africa, i would agree it is likely to be seen as abhorrent. not all, but many. from the obvious exploiters to gun-runners. but what about others? those who sell commodities, or sell their services, who participate, say, in movie-making, or distribution of books? is that not perfectly acceptable? again, not everything can be seen as the same here.
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
M Buba
Prof Malami Buba
Mobolaji Aluko
kwame zulu shabazz
kenneth harrow
good points
kenneth harrow
great questions
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
John Mbaku
kenneth harrow
in brief response to kwame's points about western involvement. of course that's true, but it isn't colonialism, it isn't imperialism of old. if it is the case that debt was created by structural adjustment, it's also true that that pattern has changed, that the largest investor in china. why is that ignored? why is the folding of the old u.s. europe model into the imf and world bank also ignored.
anyway, the examples you proffer, kwame, seem skewed to me. why evoked charles taylor's escape from prison. is that really the issue for us to explore? what of his being financed by khaddafi? isn't that ultimately more what drove his murderous invasions and killings in liberia and sierra leone?
your division between a corrupt west and a victimized africa is something i don't want to accept. that doesn't mean i exculpate the u.s. or the west, but i also see the pattern as changing, broader, not a simple binary of good and evil. you want to fight the western derogatory view of africa; so do i. but you are reversing it, and retaining the frame that gets us nowhere.
the evocation of the u.s. in rwanda's invasion of the congo is wrong, simply that. your motives in seeing goodness in africa we all share. but the reductiveness, no way oh
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
John Mbaku
kwame zulu shabazz
Nice try, Ken
1. China has never had a colonial or imperial relationship with African nations. China has never killed an African leader. China has never deposed an African leader. China TRADES with African nations. If African leaders negotiate bad deals with China that is entirely their fault. We must hold those Africans leaders accountable. Ditto for African leaders who selfishlessly steal from their people.
2. Charles Taylor was employed by the CIA. Agents of the US govt facilitated his escape and the subsequent war in Liberia/Salone. Instigating war in foreign lands is imperial. There would have been no conflict if Taylor hadn't been allowed to escape. If Gaddafi had some part in the war then obviously he should be held accountable. Gaddafi is dead. US/UK/France ROUTINELY act with impunity. Academics like you, Ken, facilitate that centuries old pattern of impunity.
3. Assassinating a foreign leader (Gaddafi) is imperial. The email to Hillary Clinton is clear. Gaddafi was killed because he was a threat to French imperialism.
4. If the US is backed Rwanda/Uganda invasion of Congo and provided weapons and other logistical support for the combatants, that's imperial. Obviously Kagame and Museveni and those that follow them aren't "good." Whatever the case, good and bad Africans cannot be an excuse for ignoring ongoing western malfeasance in Africa.
Brother Shabazz
kenneth harrow
thoughts on kwame's points
--the imf and world bank never assassinated an african leader, and yet its impact on millions, hundreds of millions of africans, has been enormous, and for quite a while, devastating.
if we are asked, who has done bad things to african states, well, we draft a long list, and i don't want to dispute western roles. but we need clarity, and it isn't really always quite so easy to decide these issues. kwame, i fear we won't agree because we are starting out differently.
i would ask people on this list how they regarded britain's role
in the biafran war, and i know the responses would be very very
different. ditto for france's role in cote d'ivoire.
we can come to a bottom line, but so often bottom lines are
simply generalizations that aren't terrifically helpful.
--taylor an agent of the cia? not of ghaddafi? well, that is not a starting point for any discussion for me. i have nothing really to contribute there. ghaddafi killed to satisfy the french? well, i can't imagine a useful discussionthere.
--rwanda. i can say i've read much of the literature on this, and
followed it closely since 1993, when i began as country specialist
for amnesty on rwanda. the u.s stood aside after april 6, 1994,
and let 800,000 people be killed. it certainly did not arm kagame,
nor was he their instrument. clinton, along with mitterand and the
belgian govt were responsible for drawing down the peacekeepers,
for opening the way for genocide. they should be help accountable.
maybe mitterand is inhell for that. clinton apologized, w
crocodile tears. he committed crimes against humanity by
permitting a genocide. but to say he backed any invasions is
fantasy. the scholarship shows that, except for paranoid
scholarship. sorry, but that's the truth. go ahead and read
turner's book on the congo, for starters, or jason stearns. i
could cite many more for rwanda. if you are really interested.
ken
kwame zulu shabazz
John,
US/UK/France routinely ignore international law and they know they will never be charged by ICC. The system is rotten.
