To Kill Corruption In Nigeria…Try Legalizing Criminality -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

Being a morally decrepit country, one of the ways that Nigeria has managed to get by was by encouraging the belief in the mindset of anything goes. It is great wonder why a people would consciously allow a system of anything goes and still expect to have a country where the system worked as if it was Singapore or China or even the USA. It is the Golan height of illiteracy and stupidity for a people to expect to have theirs cakes after eating. Without the slightest intent to embellish, this country’s story of decay is as simple as eating your cake and not having it back.

Question: why will a political leader amass wealth just for occupying a public office and then turnaround to give their support to the EFCC to harass and to hound you into detention for being an internet fraudster or what’s commonly called a yahoo-yahoo? Political leaders are supposed to be persons whose emotional and social quotients are at equilibrium. Forming the bulk of what I called moral or behavioral quotient, these two quotients are expected to define who is or who is not supposed to be given a leadership position.

It is therefore hard to understand why this is not taken into consideration during elections. In one of my previous essays, I posited that Nigeria as a country has gone past (in decadence) the stage where one president (or during the reign of a political party in power) would correct the rot that has so eaten deep into the fabrics of Nigerians. Expecting a president to pull such a feat is tantamount to self-delusion. My argument was simply based on the fact that a thief cannot preside over the judgment of another thief nor can the blind lead the blind.

So long as the moral foundation is out of order; any effort at building on such a foundation (without working to put it back to order first) amounted to vain labor. Before the #EndSars episode, this country witnessed the chase of internet fraudsters by both the EFCC and the police. It got to the point that persons with laptops or iPhones were tagged as suspects and arrested. The POS device was carried about by the SARS officers with the intent to have their terrified ‘suspects’ transfer monies from their accounts to the ‘SARS account’.

Then, in the name of government or official clamp down on criminals; another criminal empire was rising! Armed to the teeth with government-approved weapons, the operatives of the EFCC and the police brutalized persons at will and fed the media with as much lies as they could cook up. Until the citizens got smarter and began to use their mobile phones to film or take photographs of these operatives and have those uploaded on the internet. Fast forward to now: The police claimed to have disbanded SARS and the EFCC has got a substantive chief.

Will anything change; especially as the moral quotient of Nigerians remained in the low? Wouldn’t it be easier to legalize criminality since morality is still too low and, to have it become the antidote to corruption? Let me give an instance. Betting as a vice began back in the days when life was good. Parents prevented their children from engaging with it and whoever patronized a betting parlor incurred the angry scorn of neighbors. Fast forward to the present, betting is no longer seen as a vice but as something noble to engage with. Why? What changed?

Notice that betting didn’t really change. What had changed was the society. The framework of society which included the availability of good employment opportunities had collapsed as a result of the collective greed of society; giving way for hobbies previously considered to be vices to now assume a noble look. Ever wondered why people are not able to keep secrets? When you say to them: do not tell, they go ahead to tell. Why? They told because they believed that that gave them social currency and made them important in the eyes of other people.

But when you told them to tell; they never did tell. Why? They never told because they believed the information was already public knowledge and telling it might make them to look stupid. People’s belief that nothing of value was cheaply available was the mindset. Now, if you legalized stealing and made it cheaply available to steal from another; you would’ve created a situation where everyone was on guard instead of being on the lookout for who to steal from. If we legalized criminality; those who applauded the idea will eventually sue for its revocation!

For a country where the citizens preferred to be shown a sign or a proof before they can understand that fire was indeed on the mountain; to kill corruption just like that will certainly draw bad blood. I am reminded of the efforts of some goodhearted Nigerians towards sensitizing the electorate against voting for CHANGE in 2015. Those individuals drew bad blood and made enemies everywhere. Fast forward to 2019, the same goodhearted Nigerians became the heroes while the sign-seeking Nigerian electorate turned out to be in a haste to get rid of their CHANGE.

Let me show you in another instance where this principle proves its efficacy. Notice that the motivation to sacrifice for the country is dead with many Nigerians. Why? Nigerians have come to realize – since mediocrity became the modus operandi – that sticking out one’s neck in an effort to sacrifice for the common good wasn’t worth it after all. So? Everyone’s disinterested. They tell you: why would I die for this country? Or why would I work for the baboon to chop? But if there was reward for effort, would the attitude be different? Yes. A million times, yes.

All too often, it takes anarchy or war for folks to understand the value of law and order. It takes the disaster created by mediocrity for folks to realize the value of merit. It takes bankruptcy for folks to know the value of prudence. The immense decay of the Nigerian system occasioned by acute corruption cannot be corrected by a miracle. Not when Nigerians see corruption as a lifestyle! The best way to stop corruption (if you asked me again) is to legalize criminality or allow for anything goes. Allow it to thrive without official or legal interference.

That way, I see Nigerians (both the mighty and the masses) come out in desperate willingness to stop it because they can now see the value of selflessness. A ruler wanted his kingdom to adopt a certain strategy against an invading foreign army that would not only bring immediate benefits but also long-term gains. He tried to convince his people but they wouldn’t bulge. He tried to coerce them but failed. He applied official brute but it didn’t work. Then he decided to abdicate the throne for whoever could manage the strong-headed, visionless and adamant people.

For more than 15 months, he watched from where he abode in asylum and saw how the people began to suffer untold hardship. The foreign army had invaded the country and taken it for themselves. No one except this ruler could mobilize the army in defense of his people. Incidentally, he was away and in a very safe place. The people sent emissaries upon emissaries but it was after another full year had passed before he accepted to come back. By that time, not only had the strong-headed and the influential families who opposed him fiercely been killed; their foot soldiers had willingly surrendered to brutal oppression.

Heartbreaking stories of corruption and abuse of public trust that emanated from government circles (both at the state and federal levels) almost on a daily basis are prompting many to ask questions like: what’s the difference between a Mr. Hushpuppy and a Mr. Ibrahim Magu or a Mr. Invictus Obiwanne and a Mr. Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf? If embezzlement and advance fee fraud are forms of stealing or corruption, then why would the politician steal and, turn around to make laws that criminalized fraudsters but exonerated looters of treasury?

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh; curator for DiscourseNigeria.com writes from Abuja. 08062577718