CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA: AN INCURABLE DISEASE?
According to the Oxford dictionary, Corruption is defined as, acting dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. Other synonyms of corruption are deprivation of morals, evil, putrid. Some other unpleasant words are used in explaining it. In real sense, corruption is not expressed as something good. Hence the strives to bring it to the minimum if not totally eradicated by every nation that admonishes good governance for the betterment of her citizens.
Corruption in my country is synonymous to the HIV/AIDS pandemic which has claimed incalculable number of people worldwide. Researches have been made and results out. Only the causes of the terminal virus have been found but the cure to it has remained unknown to the greatest of researchers cum scientists. Everybody seems to know its causes but the cure has been the greatest concern of researchers. Everybody knows what corruption is, yet nobody wants to take responsibility or ownership of its occurrences in the country. Many would say, it is largely perpetrated by the Leaders and other would say the followers are to be blamed for its emergence. Like the HIV/AIDS and some other terminal diseases where causes are attributed to certain acts or activities of persons and factors, corruption suffers the same blame.
One noticeable difference between Corruption and this terminal disease is that people living with the diseases are being discriminated against but the people ''living'' with corruption are being celebrated. Many of our past leaders have been alleged and found guilty of the charges and allegations made against them but today, they are as free as the Noah's dove. Some of them came out of their so called ''prison'' to celebrate with the stolen monies. The one I can easily recollect is the man that was sentenced to 2 years in Jail after stealing billions of Nigerians' money. He earned his release after spending some of the terms in the Hospital in the guise of being medically unfit. The same man came out and started spending the money he was accused of stealing. This is just one of the many examples that you and I know. Our Government is even so magnanimous that it gives national honours to some of them. Some got '' State Pardon'' for acts that got many people into penury and hunger-related deaths.
Corruption is a disease that is eating deep into the fabrics of our economy just like the HIV/AIDs pandemic which eats deep into the immune system of its host. Since trials have been made with no landslide success especially with the huge investments committed to it, it seems the solution to it comes with the cure for HIV/AIDS which is still not certain.
My concern mainly is the concentration on the fight against corruption in the country which in itself is adding to the counts already established. I wonder how corruption can be killed when a man that has been accused of 25 counts of Bank and Securities Fraud got 6 months imprisonment and a man that has stolen a Cell-Phone of less than =N=50,000.00 got stiffer penalties. Our Judiciary has a lot to do in this regards. ''Why do you keep a bird purposely bought to lay eggs in the farm if it lays no egg?''. Let us not forget that our children have started asking probing questions and we are frequently involved in puzzles as to the answers to give them. Habi, what is the answer of the modalities of the judgments given above? Would you tell them that the former was only lucky or do you have to let them know that the judgment was status based?
Nigerians, let us all come together and do the right thing. It is not only the Government that is guilty of the corruption in the country; we are all guilty of it. The earlier this is established the better for the coming generation. Let corruption be a thing of the past like is being achieved on Polio and not HIV/AIDS that is still incurable.