Brother Shabazz
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Salimonu Kadiri
In the 60s, corruption was known as government by Local Purchase Order through which goods and services were procured, although at inflated prices popularly named 10 per cent. Nowadays, goods and services are no longer procured by officials who beside collecting their monthly salaries and fringe bensfits also steal the entire funds budgeted for specific projects. Two examples would help to illustrate official stealing in Nigeria. The Ministry of Power was given US $16 billion to procure transformers to generate electricity for Nigerians. The Minister in charge in collaboration with officials under him immediately registered some brief-case companies. The entire US $16 billion was later transferred into the accounts of the brief-case companies. While citizens were plunged into darkness, the Minister of power and his cronies have become generator and candle importers' tycoons. It is a fraud to collect pay for goods and services not produced while it is a theft to steal money entrusted in the care of officials to procure transformers. But in Nigeria, thefts and frauds are mere corruptions. The second example is that of the four Nigeria's Refineries designed with the total capacity to refine 445, 000 barrel of crude oil per day for internal consumption. In spite of the fact that the refineries have been receiving 445, 000 barrels of crude oil per day, no refined fuel had been produced. Consequently, crude oil exporting Nigeria became fuel importer and the very people who failed to refine crude oil registered brief-case companies which they utilised in claiming fuel subsidy payments from the government, even when no fuel was ever imported or supplied. The 445,000 barrels unrefined crude oil per day received by the refineries were never accounted for and that plain fraud and theft of the commonwealth perpetrated by the educated elites is simply reduced to corruption by the culprits themselves. English is imposed on the people of Nigeria as the official language in which the country is governed. Less than ten per cent of Nigerians can read, understand and speak English fluently. Thus, the few educated elites exploit their knowledge of English language to steal Nigeria's collective patrimony at the expense of the masses who are illiterates in English language.
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: WHY NIGERIANS ARE CORRUPT
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:14:15 -0400
kwame zulu shabazz
Ken,
I'm going to go ahead and cite some of the "paranoid scholarship" for the record and let the readers decide. I prefer it to your apologist scholarship:
1.
Philpot's book tells a grim story of geopolitical interests of the United States and its close allies, causing them to intervene heavily in Rwanda and the DRC, supporting killer regimes that overthrew a relatively responsive and representative government in Rwanda with a ruthless minority regime and dictatorship, but responsive to U.S.-UK interests (Kagame was the only African leader to welcome the U.S. invasion of Iraq). The Rwanda and Uganda regimes were adjuncts smoothing the road for Western penetration of the DRC. The "collateral damage" of literally millions of African deaths was completely acceptable to U.S.-UK leaders.
2.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-r64R-JGUFdUTZHeGF1cDdDRWM/view?usp=drivesdk
"In Samantha Power’s view, and in accord with this same myth
structure, “The United States did almost nothing to try to stop
[the Hutu genocide],” but instead “stood on the sidelines”—
”bystanders to genocide.” But this is doubly false. What the
United States and its Western allies (Britain, Canada, and
Belgium) really did was sponsor the U.S.-trained Kagame, support his invasion of Rwanda from Uganda and the massive ethnic
cleansing prior to April 1994"
3.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Rwanda_Secret_War.html
Rwanda and Uganda continue to benefit from high-level military arrangements with the United States. Entebbe, Uganda is a forward base for U.S. Air Force operations in Central Africa. According to the Global Policy watchdog, there are 11 U.S. servicepeople permanently stationed in Entebbe. Sources in Uganda and the DRC confirm that weapons move freely through Entebbe airport from U.S. interests.
4.
In 2007, the United States armed and trained Rwandan soldiers with $7.2 million
UN Panel of Experts implicated three major US companies for fueling war in DRC by collaborating with rebel groups trafficking coltan.
Brother Shabazz
Samuel Zalanga
kenneth harrow
philpot is an outlier, not acceptable scholarship. it isn't
apologist scholarship i am citing, but acceptable mainstream
stuff. samantha powers is correct, entirely.
sorry, you can always find people to sponsor any points. at some
point a consensus emerges. i don't know why anyone would disregard
prunier, lemarchand, the amnesty reports, the hrw reports, etc.
pottier too is excellent.
anyway, what are we doing: each saying the other is wrong. what
profit is there for others? they can decide as they want. the
sources i cited are ones i trust. the un panel of experts i trust.
uganda's military ties to the u.s., or the u.s. training of kagame, did not translate into u.s. involvement in the genocide as you imagine it. i have attacked clinton's failure to intervene for 20 years; obviously i have no interest in saying anything positive about it. on the other hand, i recognize the flaws of a scholarship that has decided who is the villain in every case, ahead of time, and refuses to keep an open mind.
lastly, mainstream scholarship on this genocide is enormous. labeling it "apologist" signifies a failure to read scholarship in a serious manner
ken
kenneth harrow
Which African country is worst at fighting insurgents?
Nigeria and Kenya get poor marks in new survey
Public approval in Nigeria and Kenya for their governments’ handling of jihadist violence is low, and citizens have a poor opinion of the security forces that are supposed to protect them, according to a survey-based report released this week by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network.
