Our problem is the system

My jaw dropped. I guess yours probably did too when you read in the papers last week that the former controller-general of the Nigerian Customs Service, Abdullahi Dikko, has so far returned N1,040,000 to our national confers. His mansion in Abuja is worth N2 billion. Our rich men and women are reducing our palaces into hovels. Or, perhaps you shrugged it off. What is one more highly placed Nigerian in a sickening parade of those who could not resist the temptation to feather his own nests at the expense of the nation? By the way, I think I should stop my jaw from dropping each time the EFCC shows up with a top Nigerian who is not what we thought he was. I might lose my jaw, you know. It won’t be funny.

Yes, the epic battle against corruption is on. Yes, President Buhari and his men are on top of it. And yes, had Buhari lost the election last year, we would forever blissfully remain ignorant of the worms devouring our apple greedily and mercilessly. And that would not have ben so bad. Ignorance does not make the blood pressure rise.

Just think of the many billions some of our fellow countrymen and women would have gotten away with. I know what the EFCC has recovered from them is only a tip of the iceberg. Whatever the commission does, bank managers would be at their beck and call for the rest of their lives. And by the way, their current status as thieves makes no dent on their social standing and that of their families. As we say in Agila, the house of shame was burnt down long ago.

I would like to suggest that we have reached a point in the nation’s longest running war at which we should at the same time turn our attention to what really makes it so easy for our top men to turn themselves into shameless thieves. It is easy to conclude that the thieves in and outside the EFCC net are greedy men who prefer riches on earth to those in heaven. This easy conclusion excuses our reluctance to interrogate the system itself.

Our system is fundamentally flawed. It creates the ways and means for people who feel so inclined to steal and steal to their heart’s content without the alarm bell going off. The system clearly is to blame as much as the greed and the thieving tendencies of individuals. Let us not forget that thievery is built into the individual DNA. Not many people would miss the chance to steal if doing so makes them live a better rather than a struggling life. Think of where we would be if we did not have religions and men and women of God warning us not to steal in case we incur God’s wrath and end up in hell. Yet, you see, the system is so flawed that the same men and women of God who preach against stealing, steal.

What but the flawed system made it possible for former inspector-general of police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, to pocket some N15 billion of money meant to enable him efficiently run the Nigeria Police Force?

What but the flawed system made it possible for John Yakhubu Yusuf, director of pension fund in the police affairs ministry to steal over N32.6 billion from the police pension fund? What a sweet irony. Part of the statutory duty of the police is to catch thieves. You would think that every policeman would be a professional human sniff dog smelling out thieves. But the flawed system allowed this man to steal while retired police officers and men were dying in queues waiting to collect their pittance in the name of pension – and other police personnel were struggling with motorists over the statutory payment of N20.00 at road blocks.

What but the flawed system would make it possible for fraudsters to steal N5 billion from the pensions unit of the office of head of service. Hundreds of Nigerian pensioners cannot be paid their pension because the money has all been stolen by those in charge of it.

What but the flawed system would allow some of our judges to desecrate their robes and gowns and greedily accumulate so much money from litigants and pervert the cause of justice in a land crying so pitifully for justice?

What but the flawed system would allow our former service chiefs to turn themselves into service thieves? Today, they are wealthy local champions. The irony of the anti-corruption stance of the military as an institution is lost on them. The poor retired military officer today is probably he who never held a political office in the military regime.

What but the flawed system would allow our armed forces who invited themselves in 1966 to take on corruption to save our country to fall into the temptation of get-rich-quick? Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu and his colleagues believed that corruption was something called ten per percent; this being what was corruptly built into the contract sum for skimming by the contract givers – governors and ministers mainly.

Corruption has become multi-faceted. It has resisted every attempt to eradicate it. The flawed system is to blame. It simply makes it possible for corruption to thrive and multiply. As I have often written, I know of no nation in the world that has done more than our country, at least lip service wise, to clean itself of corruption. I know of no country that has failed so miserably and where corruption has become a way of life. Few Nigerians are willing to do what they are obliged to do as their duty. Whoever approaches them must drop something as part of his family’s support system.

Even as the anti-corruption war goes on, nothing has changed that should give us hope that we are winning the war and a new country in which people value their honour and integrity much more than the size of their bank accounts is over on the horizon. My bet is that even as we speak, or rather in this case, even as we read, the fear of EFCC has not yet become the beginning of wisdom. The brave are still hauling in big fish. Remember the African saying: The witch flies even as you talk about her.

My fear is that if we leave the system as it is, it would completely undermine the success of this war. Remember none of those arrested or being tried by EFCC has fallen on their sword. They can even buy back their confiscated homes, hotels and other buildings now or in the near future. It has happened before. It is still happening. To prevent that and stop these men from laughing at us from the comfort of their Kuje Prison we should think of replacing this flawed system with a new system with fewer holes and less compromised.