Why Nigerians must key into Buhari’s anti-corruption fight
By Prof. M. Muazu Nguru This time I am not going to enumerate President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements, because they are crystal clear, barefaced and indisputable. Even his opponents have noted this despite their denial of the facts intentionally and out of envy. The acknowledgment of our African leaders and that of the American President […]
By Prof. M. Muazu Nguru
This time I am not going to enumerate President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements, because they are crystal clear, barefaced and indisputable. Even his opponents have noted this despite their denial of the facts intentionally and out of envy. The acknowledgment of our African leaders and that of the American President availed and sufficed.
Therefore, this writing concentrates on one issue to mark PMB’s three years in office – anti corruption fight which has elevated Nigeria among the comity of nations.
The word corruption has multiple synonyms, e.g. breach of trust, bribery, crime, extortion, exploitation, thievery, fraud, demoralization, graft, malfeasance and so on and so forth. It also implies, moral perversion, depravity, lack of integrity and rottenness of behavior.
To most people in Nigeria, when this word is mentioned, their minds will quickly go to malfeasance and embezzlement of public funds by the government functionaries. To some of us only government employees could be corrupt. They confined the meaning of the word to who steals public fund whether civilian or otherwise.
Yes, there is no iota of doubt that Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Bribery and stealing of public money are the order of the day; they are our normal way of life. The embezzlers became attractive and model of life, for accountability is absent.
Nevertheless, in this write-up I will like to draw the attention of my fellow Nigerians that, not only the above mentioned categories of people are corrupt, for this act has permeated all the segments and the strata of our society in this country. Many Nigerians are involved in this ugly act, both the illiterates and the literates, men and women are alike.
In our dear country, corruption exists among the motor park and the street touts, among the Pastors and the Imams, the university lecturers, and the school teachers, the shepherds and petty traders in the markets, the grocers, traditional rulers, roadside mechanics, carpenters, parts of all these are involved in corruption. Polygamists among the Muslims who do not deal justly with their wives, or Christians who have only one wife but deal with girlfriends outside are committing crime. Prostitution and witchcraft are crime too, for they are immoral behaviors. Among Sheikhs and Reverends or Pastors are those who use their position to exploit their followers. I know this for sure. Make-up artists too are included, their work is to apply cosmetics as to cover birthmark and give false impression of beauty. This is a deception.
Journalists are also not left behind. We saw this obviously towards the end of the last administration, how some of them departed and abdicated their ethics and moral principles. It was as if NTA was not a national media that belonged to all Nigerians but belonged only to a particular government or to a particular person.
Journalism is an occupation of reporting, writing, editing etc., if it becomes corrupt, that will be very dangerous, for it can instill hatred and inject animosity to the minds of brothers and sisters of one nation and one destiny like Nigeria. Journalism is a dignified profession, therefore it should remain as such. By and large, as a university lecturer, I will like to give example from the universities. Today many of our Dons do not do their assignments as lecturers very well. No sincerity and honesty or dedication to duty. Their primary assignment has become a secondary one. Some of us do not attend to their students until the end of the semester, then they will come and rush the students to cover a syllabus made for three months or so in only one month. All along they were running after NGOs chasing money. No good supervision, no good marking of homework, no time for questions and answers. No proper focus on what they teach.
The Federal Government allowed lecturers and professors to go to two universities as visiting lecturers, in addition to their mother universities, but some of them do more than that at the expenses of their students of the mother university. Selling of handouts to students compulsorily, chasing of female students by some and taking bribes from student to pass them in their exams are delinquencies and immoralities.
I know very well that lecturers are not paid very well in Nigeria. One cannot compare Nigerian lectures to that of many African countries, e.g. South Africa, Ghana and Algeria. We have scores of Nigerians who are technologists, technicians and scientists, in various fields living outside the country. These qualified brains do not want to come home, for they will not be given befitting salaries and wages. In some circumstances in Nigeria, a politician, councilor of local government who is a secondary dropout is better, and has more regards than a university professor of medicine.
However, those of us who remained at home should not use this posture as a pretext or as an ostensible reason to be corrupt. We are academicians, we must stick to our ethics and moral principles.
Government should improve the conditions of service for all categories of teachers, right from our primary schools. Knowledge is everything, but not everything is knowledge.
Touts in our motor parks and streets sell expired and substandard products to their victims, that are if one does not care to read what is written on the product. Some pharmacists too do the same thing at their shops. Some housewives defraud their husbands or steal their money or property. Violence against women or maltreatment of children is also a form of corruption. Hiding files by some office attendants or messengers in the office of their bosses is also a crime.
Labourers short change their employers by not doing the job correctly or properly in his absence and at the end collect their wages fully. Some village primary school teachers take their pupils to their farms to work for them during the raining season. The petty traders in the market, particularly those who sell Irish potato, put the bigger ones on the top of the smaller ones so if one sees, one will assume that all are big ones. The tomatoes and cola nut sellers too do the same thing. Some petroleum station attendants are also corrupt.
Notwithstanding, the worst form of corruption is the embezzlement of public funds by the government employees whoever they can be, and followed by some petroleum independent marketers. This form of corruption is what is killing this country viciously and profligately.
This dreadful morbid and repugnant phenomenon is not confined to Nigeria alone. There is no country in the world where there is no corruption at all, only that the range and the magnitude are different. It is lamentable to see countries which were below us in terms of development, now are above us, e.g. Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Ghana etc. Presently, Nigeria cannot compete with Ghana in terms of progress and development, in case of South Africa, they are very far ahead of us. Furthermore, it is very disgraceful and disappointing for Nigeria to be among the poor countries in the world. Nigerians go to Ghana and Malaysia for studies because they lack confidence in our universities. We all know the reasons, for they are obvious. Nigeria cannot boast of making even AK-47 rifles, while countries like Pakistan and India are now nuclear powers to reckon with.
Nigerians must learn how to avert all forms of corruption. As such, war of attrition should be launched by all and sundry to assist PMB and his government to extricate Nigeria from the present entanglement and also from the abyss of economic decay.
I congratulate the President for successfully signing the budget after suffering unnecessary, unessential, and embarrassing delay from the National Assembly.
Prof. Muazu Nguru is the
Director and Chief Executive, Nigeria Arabic Village