Both Nigeria and Kenya are facing ruthless insurgencies, but only about four in 10 of their citizens back the counter-insurgency efforts. That score contrasts with high approval ratings in regional neighbours Niger (96 percent), Cameroon (81 percent), and Uganda (83 percent), which also face security threats.
The Afrobarometer surveys were carried out in 36 countries at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 as face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice with a maximum +/-3 percent sampling error.
They not only reveal that citizens in Nigeria and Kenya are unhappy with their governments’ performance in dealing with Boko Haram and al-Shabab violence, but also expose significant levels of distrust in the security forces.
Out of all the countries surveyed, public confidence in the police was lowest in Nigeria (21 percent) and Kenya (36 percent) – compared to Niger, where almost nine in 10 citizens said they trusted their police.
When people were questioned on their perceptions of their armed forces, Nigeria’s military was again the worst performer, with only 40 percent of people saying they were trusted. In Kenya, the military enjoyed more confidence at 68 percent.
By comparison, 86 percent of people polled in Senegal regarded their army as reliable; in Tanzania it was 82 percent.
Big caveat
“Context really matters,” said report co-author Rorisang Lekalake. “At that time [of the surveys], there were large numbers of attacks in Nigeria and Kenya. In Nigeria, the situation was so precarious we couldn’t conduct the surveys in three northern states.”
Forty-five percent of Kenyans voted security as their number one concern, as did 39 percent of Nigerians. But the most concern was found in the middle-income island nation of Mauritius (48 percent), followed by Tunisia (47 percent).
By contrast, only 10 percent of Ugandans said they were worried, despite the country's long battle with al-Shabab in Somalia. Sierra Leoneans were positively sanguine; just three percent mentioned security as an issue.
There are large local swings in the survey results. Nigeria’s northern states, the home region of the Boko Haram insurgency, were more critical of the government’s efforts than the southern half of the country, said Lekalake. In one telling result, more than one third of respondents believed that “all” or “most” Muslim citizens support extremist groups (the north is predominantly Muslim).
Boko Haram was seizing and holding northern towns in 2014, and a badly led and under-equipped Nigerian army was demoralised and on the back foot. In the survey, Nigerians blamed government officials, parliamentarians, and the military – basically anybody in power – for Boko Haram’s success.
Unsurprisingly, President Goodluck Jonathan was dumped at the polls in 2015 – the first time an incumbent lost an election.
It’s also political
In Kenya, support for the government’s counter-insurgency efforts is highest in its biggest political constituency of Central Province (79 percent approval). It’s weakest in North Eastern Province (12 percent), which borders Somalia, and which has felt much of the brunt of al-Shabab attacks and the security campaign.
Support for Kenya’s five-year military intervention in Somalia is well over 50 percent across the country (in Central it’s 80 percent). The exception is North Eastern, where only 31 percent of people approve.
The intervention was launched to halt cross-border raids, but cited by al-Shabab as a reason for their continued attacks – including those on the Westgate shopping mall and Garissa University that killed a total of 215 people. Yet two thirds of Kenyans said the intervention “has been necessary despite the terrorist problems resulting from it”.
So what do people want their governments to do?
In Nigeria, the survey found the priorities were a strengthening of the military response (44 percent); more job creation (34 percent); outreach to religious leaders (17 percent); followed by an array of approaches, including better governance and community engagement.
“Nigeria has a much longer history of violent extremism,”
Lekalake told IRIN. “Even at the community level, people
realise that the military response can’t be the only response,
and is not necessarily the best response
Kayode J. Fakinlede
John Mbaku
Mobolaji Aluko
Some Essays on Corruption by Mobolaji E. Aluko
http://nigerianmuse.com/essays/?u=corruption_nigeria_how_why.htm
https://dawodu.com/aluko102.htm
How and Why Corruption Persists in Nigeria – And Some Simple Things to Do About It -
November 26, 2004
----------------
http://www.nigerialinks.com/Articles/mobolaji_aluko/2004/12/17-ways-of-stopping-financial.html
17 Ways of Stopping Financial Corruption in Nigeria – A Summary
December 05, 2004
----------------
http://www.segundawodu.com/aluko117.htm
Handcuffing White-Collar Corruption in Nigeria
Saturday, April 9, 2005
-----------------
https://dawodu.com/aluko119.htm
Towards Greater Transparency and Accountability in Nigeria:
Publish their Properties, Publicize Their Taxes, Prepare their Statements, Prosecute their Indiscretions
April 12, 2005
--------------------
http://www.segundawodu.com/aluko132.htm
The Rifeness and Arithmetics of Fraud and Corruption in Nigeri
February 14, 2006
-------------------
http://economicconfidential.com/2009/11/corruption-index-the-ranking-of-nigeria-from-1995-2009/
Corruption Index: The Ranking of Nigeria from 1995 – 2009
Aluko (2009)
---------------------
Best wishes.
