CORRUPTION has been described in many ways; some see it as a monster threatening to tear any society apart right from its roots; others say it is a quagmire in which the more one tries to extricate oneself, the more one sinks, yet other people have described corruption simply as a gross act of financial insincerity and indiscipline which often starts in a subtle and innocuous way until it becomes uncontrollable like a wild fire which destroys everything in its path.
Corruption has also been described as a dishonest or illegal behaviour, especially of people in authority. In their publication “Institutional Working Divination of Corruption,” Obert Chinhamo and Gabriel Shumba defined corruption as “the abuse or complicity in the abuse of private or public power, office or resources for personal gain.” Corruption can also be seen as moral perversion, depravity and dishonesty, especially bribery.
“Corruption threatens peoples and their governments. It makes societies unfair,” S.C. Bansal stated in his publication “causes of corruption,” adding that “there is no more power engine of injustice and cruelty, for bribery destroys both faith and state. The serious consequence thus is not only state capture but also mind capture.
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The World Bank specifies corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain.”Experts in the field of anti-corruption and anti-grafts activities have thus suggested that corruption does not and will never exist in isolation. They have suggested that for an act to be termed “corrupt,” there has to a collusion, a kind of an agreement or contract between two or more parties.
For example, the act of embezzling public funds by a public officer becomes an act of corruption if such a public office holder colluded with at least one other person to carry out this act with a view to sharing such embezzled money in a certain proportion.
At this juncture, it is worth mentioning that corruption does not have to do with an illegal exchange of money for favour only (bribery), rather, it is also used to describe any action that goes against accepted norms, ethics and values of dignity and integrity. For example, when expensive gifts such as cars and houses are given in exchange for a favour illegally obtained; it is an act of corruption. Also, lecturers who demand to sleep with their female students in return for high scores which they don’t merit, are not only morally perverse but also corrupt.
Types of corruptionLike a hydra with many tentacles, corruption is known to exist in many forms and in different parts of any nation.
Wikipeadia has however identified the following as the common types of corruption:
Political corruption: This is the abuse of public power, office or resources by government officials or employees for personal gain. For example, by extortion, soliciting or offering bribes.
Police corruption: This is a specific form by police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, or career advancement for police officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing an investigation or arrest.
Corporate corruption: This, according to Wikipeadia, involves corporate criminality and the abuse of power by corporate officials either internally or externally.
Corruption is like an ogre whose monstrous strides are not limited by tides and climes. This perhaps explains why virtually every nation of the world has devised various means of battling this monster (the most developed and advanced countries of the world as well as the developing and underdeveloped ones have varying degrees of corruption). However, many statistics and indexes on corruption have shown that corruption is surreptitiously skewed and tilted more to a section of the world — Africa.
For example, according to the 2010 corruption index released by Transparency International, a non governmental organisation that monitors and publicise corporate and political corruption all over the world, corruption is more prevalent in those continents of the world where underdevelopment is still low and where the rule of law is still at its lowest ebb.
According to the index, which is on a scale of one to 10 (10 means the least corrupt nation and one stands for the most corrupt), no African country is among the top 20 list of the most transparent (least corrupt) countries of the world. The top 10 list includes: Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore which scored 9.3 points each to jointly rank first, Finland and Sweden were given 9.2 points, Canada had 8.9 points, Netherlands 8.8 points, Australia and Switzerland both scored 8.7 and Norway had 8.6 points.
The index adjudges Ghana as the least corrupt country in West Africa, after scoring 4.1 points to emerge 62nd in the world and Nigeria scored 2.4 points to occupy 134 position in the world. The index further shows that many African countries actually scored far below the average point of five. Does this ugly trend not throw open an invaluable question which is begging for answer — is Africa not currently the cradle of corruption? The reasons for Africa’s seeming high susceptibility to corruption is not far-fetched – poor leadership.
Africa is a continent where the rate of infrastructural deficiency is high and which depends on the so-called first world countries for financial aids for many of its development programmes, not because it is not blessed with human and natural resources (as a matter of fact, not many of the vastly developed and industrialised countries today have the kind of natural resources Africa is endowed with), rather, because of the gross mismanagement of such resources by many selfish and corrupt leaders that have, at one time or the other, held sway in the continent.
At a time in an African country, there was a leader that was reported to be richer than the country he was ruling. He had an enormous wealth, yet, his country was enmeshed in abject poverty.
One major reason many African leaders seem to have high affinity for corruption is because they all seem to have excessive power and authority which cannot be easily or readily checked; such power and authority often make such leaders to have an almost unrestricted access and control of their nations’ resources, wealth and treasuries. This also makes it quite possible for such leaders to abuse their power and offices.
This perhaps explains why Africa has the highest number of leaders who at one point or the other ruled their countries for decades when, in actual fact, such countries are not known to be practising Monarchy system of government. Such leaders easily and dubiously manipulate their lawmakers so that their constitutions and laws can easily be manipulated so as to give room for the perpetuation of such leaders in power at the expense of development and growth in their respective countries. Any cry for a change in such countries is easily suppressed. Another common means of leadership is for leaders to either conduct bogus elections or continuously rig their way back to offices.
This high penchant for self-perpetuation has seen Africa producing controversial leaders who ruled for decades and yet their countries were notably impoverished. There was Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Lasana Conte of Guinea, Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, among others. Currently, there is Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffi, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (a country that has the highest inflation rate in the world) and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso. Recently, Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo exhibited this trait of self-perpetuation when he swore to continue as the leader of the little West Africa country when it was glaring that the electorates did not vote for him in the 2010 elections in that country. Indeed in Africa, it is almost an unheard tale of leaders resigning due to corruption.
