If you are a gritty and grinding devotee to the risky business of unmasking hyenic corrupt behaviours of men and women in the balconies of power anywhere around the world, you will easily recall the name, Marc Rich. In global business circles, Rich was known as “the ambassador of corruption.” The billionaire oil trader is now no longer with us in this realm, but he will always be remembered anywhere in the world as a greed geek and fraud freak. The late Swiss King of Oil had his fingers in many dirty deals from where he found and made his fortune.
His lucrative and unpublicised dealings with Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, Fidel Castro of Cuba, war-ravaged Angola, and hate-hewn apartheid South Africa, were among his gold mines. Rich was also a big and heavy ruthless reach into the sleek and crude oil business in Nigeria where he made big-name friends. His access to who-and-who mattered in the country was unfettered. And if anyone qualified to be dubbed a big business friend of Nigeria over many decades, it was Marc Rich. After years of dealing in oil and living as an umpire of all that was corrupt and deceptive in the sleek industry in Nigeria, this was how Rich summarised his many years of business experience in the Giant of Africa: “Nigeria is the global capital of corruption.” The global icon of corruption himself must have known a lot about how government businesses are done in Nigeria. He must have seen and participated in tons of filthy deals.
In my opinion last week, I expressed that corruption means nothing more to the politically connected and powerful Nigerians than a necessitous way of life that adds to life and living. To these species, it is an abnormality not to steal public funds. In all crevices of our daily lives, corruption has thrived since Nigeria became a confusion and convolution in 1914. It is an understatement to declare that at this time in our nation, things are not well for most Nigerians because of the menacing Godzilla. Even holy places are now wholly immersed in the baptistery of crippling corruption. Nigeria has turned into an armada of mess and a flotilla of frivolities and flippancy because of the vice. Corruption is a life-ending endemic we must end to survive as a nation.
Corruption has cost us reverence around the world. If you reside abroad or have reasons to take trips outside of the shores of Nigeria for business, this may sound familiar. United States journalist Ann Coulter said these words when she visited Lagos many years ago; “Nigeria, for example, leads the world in criminal enterprises. Every level of Nigerian society is criminal, with the smart ones running Internet scams, the mid-range ones running car theft rings, and the stupid ones engaging in piracy and kidnapping. At the University of Lagos, you can major in credit card fraud.” Outlandish rhetoric like this did not start today. The late US retired General, Colin Powell, had once reportedly publicly referred to all Nigerians as “crooks.”
In 1992, a Washington Post Foreign Service correspondent, Keith Richburg, threw this salvo of insolence in a statement; “Welcome to Nigeria, world capital of the business scam. Shake hands but be sure to count your fingers.” Billionaire Black-American media mogul, Oprah Winfrey, once called Nigeria “world’s most corrupt nation…All Nigerians – regardless of their level of education – are corrupt.” When her ‘godson’, Barak Obama, was president, she went further to suggest that the US severed diplomatic relationships with the country.
No nation develops beyond the capacity of its public service. Many Nigerian civil servants make us proud by working hard daily. They take strong stands against profligacy and corruption; and they detest unpatriotic elements in their midst. But a big chunk of the cuddlers of corruption in Nigeria are in the civil service. To most of them, corruption is like a ventilator they can’t disconnect from if they want to stay alive. It is a life-sustaining addictive medicine they can’t wean themselves from. The atmosphere corruption creates suffocates a system. Whatever good road is built with corrupt builders, corruption will destroy and make it impassable. Any house that corruption builds will soon come down in quicksand. A marriage consummated in corruption will soon consume both the bride and the groom. Nothing good can ever stand strong with corruption as the foundation. No country can make progress as long as corruption is king.
Nigeria lost an estimated $400bn to illicit financial flows between 1960 and 2018. This was attributed to corruption, trade mispricing, tax evasion, money laundering, and other illegal activities. In one transaction a few weeks before the 2015 election, a sum of $294m (about N106bn then) was taken out of the treasury by unnamed men in power. You will also recall that three Nigerians with political power and connection made away with the sum of $3bn in the Strategic Alliance Contracts with the then Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Production Development Company under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan. These men are driving Rolls Royce all around Abuja and Lagos, and many are still connected to power.
Let me just be fulsome a bit with this hypothesis. If comeuppance for evil acts of corruption by government apparatchiks is the death penalty like it is in China, Nigeria will swiftly deflate in population from about its present 200 million people to about 1 million in one week. Many will become candidates for the hangman and his noose. How many Nigerians with power will be standing if cases of corruption are not swept under the filthy cover-up lap robe? Corruption is a monster eyes cannot see, hands cannot touch, but ears have heard since I was born over 60 years ago in Nigeria. Its hazardous and crippling effects have always been felt by all since the nation came into existence as a convolution. It is the Goliath we wrestle, and the nasty and nauseating monster which has millions of demonic agents dispersed everywhere in Nigeria’s rendezvous of power. Corruption is a life-ending endemic we must end to survive as a nation.
A court in New Jersey last week ruled that nearly $9m (N117bn) stolen under Goodluck Jonathan should be repatriated to Nigeria. These funds, meant to procure arms to fight terrorism in Nigeria, were seen by mean and vile men as booties and freebies they had to share among cronies. Do you wonder why terror and terrorists have an upper hand in Nigeria? I don’t know the solution to Nigeria’s quagmire. When you think one strategy will work and then the same worsens the whole situation. Writing about corruption on pages of newspapers is a fruitless effort. Will people in power ever stop stealing? I don’t see it. Do you?
