Perhaps some brake would have been applied to the level of corruption in the three arms of government if we had a more vibrant press committed to probity and accountability in governance. Unfortunately, and for various reasons, the media have fallen short of expectation in the performance of their role. Firstly, the poor and often delayed wages of many journalists make them dependent for survival on gratifications from some of the most corrupt individuals who they should ordinarily scorn. Secondly, the poverty level in the country limits newspaper circulations to uneconomic levels making publishers dependent on advertorials from governments who they appear hesitant to offend. Thirdly, many practitioners, like most of their fellow Nigerians, are very timid, unwilling to stick out their neck to probe the excesses of government, for fear of arrest and persecution. The media have therefore in practice imposed a sort of censorship on themselves which even the recent passage of the Freedom of Information Act is not likely to remove too soon. Many leading journalists are more than willing to offer themselves as promotion agents to the very people who are routinely milking our nation dry, in return for gratification.The corruption that has engulfed the fourth estate of the realm has spread like a virulent cancer to the entire populace, down to little children. If there is any one culture that binds all Nigerians today, it is the culture of bribery, corruption and cheating. Money has become our national idol and must be acquired without any qualms as to the means. The culture of hard work and honesty with which many in this hall were brought up, right from their childhood days has been supplanted with that of quick wealth with minimum toil. So, as politicians loot the national treasury, bankers loot their bank vaults and people in different positions of trust and responsibility corruptly exploit those positions for personal enrichment. Even the children cheat massively in their examinations, funded by their parents and assisted by teachers and supervisors who want to make some quick money.With the society so totally corrupted, to be caught in the act of corruption is no longer a stigma. Publicly paraded looters get a lot of sympathy and are often embraced as local heroes and adulated rather than jailed and ostracised. In the midst of such large-scale personalisation of national wealth with impunity, how can we have the resources to provide good governance, and wherein lies the incentive for any leader to seek to provide same'The inescapable conclusion from the scenario I have painted above is that unless the twin problems of the cost of governance and corruption, and other problems which time has not allowed me to expatiate on are tackled with all seriousness, Nigeria will continue to move inexorably towards a failed state status. Because of all these problems and the failure to address them, we have become, 51 years after independence, a laughing stock to the world. A nation very richly endowed but with majority of her people abjectly poor; a nation whose government can no longer provide essential services for her people; a nation that has negligently permitted its critical infrastructure to collapse and cannot rebuild them because of corruption and incompetent, selfish leadership; a nation that contributes next to nothing to the global stock of good and yet is one of the most avid consumers of the most luxurious goods that other nations produce; a nation fast approaching the state of anarchy through a large scale, poverty-induced breakdown of law, order and security; a nation which, regretfully, has now become a living testimony to the incompetence of black leadership. Soon, Nigerians will be thrown into unfathomable deprivation by being made to pay for the incompetence and corruption of their leaders, through the removal of the so-called fuel subsidy.How can we get out of the woods in respect of profligate recurrent government expenditures and unbridled corruption, which are of immediate concern' At this juncture, many of the remedies which have been prescribed over the years are worth repeating.In respect of the bloated expenditures of governments, the oft-repeated remedies include the reduction in the number of employees in the Presidency and governors offices; abolition of the security vote; the abolition of jumbo allowances to legislators and a number of ministers and ministries; more efficient utilisation of staff; rationalisation of the number of parastatals; curtailing the frequency of travels, seminars, retreats and workshops by public officials; reduced estacodes and other travelling perquisites of public officers and the maintenance of strict controls over the number and use of official vehicles.At the sub-national level, the six geo-political zones should become the federating units and only they should have full cabinets, while the present states should revert to the status of provincial administrations with only skeleton staff. Demands of minorities within existing states who feel cut off from their kith and kin should be accommodated through boundary adjustment rather than creating new states for them.The solution to the corruption problem is simple if there is the political will and that is to punish corrupt and shame the corrupt. The president must position himself to be able to do this by setting a high personal standard of discipline, probity and accountability. We must reform our judicial system to dispense criminal justice swiftly and equitably and do away with the obnoxious, alien practice of plea bargaining. We must remove from the constitution, the clause granting immunity from prosecution to the president and governors while in office. The need for special courts for the speedy trial of corruption cases has become very compelling. Culprits of corruption offences must be stripped of any titles or national honours that they hold and be ostracised from all official public functions after their release from prison. All public officers, including judges and legislators should be made to declare their assets annually, and have such declared assets verified. Citizens should be encouraged to blow the whistle against any public officer suspected to be living beyond his or her legitimate income. Legislators must be barred from awarding contracts.All the remedies proposed above are not new. They have been canvassed to ruling governments repeatedly over the years. The 2005 National Political Reforms Conference made similar recommendations. Our leaders are simply too deeply involved to want to effect any change. It is interesting that instead of thinking of ways to reduce corruption, the President is pushing for a single tenure for the president and governors, a measure that will in fact, increase corruption. A single tenure obviates the need for the executive to give account of his stewardship for re-election purposes and effectively grants him a free licence to loot as much as he chooses, while in office. Let us hope that it will not require an Arab Spring type of offensive by the people to compel change in the country.ConcludedExcerpts of a lecture delivered by Dr. Okurounmu to mark the annual reunion activities of the Government College, Ibadan Old Boys Association, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, recently.
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