Hello there, this is @drceeyou here and I am writing in response to the prompt for the weekly contest. This is week 9 and this episode would be number 3.
The subject is bribery and corruption, and I am going to be talking about it as it affects me in my country, Nigeria. The subject of bribery and corruption is truly a very old subject. Since I was a kid, I have been hearing about bribery and corruption. We even covered it in social studies and in economics in school.
Growing up, names like "The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt practices and other related offences commission (ICPC) were the common names. They were the people in charge of catching criminals who were involved in Bribery and Corruption. In fact, a certain president, in his campaign speech made it his mandate to wipe out corruption when he would come to power, but that never happened.
Nigeria seems to be a place where the government is run by people who are baptized in greed, washed and groomed in selfishness. It is no longer a thing that is done in the background to avoid being caught. Usually, even the regulatory agencies in charge of ensuring that these criminals face the wrath of the law are neck deep in bribery and corruption themselves.
It is a sad reality that there is literally no government establishment where corruption is not seen as the norm. In fact, a friend of mine wanted to get some approval for a project that he was embarking upon. It was a big project so he needed the necessary documents from the government. After he had done all that was required of him, he was told that he needed to "settle the OGs" or else his project would bite the dust.
It was truly appalling to think about. When he tried to protest, the very question that was shot at him left him speechless.
Don't you know that this is Nigeria?
Meaning that, this is Nigeria where you have to settle the OGs or you would run bankrupt. This is Nigeria where you have to run back channels to be able to get anything reasonable done. This is Nigeria where it doesn't matter if workers are being owed salary of 18months, as long as the "Ogas at the top" are sharing the national cake. This is Nigeria.
I was on my way back from work one evening and I saw police men stop the cab I was in. They began to maltreat one of the passengers because he said some words that didn't agree with them. Then they told him to come down and started to treat him like a criminal for no just reason. He was shouting about his right, saying that he had done nothing to deserve the kind of treatment he was getting, but all that fell on deaf ears as they continued to handle him very roughly.
In late, 2020 youths in Nigeria began to protest about the inhumane treatment they were getting from a part of the police force called SARS. It was tagged the "end SARS protests". It was a wave of various protests across the country. But what happened? Soldiers opened fire on unarmed peaceful protesters as they were protesting. It would forever be known as the "Lekki toll gate massacre". Surely, the command to open fire on unarmed civilians came from someone at the top. Some corrupt official who wanted to cover his tracks.
The Mindset
If I am to talk about bribery and corruption, I could write a whole book on the subject. But one thing is most certain, there is a mindset among Nigerians that sponsors bribery and corruption. It is a culture among the Nigerian people. It is a strong influence, one that is extremely difficult to fight. Most people who fight against it end up fighting themselves, or worse, dead.
It is a way of thinking that is ingrained deep in the mind of Nigeria. It is one that always wants the back door. The mindset that wants to get anything a person wants at any cost possible. The legal system, the judicial system, the legislative system, education, health, every single sector is built with this mindset. It's so common that even the common woman that sells pepper in the market thinks that it is normal for her to pay a tip to get her goods safely to her shop.
Children whose parents are well to do pay their classmates to help them do their assignments or exams. I have even been a victim of this. I helped a classmate copy his notes for a fee. That might not be bad, but I have heard that parents pay teachers huge sums to help their children pass exams using back channels.
Lecturers collect bribe from students to pass them in their course, Lecturers requesting sexual intercourse as remuneration for giving a student an A in his course. The list goes on and on. It is a mindset that is in the very heart of the Nigerian populace
The Panacea, The way out
The truth is that it would take an insanely long time to deal with bribery and corruption in Nigeria. It is not impossible but it sure as hell is difficult. It's like the whole of the Nigerian population need a brain reset. It's like getting everyone to drop a thought pattern, for some, they've held unto these beliefs for years. They wont just accept to drop them.
Some people have gotten everything they have through bribery and corruption. Giving it up means that they might have to give up everything they have and probably their source of livelihood. So the process of getting bribery and corruption out of the populace needs to be a gradual and subtle one.
First, the people of Nigeria are in a pretty bad shape economically, and this has being a major driver of bribery and corruption, apart from greed which I would consider the number one force that sponsors bribery and corruption. Nigeria would therefore need a leader that can take extremely difficult decisions to get things back on track. A very decisive person with next to zero tolerance for corruption.
If the economy is fixed by decisive measures set in place, then less people have a reason to bribe or be corrupt. Secondly, proper punitive measures for those who are caught involved in bribery and corruption would serve as a deterrent to the whole population. Not behind the scenes or closed door punishments. Public and Open rebuke for the culprits caught. That is the only way to get the population sensitized to avoid bribery and corruption.
Finally, proper systems set in place to remove absolute power from one person, giving it to a board or committee would prevent people from making inane decisions. For example, the ability to fail or pass a student should not be left to the whim of one person, it should be a consensus agreed upon by a group of lecturers. That way, a lecturer cannot tell a student...
If you don't sleep with me, you will fail my course.
That way, if the student fails the course, it would be because the student deserved to fail, not because one lecturer somewhere wanted her to fail. Also, accountability systems for everyone set in place at certain times that are difficult to avoid would ensure that people do their work as they should do and not pay someone else to do their work for them, for example.
That's all for now. I hope you gained some value.
Stay Jiggy.