Bolaji Aluko
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
kwame zulu shabazz
(3) The West continues to maintain substantial influence on African affairs. That needn't imply that Africans have no responsibility or agency. It does mean that we will have to take seriously both sides of the problem--western imperialism and and the selfishness of some African elites. But we have to be prepared to fight. The moment that Africans decide to use our resources for our own development, that will be moment we--following a pattern first articulated in Du Bois's work "The World and Africa"--usher in another major world war.
Brother Shabazz
kenneth harrow
hi john
i was trying to say something like this.
on point 2, no country can deal fully with their own problems,
not even the most powerful and wealthy. but no country is excused
from formulating its own policies within the constraints of the
larger world systems. between these two constraints we can try to
hold a given govt accountable, which is the impetus for the
thread. as i am a comparitist i would be interested in answers
that say which some countries manage their economies better than
others, by which i mean, not that they get richer, but are more
equitable.
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
-
Like yin and yang, the usual expression in sleaze and journalese is bribery and corruption
Strong word corrupt, as in that banishment scene Coriolanus:
“You common cry of curs!
whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I
prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt
my air, I banish you...”
In defence of endemic corruption in Nigeria, the BBC Hardtalk guest, Nigeria's then eloquent Foreign Minister Tom Ikimi speaking
Nigeria's official language responded to Tim Sebastian's endemic corruption charge by saying that the word corrupt is an English
word, created by his former colonial masters and so they must know all about it. Of course, his words fell short of being either
an explanation or a justification, let alone a plausible defence of the endemic corruption that is still bleeding his now independent
nation. He might as well have responded in like manner if charged with murder - murder being another English word created or invented
by Lord Lugard's ancestors. It's therefore, many thanks to Ogbeni Kadiri for what in virtuous Swedish is known as “klarspråk” and in post-colonial English is known as
“plain language” or calling a spade a spade, for verily the word corrupt is nebulous – for some, a little too abstract and casts too wide
a net, whereas narrowing it down to thief (plural thieves) is more specific; as Fela himself would put it, a thief is a thief is a thief is
a thief, and who is more evil than the one who says, “What's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine” Corruption is a very big word, has many departments,fortunately unlike Uganda Nigeria does not receive aid money from SIDA. The former director
of SIDA and later on Swedish Ambassador to Kenya, Bo Göransson used write articles against the endemic corruption calling it “the system”... Thievery is a system, practised by the gangs of thieves and as a system has its own constitution and modus operandi (“honour among thieves”) and
so it is that one thief will tend to protect other thieves In South Africa we have Thuli Madonsela, but sadly, Gani Fawehinmi is no longer with us and I can see no one who has yet stepped in to his shoes,
to play his role – maybe Ayo Olukotun's contributions to enlightening the intelligentsia and public conscience although unfortunately he is not
a lawyer, maybe Ogbeni Kadiri too, if he were to extend his role to beyond the confines of this forum…. (Yesterday when I checked twitter I found out that I have exactly one follower ( a macabre cartoonist ( which I found amusing)
I'm in twitter to follow (as Mr. Follow -follow - at least a follower of Moshe Rabbeinu Hopefully, Cornelius We Sweden
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John Mbaku
Abubakar Momoh
John Mbaku
Abubakar Momoh
kwame zulu shabazz
Brother John,
Yes, to the degree that we can promote homegrown solutions and push against the so-called dependency mentality (and institutions that structure and reinforce dependency), we will have tackled a major chunk of the problem. And we have some good role models. Wangari Maathai and Thomas Sankara come to mind.
Brother Shabazz
jmb...@weber.edu
Envoyé de mon iPhone
Abubakar Momoh
jmb...@weber.edu
Envoyé de mon iPhone
Ayo Obe
Ayo
Which African country is worst at fighting insurgents?
Nigeria and Kenya get poor marks in new survey
<obi_image.jpeg>NAIROBI, 10 June 2016
Public approval in Nigeria and Kenya for their governments’ handling of jihadist violence is low, and citizens have a poor opinion of the security forces that are supposed to protect them, according to a survey-based report released this week by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network.
Both Nigeria and Kenya are facing ruthless insurgencies, but only about four in 10 of their citizens back the counter-insurgency efforts. That score contrasts with high approval ratings in regional neighbours Niger (96 percent), Cameroon (81 percent), and Uganda (83 percent), which also face security threats.
The Afrobarometer surveys were carried out in 36 countries at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 as face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice with a maximum +/-3 percent sampling error.
They not only reveal that citizens in Nigeria and Kenya are unhappy with their governments’ performance in dealing with Boko Haram and al-Shabab violence, but also expose significant levels of distrust in the security forces.
Out of all the countries surveyed, public confidence in the police was lowest in Nigeria (21 percent) and Kenya (36 percent) – compared to Niger, where almost nine in 10 citizens said they trusted their police.
