Corruption, religion and ethnicity, diminishing our unification

There has been a fundamental failure from each administration that has come into the political powers of this nation.  Part of the failures stems from the delivering good governance, which includes the provision of basic social amenities to the public. Rather than performing and delivering on their electioneering promises, they are busy amassing wealth (public […]

There has been a fundamental failure from each administration that has come into the political powers of this nation.  Part of the failures stems from the delivering good governance, which includes the provision of basic social amenities to the public. Rather than performing and delivering on their electioneering promises, they are busy amassing wealth (public funds) for themselves, building empires at home and abroad and going on expensive vacations. 

While the failure reigns, corruption strives on the other hand. However, amidst the efforts deployed by past and present governments to combat the monster, the issue is not getting any better as new techniques of corrupt practices resurface into the system. The question that begs for answer has been, how much longer do we have to fight corruption from one administration to the other while there are other fundamental issues threatening our peaceful coexistence? 

Corruption is now like a culture, and culture is simple the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, cutting across religion, language, cuisine, social habits, arts and music. These characteristics that make up culture are right morals. Perhaps the only reason why corruption is not listed among in clear terms is because it is morally wrong practice that is not acceptable in any society. 

Prevalent in our system is political corruption that has been a persistent phenomenon in Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari once defined corruption as the greatest form of human right violation. Since the creation of modern public administration in the country, there have been cases of official misuse of funds and resources. 

Corruption has eaten so deep into our system that hardly will you find a Nigerian who is free from the act. Out of over 190 million people (Nigerian population), may be only about 5% of the citizens can boast of not indulging in one or two acts of corruptions. It is a daily routine in our system but that does not give room to legalise it or term it an acceptable practice because it is unacceptable and must be clamped down. However, this cannot be achieved in one day but conscious efforts should be employed toward ameliorating the practice. 

While corruption has constantly posed a threat to our economic and social stability, there are other issues that have eaten deep into the marrow of this nation. These problems day by day threaten the existence of the entity called ‘Nigeria’. These twins, ‘ethnicity and religion’ are the mother of all problems acting as the malignant causing anarchy and acrimony in the land.  

Our multi-ethnicity and religious sentiments have played greater threats to the unification of our nation, which has affected our seemingly irreconcilable differences of priorities, visions and aspirations. Before the attainment of independence, Nigerian nationalist leaders from different regional, ethnic, and religious communities came together in a series of conferences and parliaments to discuss a common future and self-government.  Then we could co-exist and chat a common course. But the case is ostensibly different as we only co-exist in words and not in reality. We have become so drunk with self-centredness   of religious and ethnic resentments and bigotry that some people tag Nigeria ‘the mistake of 1914’ while others say that Nigeria is ‘a mere geographic expression’. 

These resentments have made us to lose the brotherhood that once radiated among compatriots giving rise to nonchalant attitudes toward one another, public offices and resources. It has led to lose of value for human lives; we have witnessed massacre of humans, mismanagement of national resources, and misrule by multi-ethnic and multi-religious coalitions of successive governments since independence.  All these have impoverished the critical mass and denied them of basic social amenities. 

At this junction of ‘things fall apart and the centre cannot hold…’, we need to reawaken the brotherhood that united the fathers of this nation. We need our present day government to choose to stand for the common good of all Nigerians irrespective of faith, tribe, and political affiliation. We need a government that will commit to infrastructure for all, investing in roads that unite, the bridges that link and the railways that connect. A government that will shun corruption, discourage religious and ethnic sentiments. A government that will encourage the growth of SMEs and empower her people to be productive exploring the natural resources in the land. 

Nigeria is our home; we can’t begin to run away from our land to foreign lands where we will be strangers.  We should crave for a government that will be committed to investing in equal economic opportunities for all Nigerians to bring about inclusion because devastation does not discriminate between north and south, east and west. We all like brothers must rise to reflect on the words engraved on our national coat of arm – ‘UNITY AND FAITH, PEACE AND PROGRESS’; these will remind us of what we stand for as a people. 

We must be deliberate to rise against hatred and embrace brotherhood. We must learn to tolerate our differences, which make brotherhood interesting.  We must take a critical assessment of ourselves and come up with the truth in order to heal the system and get result for the kind of Nigeria we desire. If these are neglected, we will continue from year to year, decade to decade and century ahead to discuss about these same problems. We must collaborate to overcome all these issues and fix the system in order reap the benefits of good governance thereby bequeathing a better nation to our children. 

Adejumoh wrote this piece from Lagos