FAGRO FLAYS: Why we need to steal more!

Sola Fagorusi

In Wale Adebanwi’s Paradise of Maggots, he tells a story of how himself and the country’s arguably distinguished anticorruption czar were at an event on corruption and financial crimes in London (I think) and Nuhu Ribadu had confidently told Adebanwi how sure he was that the name of Nigeria would crop up. Adebanwi had thought he was taking it too far with his belief that Nigeria’s case of corruption was a classic. Few minutes before the end of the programme, Nigeria’s name found its mention at the programme.

Despite letter ‘N’ being far from ‘C’ we have managed to make Nigeria and corruption one and same. The day Nigeria does away with corruption, then we may as well be on our way to being the real giant of Africa in terms of development and all other indices with which to measure it. Until we fight the behemoth ogre called corruption we may as well continue to kiss our dreams of development goodbye.

I learnt a German who once resided in Nigeria briefly and had foreknowledge of the country’s wealth exclaimed that if he was the president of Nigeria, he would fence this country! Now this is in relation to the huge deposit of natural resources beneath and on top of our soil. With about 1,200 illegal borders around the country, we are far from being fenced not to mention the illegal borders from the MDAs with which resources are stolen or frittered away.

Anyone with his or her head resting appropriately on the neck would have offered thoughts for this country at some point. It’s sad that this is how far we have managed to reach after that glorious independence we had in 1960. We continue to crawl when others are already running. We offer to sleep when some other nations refuse to hug sleep again. Nigeria literally continues to move at the camel’s pace when others are doing so at a Boeing’s pace.

The day Nigerians install leaders who profoundly dislike corruption and ensure that others do, that would be our point of Eldorado! If only we got our leaders to understand that it is cheaper for them to use the money on the appropriate things rather than use it to line their pockets and in more recent times use it to line the inner portions of their caps.

The schools at all level are in terrible states especially when compared to what it used to be in the glorious years. And this is how it works for the average family. The head of the home and provider needs to make more money in other to ensure his or her kids have good education. I paid N1,090 on admission at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. This was not in the 80’s or 90’s. The year was 2001. I got value for my money and also got accommodation in addition. Today, such would only happen in dreams.

The poor health care services in the country means one needs to make more money or steal more money because of care in private clinic or as is now the norm, the cost of getting healthcare in Germany, London and the United States. Our civil servants and public officials need to steal more money because security is almost non-existent in the country today.

You need to mount high walls around your home. You need to pay for burglaries around your windows and door. You need to buy and manage wild dogs to guard you. They need more money to do all this. Imagine the cost of building a house without all the security features included.

Because the roads are bad and then nobody cares that other means of transportation should be readily available for a 170 million population, you need to steal more money to get a private jet. You need to make more money to get a jeep that would successfully move without feeling the effect of the numerous potholes and sometimes the ponds and wells in the middle of the roads! It would be cheaper if government simply fixed things for us all – the water ways worked, trains are available to almost all locations in the country and the airways are well managed according to international standard and the roads are excellent.

You need to steal more money because you are sure that it is difficult to have a good life after retirement and so you need to keep more for the days ahead. Perhaps, that was Tafa Balogun’s thinking. Before now, it was retirees from the civil service that were contractors.

They simply registered companies and went back to the ministries they had worked and asides earning from their pension, they were given contracts to execute and get busy with. The political class have since hijacked the process. Our ubiquitous ‘pure water’ was reportedly conceived to be a business for retirees and it was government initiated until again whoever was supposed to managed the registration processes let in others and what we have today is different.

Knowing that it is even possibly that you queue in old age for your pension, then you need to prepare ahead and steal more money. Therein resides pretty the justification for corruption if one is to play the Devil’s advocate.

A developing country is not one where the governor becomes a renowned ‘Donatus’ as in case of Akpabio Godswill. A developing nation is not one in which private jets is the preferred choice of air transport.

A developing nation is not one in which the sons and daughters of the senator are not the classmates of the people they lead but rather that of citizens of other nation. A developing country is not in which a sizeable population when asked of their profession reply you with the word – politician. Until we begin to understand that it is cheaper for us as a collective to get things right and not continue to find ways to beat the system, then we may as well have to continue to steal more to meet our daily needs.

This is my debut on Jarushub, it’s two years before we get another shot at telling the story again with our votes. I hope to flay on this page the things that trouble us as a nation and evenly tender the much needed solutions.

@SolaFagro on twitter