When people were questioned on their perceptions of their armed forces, Nigeria’s military was again the worst performer, with only 40 percent of people saying they were trusted. In Kenya, the military enjoyed more confidence at 68 percent.
By comparison, 86 percent of people polled in Senegal regarded their army as reliable; in Tanzania it was 82 percent.
Big caveat
“Context really matters,” said report co-author Rorisang Lekalake. “At that time [of the surveys], there were large numbers of attacks in Nigeria and Kenya. In Nigeria, the situation was so precarious we couldn’t conduct the surveys in three northern states.”
Forty-five percent of Kenyans voted security as their number one concern, as did 39 percent of Nigerians. But the most concern was found in the middle-income island nation of Mauritius (48 percent), followed by Tunisia (47 percent).
By contrast, only 10 percent of Ugandans said they were worried, despite the country's long battle with al-Shabab in Somalia. Sierra Leoneans were positively sanguine; just three percent mentioned security as an issue.
There are large local swings in the survey results. Nigeria’s northern states, the home region of the Boko Haram insurgency, were more critical of the government’s efforts than the southern half of the country, said Lekalake. In one telling result, more than one third of respondents believed that “all” or “most” Muslim citizens support extremist groups (the north is predominantly Muslim).
Boko Haram was seizing and holding northern towns in 2014, and a badly led and under-equipped Nigerian army was demoralised and on the back foot. In the survey, Nigerians blamed government officials, parliamentarians, and the military – basically anybody in power – for Boko Haram’s success.
Unsurprisingly, President Goodluck Jonathan was dumped at the polls in 2015 – the first time an incumbent lost an election.
It’s also political
In Kenya, support for the government’s counter-insurgency efforts is highest in its biggest political constituency of Central Province (79 percent approval). It’s weakest in North Eastern Province (12 percent), which borders Somalia, and which has felt much of the brunt of al-Shabab attacks and the security campaign.
Support for Kenya’s five-year military intervention in Somalia is well over 50 percent across the country (in Central it’s 80 percent). The exception is North Eastern, where only 31 percent of people approve.
The intervention was launched to halt cross-border raids, but cited by al-Shabab as a reason for their continued attacks – including those on the Westgate shopping mall and Garissa University that killed a total of 215 people. Yet two thirds of Kenyans said the intervention “has been necessary despite the terrorist problems resulting from it”.
So what do people want their governments to do?
In Nigeria, the survey found the priorities were a strengthening of the military response (44 percent); more job creation (34 percent); outreach to religious leaders (17 percent); followed by an array of approaches, including better governance and community engagement.
“Nigeria has a much longer history of violent extremism,” Lekalake told IRIN. “Even at the community level, people realise that the military response can’t be the only response, and is not necessarily the best response
--kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
--
Cornelius Hamelberg
Just a peripheral aside, avoiding any frontal collision with any of the ogas and alagbas.
I know that Björn Beckman ( a personal friend) is very serious about Nigeria. We are of course, all on the same side. In my humble opinion, every atom of effort against corruption counts.
The money wheel,, the main currency of corruption , is still turning. Some people call it “dirty money”. As far as I know, I have never given or taken a bribe - although on one occasion in 1981 travelling by road from Ahoada to Port Harcourt, Richard Nsiah at the wheel of his Nigerian assembled Peugeot , we were stopped by the traffic police and - it sounded like an emergency - Richard asked me sitting in the back seat if I had ten naira on me; I did, and handed it over to him and he handed it over to the police. Let the pastors be the judge. I thought he was going to ask the police constable for some change but he didn't. He later apologised and explained that in the circumstances – we would have been delayed endlessly so, it was the most practical thing to do - and refunded my money. In very similar circumstances , Mr. Prasad my Telugu neighbour at the wheel of his Volkswagen on the road to Ahoada from Port Harcourt was stopped by the traffic police. Mr. Prasad asked him, “ Are you hungry?” and he replied , “ Yes, I am hungry” whereupon Mr. Prasad opened the back door to and told him “ hop in” which the policemen did. When we arrived, Mrs Prasad prepared a nice vegetarian dinner which we devoured and with great satisfaction….
Somebody – I don’t remember exactly who - said that when Reagan wanted to recruit more Black People to join the army and to go fight his wars, it was then he would say, “ We are in trouble” - and then could follow, “what have you done for your country lately?” and patriotic slogans such as , “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." In searching for his exact words, I came across this . Did Trump really say that?
