Corruption: A Stubborn Monster

Monsters are creatures that frighten us to our marrows. It takes a courageous person to stand the presence of a monster.  All over the world, corruption has remained a stubborn monster that has repelled almost all machinery set up to fight it. As a result, it has become a thing of concern to many right-thinking individuals, and for the nations at large. It is clear that any nation that wants to make meaningful progress in terms of development must fight corruption to the most achievable level.

Corruption simply put, is a perversion or a change from good to bad. It has remained a big challenge to any government or nation. A bigger problem emerges when the leadership at the very top is not able to signal to the citizens that there is a necessity for a moral revolution such that the climate of corruption would be seen as being too costly to allow to pervade, such that the choices before people would leave everyone in no doubt about government commitment. This has to do with individuals, families, and the nation at large.

However, there are three important pillars that are capable of fanning the ambers of corruption as well as fighting it.

Credible Leadership – Corruption thrives in a society when there is no credible leadership. Credible leadership is a panacea to curbing the menace of corruption, but where the government has not been able to own up the problem of corruption to enable her to solve it, it will be very difficult to fight against corruption. Where the whole theater of public governance is having credible crisis, it will be hard to convey a very strong signal to society so as to turn it into one with a value construct that eschews corrupt behaviour. There is need for a leadership that leads and has unbridled intolerance towards corruption.

Prevention Strategy – This is concerned with the need for structural changes and institutional growth and systems and all kinds of procedural changes that would enable transparency that would lead to better and informed ways of decision-making and evidence-based approach to making policies. For instance, it is the duty of the government to make budget process of the country transparent and also build institutions for public procurement, like the Bureau of Public Procurement, and establish institutions like the office of the Account General, the Auditor General, the Public Accounts committee. There are the important structures and institutions for the structural and sectoral policy changes. They include deregulation sectors that lend themselves to markets, so that you reduce the opportunity for corruption eventually. However, an effective anti-corruption strategy requires the political commitment of the strongest and highest office of the land to be effective. Institutions are process-driven, and so take time, because it involves division of labour in the management of the economy. Take for instance, the deregulation and liberalization that took place in the telecoms sector in Nigeria, actually helped to reduce the kind of corruption the people faced in the telecoms sector, years back. If all the laws and agencies that underpin institutions like EFCC, ICPC, BPP, NEITI, etc are allowed to function at the level they should, then things will get better. The point here is that, the inputs so far made are very important, but results are lacking. People want to see results of these institutions.

Deterrence – This has to do with law and its enforcement and the whole justice system that enables you to sanction corrupt behaviour in a conclusive manner and in a manner that says that there is a cost for bad behaviour and that when bad behaviour happens; the society would not tolerate it. It is important to note that our traditional society was so punitive on bad behaviour. In pre-colonial times, a whole family could be sanctioned and declared outcasts because a member of that family stole a goat, or something else. This served as deterrent to anyone that may engage in such act and makes members of the same family to quickly expose evil. At that time, the legitimacy of punishing or condoning corruption lies within the society. Colonization brought an entirely different ways of dealing with societal evils without recourse to the culture and traditions of the people.  The disconnection between the pre-colonial culture, the colonial period, and subsequent independence, caused so much of the problems we see today in the Nigerian society. The citizens were almost alienated from the decision making in government and the public service. This helped in creating the confusion that is rocking the boat of Nigerian’s progress, especially in the areas of crime and corruption fighting. Destabilizing family norms and taking away power from the people and handing it over to the government has made the citizens to celebrate corruption. It should be noted that any time a society tolerates bad behaviour, it is in consonance with the law of demand and supply that whatever you pay for or what there is a profit for, will happen more; and so you have prevalence of corruption in a society where the cost of corruption is too low.

Corruption perverts everything about society and it is very costly because it means you are not operating at a level of allocational efficiency of your resources to enable you get the kind of outcome that would improve the quality of life of everyone.