CORRUPT OFFICIALS SMELL LIKE VILLAGE HE-GOAT
Do you know that a corrupt person smells, perhaps worse than a full grown, long-bearded village he-goat?
Besides, corrupt public officers smart enough to escape the eagle eyes of the ICPC and EFCC, are likely to contend with the more drastic law of Karma. This explains why some children from wealthy homes suddenly run mad in the streets.
These were part of the scary revelations made by Prof Chinedum Adiele, the Abia State Umpire for the National Anti-corruption Volunteer Corps (NAVC), a programme of the ICPC, in a paper he presented recently at the inauguration of the Rivers State Chaplaincy of the Corps in Port Harcourt.
Starting with the lexical definition of corruption, Prof Adiele said a corrupt person smells. Quoting the New Webster's Dictionary that describes the act as 'changed from a sound to putrid state', he told his crowd of listeners that, 'putrid here means decaying, rotten, where dead animals are dumped'.
Adiele spoke of the terrible fate that awaits looters of public treasury even when they escape the long arms of state laws.
'Philosophically speaking, what it means is that if you are a corrupt person and maybe you have not been caught by either ICPC or EFCC, the law of Karma must catch up with you one day.
'Have you ever pondered over some young men from well-to-do homes who run mad in our streets, others with one nemesis or the other? It is simple. When you loot money that is meant for thousands of people to better yourself and family while others suffer, at the end of the day when you expect your children to be useful to you, you will be terribly disappointed. Why? Because whosoever (that) destroys in order to succeed, will meet destruction at the door of his success'.
Describing corruption as a wicked act, Adiele alleged that, 'most of the past governors from the East are richer than the states they governed' adding that in some states, people are dying of hunger and starvation. He recalled a recent incident in a state capital when a pregnant woman slumped and died while going to see a family friend for assistance.
Also, the NAVC state umpire said corruption was mainly to blame for the high level of unemployment in the country where employees who qualify for retirement falsify their ages to prolong their stay in service.
'Our teeming graduates are unemployed because those who are due for retirement have continued to falsify their age declaration. Managing directors, managers, directors, supervisors, etc, are now in the habit of yearly swearing of affidavit of age declaration. How can the young then grow?'
Adiele, who described a corrupt person as a depraved mind, did not spare the audience in his condemnation of corrupt officials.
'As you are looking at me, most of you are sitting on some people's promotion and entitlements. Pensioners die in tens on monthly basis waiting for the money they laboured for many years. What is more wicked and devilish than that? Whether you like it or not, corruption is not just dangerous, it stinks. If you are part of it, you better change now. What you make from corruption gives a temporary solution to everlasting problem.'
He reasoned that it takes a depraved leader or chief executive to fix workers' salaries in a bank account 'when the workers are gnashing their teeth' or ignore the tears and starvation of the masses and continue to enrich himself.
On corruption in the nation's education sector, the top academic regretted that examination malpractice has fueled what 'Exams malpractices have led to multifarious crimes in the society. Most of the crimes like armed robbery and kidnapping are perpetrated by so-called graduates. It has helped in producing paper qualification graduates without commensurate enterprising and entrepreneurial skill in personnel options.
'Exams malpractices have led to the death of numerous innocent people in the hands of quack doctors, nurses and other health providers'.
Adiele recalled a case in a hospital at Ekeakpara village where two medical doctors allegedly cut open a woman who went for appendicitis operation but could neither trace the ailment nor suture her.
'The woman, at the point of death, was rushed to another hospital. Those quack doctors have their certificates and passed out as medical doctors, only to set up hospitals that are suicide squads'.
He said: 'some of these half-baked graduates have even ventured into academic settings, having unsuspecting students at their mercy, only for them to be roasted in the academic den by their shylock tutors'.
He told the story of a lady who passed out from one of the nation's first generation universities with Second Class (Upper Division) in English Language, 'but cannot write an application letter'.
He wondered what the country would have been like without such anti-graft outfits like the ICPC because, 'most of the governors would have sold their states and traveled abroad'.