Sadly, Nigeria with its vast human and natural resources, has an image that has somehow become synonymous with corruption. Corrupt practices such as bribery and extortion even from regulatory agencies, embezzlement, misappropriation of public funds, ghost working and other corrupt-related crimes such as advanced free fraud (419), yahoo yahoo (internet cyber crimes and scams), among others have added Nigeria to the list of world’s most corrupt countries.
Suffice to say, cases of corruption often involving international companies and which run into several billions of naira have not helped matters. The Siemens and Halliburton scandals readily come to mind.
Those scandals become aggravated due to the fact that, so far, no meaningful conclusion has been reached nor anyone brought to justice. Recently, corruption and crime in Nigeria took a new twist when some data capturing machines that had barely landed and which were brought into the country for the 2011 general elections suddenly vanished under the watchful eyes of security agencies. It has not been an absolute tale woe for Africa, as some countries have shown that their is hope for Africa.
Country like South Africa and Ghana have exhibited traits of good leadership. They do not only have promising economies to show for it, they both relatively have good anti-corruption ranking by the Transparency International, as earlier mentioned.
Effect of corruption:At the 2010 World Anti-corruption Day, United States of America Secretary of State, Mrs. Hilary Clinton, said, “corruption stunts economic growth, damages confidence in democracy and fosters a culture of graft to operate in an interconnected world.”
The United Nations’ Secretary General, Mr. Banki Moon, also when commenting on corruption, recently, said, “corruption acts as a hidden overhead change that drives up prices and erodes quality without any benefit to producers or consumers. Preventing corruption makes good business sense.”
In her opinion, Cecilia Malmstrum, European Home Affairs Commissioner, stated that “corruption undermines democracy and drains economy. It is not a victimless crime.”
In a recent presentation entitled “Infrastructure in our education institution,” Mallam Rabe Darma, Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), said “Corruption has affected Nigerian education. None of the Nigerian universities is in the 400 ranking.”
In his own opinion, Mr. E.E. Imohe, Minister and Head of the Economic and Commercial Desk, Embassy of Nigeria, when delivering a speech entitled “Nigeria’s Progress in curbing economic corruption,” in Washington DC, USA, listed the effects of corruption as negative economy impact and negative national image. The negative economy impact, according to Imohe, include loss of much needed revenue and discouragement of foreign investment which leads to decreased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). “Nigerian banks lose viable business and economic growth is stifled which results in development failure,” he declared.
The negative natural image, in his view, are diminishing national prestige and respect. “Nigerians are treated with suspicion in most business dealings,” he stated.
Thus, according to these experts and others, the negative effects of corruption can be summarised as poor economic growth, increased poverty level and negative image.
Curbing corruptionCorruption is a monster which every nation must take decisive action to deal with. “Every country has a role to play as we work to advance our collective anti-corruption agenda and institutionalise the highest standards of transparency. Together, we can ensure the integrity of our markets, improve our government institutions and increase opportunity and transparency for all our citizens,” said Mrs. Clinton.
Malmstron declared that “corruption is a crime that must be taken seriously and that must be fought by all means and all levels.”
Therefore, every arm that makes up the society must rise up to the challenge of curbing corruption. Such arms include:
The family: Since the family has been described as the basic unit of a society, transparency must start from there. Parents should bring up their wards to place value on integrity and dignity, and parents themselves must practise such. Virtues that will transform a nation positively can be bred and instituted in every family. Charity as the adage says, begin at home.
Religious bodies: It is somehow ironical that the most religious continent — Africa— is also the most corrupt. Also, Nigeria, reputed to be one of the most religious countries in the world (a fact attested to by the number of Christians and Muslims in the country) is one of the most corrupt nation in the world. This, to a large extent, shows that the tenets of these two religious, which both condemn corrupt practices, have been taken as mere rhetorics. Therefore, religious bodies must constantly harp on the need for their faithfuls to remain transparent.
Clerics must always ensure that the bulk of their messages are such that unequivocally condemn corruption; not messages that are merely meant to arose human sentiments and emotions.
Formal institutions: Schools, right from the primary level, should ensure that pupils are taught to embrace the virtue of sincerity and truth. Schools’ curricula should be structured in such a way that moral and patriotic behaviour are taught. For example, books that encourage positive attributes should be included in the lists of books for the young ones.
Judicial System: The judicial system must be such that encourages speedy dispensation of justice.
Nobody should be a sacred cow. Courts must dissociate themselves from anything inimical to integrity. Anyone found guilty of any corrupt act must be dealt with according to the dictates of the law.
Government and government agencies: The role of the government is clear in the fight against corruption, there must be proper accountability. Everyone that occupies any government position must be made to account for his/her period in office.
International bodies such as the UN and the World Bank as well as their affiliates also have a role to play. They must put more structures in place to expose and vilify any government official found to have embezzled public funds.
At this juncture, some of the efforts of UN to combat corruption across the globes are commendable.
For instance, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Global Compact are believed to have recently launched an anti-corruption e-learning programme, which is an educational online programme.
Genocide is not only the crime against humanity, corruption also is. It crushes the efforts of past heroes, makes mockery of the sweats of present ones, but worst still, it endangers the future of generations unborn. Embezzlement causes embarrassment and graft prevents growth.
From our streets to the senate, from individual families to big organisations, from tiny communities to giant nations and from the most secular places to the religious centres, transparency must be nurtured and groomed because it is corruption’s worst enemy and, therefore, the most effective tool in fighting it
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