Unless asked by the omniscient and omnipotent , such as when He asked Cain who had just murdered his brother Abel, “ What have you done ?”, the question is an irritant and is bound to rebound on the accuser – because it's an enormous question and we all know that with regard to corruption it's not a mere matter of scholarly research and erudite tomes that may eventually filter through to at least partially corrupt decision-making bodies and their judiciaries, in corruption-ridden countries - or some miraculously redemptive conclusion such as “or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?” - or the second coming of Jesus of Nazareth (after the trials and tribulations of Hitler and the next anti-Christ - according to Christian and Islamic apocalyptic literature when the final showdown will take place at the Battle of Armageddon - the defeat of Satan and his apostles to be followed by one thousand years of peace and a world liberated from corruption. Until then, as the tribe of Shabazz would say, a luta continua !
In the political dialogue on a national scale it can sometimes be ironic, such as one non-corrupt person asking another non-corrupt person, or indeed asking a thieving chief of staff/ commander-in-chief himself, “ What have you done and what are you doing to kill corruption?”
Like Caesar, some African president
or the other could well say and mean it too: “Danger knows full
well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two
lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.”
Some of them the guardians and protectors of corruption.
Whereas Tom Ikimi decided to go on the offensive with the etymological approach – where did the word “corrupt” begin – the then President of Sierra Leone Ahmed Tejan Kabbah tried to dodge the question by pretending to be helpless. The question that Tim Sebastian asked him on the same BBC Hardtalk programme was, “ People are saying that you are like a toothless chimpanzee in tackling corruption” - to which Kabbah replied - “ You cannot eliminate corruption 100%!” Here's a partial transcript of that dialogue
The questions about corruption equally apply to other ECOWAS countries, including Kalabule Ghana and Sierra Leone, where significantly the current two term president Koroma campaigned on a platform of “ZERO tolerance for corruption” and won. Since then, some big heads have rolled , but if we are to believe Emerson, some sacred cows are still roaming free, along with rumours as to who is the king of corruption.
Kelfala Kallon : The Political Economy of Corruption in Sierra Leone ( 2004)
kenneth harrow
interested still in this account of bayart's work
here are the opening words of the African Affairs' review of Bayart's
Politics of the Belly. pub. 1994 African Affairs: 93 (372), july1994.
"Every now and then, something comes along that changes the way in which
we think of our subject."
the review is really an astounding evaluation of its importance. i
recommend folks who are interested read it, read about longue durée,
and the rest of what bayart does, following braudel. and then tell me it
isn't really important scholarship.
there is no text that is above criticism. but there are criticisms that
we take seriously, and others we don't.
ken
On 6/11/16 5:21 PM, 'Abubakar Momoh' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:
> Prof. Mbaku,
> I will explain. Your approach to corruption is too liberal, unilinear
> and descriptive, rather than critical, complex and Pluridisciplinary.
> Jean Francois Bayart is one of your recommended core texts for us on
> corruption and you gleefully cite him for us to read; but what does
> his book "Politics of the Belly" tell us about the reality in Africa?
> Nothing but pure fiction: so-called politics of "chopping". Is that
> what politics is all about in Africa? Even if taken from a statist
> point of view?
> You may have written tonnes of books on corruption in Africa, but
> let's be very modest about the claims we make: you are not the oracle
> on corruption in Africa and we have not heard the final pronouncement
> on the subject and above all, your reading list on the subject of
> corruption is not the most engaging and critical. I find it
> strange that you cite such unserious scholars as your core texts on
> corruption in Africa.
> Also, your way out of the corruption question is too legalistic and
> simplistic. And l find this unacceptable, as a student of the subject.
> Abu
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
kenneth harrow
again, this bounced earlier. a response to cornelius's heartfelt message
ken
cornelius,
the solution to corruption is not purity, is not personal
purity. there is a large-scale economic system in place that
functions with the powerful making arrangements to suit their
own interests; if you bribe a cop or not you aren't going to
change that. whether what you did is right or wrong is between
yourself and your conscience. i would not condemn you for it,
by no means
ken
Just a peripheral aside, avoiding any frontal collision with any of the ogas and alagbas.
I know that Björn Beckman ( a personal friend) is very serious about Nigeria. We are of course, all on the same side. In my humble opinion, every atom of effort against corruption counts.
The money wheel,, the main currency of corruption , is still turning. Some people call it “dirty money”. As far as I know, I have never given or taken a bribe - although on one occasion in 1981 travelling by road from Ahoada to Port Harcourt, Richard Nsiah at the wheel of his Nigerian assembled Peugeot , we were stopped by the traffic police and - it sounded like an emergency - Richard asked me sitting in the back seat if I had ten naira on me; I did, and handed it over to him and he handed it over to the police. Let the pastors be the judge. I thought he was going to ask the police constable for some change but he didn't. He later apologised and explained that in the circumstances – we would have been delayed endlessly so, it was the most practical thing to do - and refunded my money. In very similar circumstances , Mr. Prasad my Telugu neighbour at the wheel of his Volkswagen on the road to Ahoada from Port Harcourt was stopped by the traffic police. Mr. Prasad asked him, “ Are you hungry?” and he replied , “ Yes, I am hungry” whereupon Mr. Prasad opened the back door to and told him “ hop in” which the policemen did. When we arrived, Mrs Prasad prepared a nice vegetarian dinner which we devoured and with great satisfaction….
Somebody – I don’t remember exactly who - said that when Reagan wanted to recruit more Black People to join the army and to go fight his wars, it was then he would say, “ We are in trouble” - and then could follow, “what have you done for your country lately?” and patriotic slogans such as , “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." In searching for his exact words, I came across this . Did Trump really say that?
Unless asked by the omniscient and omnipotent , such as when He asked Cain who had just murdered his brother Abel, “ What have you done ?”, the question is an irritant and is bound to rebound on the accuser – because it's an enormous question and we all know that with regard to corruption it's not a mere matter of scholarly research and erudite tomes that may eventually filter through to at least partially corrupt decision-making bodies and their judiciaries, in corruption-ridden countries - or some miraculously redemptive conclusion such as “or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?” - or the second coming of Jesus of Nazareth (after the trials and tribulations of Hitler and the next anti-Christ - according to Christian and Islamic apocalyptic literature when the final showdown will take place at the Battle of Armageddon - the defeat of Satan and his apostles to be followed by one thousand years of peace and a world liberated from corruption. Until then, as the tribe of Shabazz would say, a luta continua !
In the political dialogue on a national scale it can sometimes be ironic, such as one non-corrupt person asking another non-corrupt person, or indeed asking a thieving chief of staff/ commander-in-chief himself, “ What have you done and what are you doing to kill corruption?”
Like Caesar, some African president or the other could well say and mean it too: “Danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.”Some of them the guardians and protectors of corruption.
Whereas Tom Ikimi decided to go on the offensive with the etymological approach – where did the word “corrupt” begin – the then President of Sierra Leone Ahmed Tejan Kabbah tried to dodge the question by pretending to be helpless. The question that Tim Sebastian asked him on the same BBC Hardtalk programme was, “ People are saying that you are like a toothless chimpanzee in tackling corruption” - to which Kabbah replied - “ You cannot eliminate corruption 100%!” Here's a partial transcript of that dialogue
The questions about corruption equally apply to other ECOWAS countries, including Kalabule Ghana and Sierra Leone, where significantly the current two term president Koroma campaigned on a platform of “ZERO tolerance for corruption” and won. Since then, some big heads have rolled , but if we are to believe Emerson, some sacred cows are still roaming free, along with rumours as to who is the king of corruption.
Kelfala Kallon : The Political Economy of Corruption in Sierra Leone ( 2004)
kenneth w. harrow
Toyin Falola
Cornelius Hamelberg
Ken,
Lest I forget, since you have not mentioned him: sssssssssomeone to rave about and highly to be recommended ( I'm reading it just now and – pure nostalgia, as he carries me back to Port Harcourt :
Jowhor Ile : And After Many Days !
On this second day of Shavuot, taking in Trump's reaction to the massacre in Orlando and bearing in mind Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair's words,
"Heedfulness leads to cleanliness; cleanliness leads to purity; purity leads to abstinence; abstinence leads to holiness; holiness leads to humility; humility leads to fear of sin; fear of sin leads to modesty; modesty leads to piety; piety leads to the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit leads to the Resurrection of the Dead; and the Resurrection of the Dead comes through Elijah blessed be his memory, amen” ,
Ken made me tremble just now by hypnotic suggestion and by remotely beatifying me and my conscience with the prospect of purity, personal purity of the kind that does not bribe a cop (no never) but conscience nevertheless may wink or blink at a wench - one of the reasons that makes me very uncomfortable with Jesus saying that even if you just look at her, you have already committed adultery in your heart, when perhaps you were merely appreciating beauty , as in “beauty is truth , truth beauty” and “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”
Please excuse my saying so , but the fact is and Teju Cole makes this clear in his “Every Day Is For The Thief”: rampant corruption has become all-pervasive and inheres in the fabric of society , unfortunately it has grown to becomes part of the the woof and the warp of naija culture. The oxygen of the entrepreneurial spirit I wonder if Donald Trump could do business in Nigeria and survive without it.
Fact is that there are still a few inspirational stories such as this one and there are many Corneliuses in Nigeria even if we are vastly outnumbered by super-predator, bribe-taking Nigerian cops, not to mention thieving bank managers. So far I have about five great stories to tell about corruption in Nigeria. My first encounter was when I gave my wallet containing about £1,500 to Sonny Orlu an acquaintance ( working for AGIP) to keep for me, as we set off from his home to enjoy a night out in Port Harcourt; I didn't want to carry that amount on me, and in the morning (at his place ) he returned a very thin wallet - my heart sank when I saw it – he said that someone must have stolen the contents which he had hidden somewhere. On my next visit he had bought a new fridge and a new sound system etc. and I became suspicious, but we remained friends.
If it was bad then, back in 1984, when Buhari took over and together with Tunde Idiagbon started to implement one of the solutions known as WAI ( War Against Indiscipline) and it was in the middle of this War Against Indiscipline when the Nigerian Naira was still pegged at the £1 sterling rate of exchange that the Savannah Bank Manager was not afraid to request that I give him £3, 000 sterling, so that I could take out my gratuity money as per my contract with the Rivers State Government; what could it be now – how bad, now that it's 283.26 Nigerian Naira to the British £sterling and foreign exchange is even much harder to come by? I could have reported him to Mr. Effebo ( Deputy Commissioner of Police or to the then Chief Justice of Rivers State who I first met at a party in my second week in Nigeria and who two days before leaving Nigeria, wanted me to take a suitcase of his as my personal baggage and to deliver it to a relative of his who was living in Göteborg - I didn't even mention the débâcle with the bank manager to him because I believed in the bank manager, that if I didn't give him £ 3,000 it only meant that I wouldn't get my money immediately, and that it would take “ a few months”...
China has Confucius , the US still largely has the protestant ethic , Northern Nigeria has the Quran and Sunnah, our Yoruba have Olodumare whilst the Igbo brethren with whom I broke bread for more than three years , they have Chukwu and Jesus of Nazareth, but I must inquire further from Ogbeni Kadiri who often lectures me on Yoruba morality (that in the olden days the world's oldest profession did not obtain in Yorubaland etc.) how corruption has been able to make inroads in the ancestral Yoruba sections of post-colonial Nigeria.
In Sierra Leone in the early 60s of the last century Sue Spencer an American Peace Corps volunteer was deported because of a postcard that she had written and which appeared in her book entitled “African Creeks I Have Been Up “ in which occurred the statement “ Every Sierra Leonean is a potential thief”
I think that in the early years of Independence, when British influence still lingered probably because of some of the reasons given by Bernard Porter here, “the withdrawal of the ‘discipline’ that British imperialism provided.”etc., Sierra Leoneans were more nationalistic than they are now. At Independence it was less of a rat race since it was two leones to the British £ Sterling. It's now 5611.74 Leones to the British £Sterling.
Your thesis that it's inevitably part of the global economic system , it's genesis in Chomsky's What We Say Goes // Saint Augustine's story of Alexander and the pirate again, IMF imposed structural adjustment programmes currency devaluations, etc. impacting on the domestic , and causing mass poverty etc. We know that the predator cop returns home to his wife and family of five at the end of a day's work only to be greeted by the witheringly look from his wife, the same story , money palaver - so he changes into his evening work clothes traffic police uniform and stops the first car being driven by some foreign looking bloke, at Mile One (driving licence, brakes, insurance lights, and so, to collect five naira and by midnight he has collected maybe fifty , enough for tomorrows family meals, school clothes, school books, school fees, ) and so in his own defence – and man must survive, like the pirate, he says ( in the words of Mr. Chomsky):
“That reminds me of the story of the emperor Alexander and his encounter with a pirate.
I don’t know if it happened, but according to the account from Saint Augustine, a pirate was brought to Alexander, who asked him, How dare you molest the seas with your piracy? The pirate answered, How dare you molest the world? I have a small ship, so they call me a pirate. You have a great navy, so they call you an emperor. But you’re molesting the whole world. I’m doing almost nothing by comparison.2 That’s the way it works. The emperor is allowed to molest the world, but the pirate is considered a major criminal.”
Perhaps a mass purge of the most corrupt elements in the land would set a blood-chilling deterrent that would have the desired effect on those who still want to steal billions of naira?
kenneth harrow
thanks for the recommendation of the novel, cornelius. much appreciated
as for corruption, and purity. well, maybe they are in two different languages. the "rampant" corruption that cole evokes in his novel seems overblown to me. i can't speak for it, but in my last few trips to nigeria nobody hit me up for a bribe. however, i guarantee that even w a visa you won't get into mauretania, not counting the airport, without paying a bribe, and it i s particularly annoying since the visa cost more than $200.
i showed the listing of transparency international, and that more than 30 countries are more corrupt than nigeria. what are we really talking about? the corruption in doing business, which is one thing, and seems on a worldwide scale to seem to function marginally outside of either the law or morality. think of the words, "the cost of doing business."
think of the other example i gave, teachers receiving no salary
in the congo. relying on students' payments simply to survive.
there is too much to consider, esp when one takes into account the discrepancy in wealth and living conditions between the rich and poor, the rich countries and poor ones. all that has to shape our thinking.
lastly, the tedious condemnations of africa that fault african countries for corruption, with no consideration of local conditions.
this is not intended as an excuse for corruption. it is like everything; we have to understand it, in its complexity, before making blanket condemnations.
hag sameach
ken
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-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu