Of Gift and Graft

Also published in Daily Trust

Certainly the very few Nigerian public and civil servants who have restrained themselves and resisted temptation and pressure to plunder the country’s resources as most of their colleagues do deserve all respect and recognition. This is because under the current circumstances of impunity and the virtual absence of appropriate punitive measures to punish corrupt officials on one hand, and the absence of appropriate reward for honesty and integrity on the other, it is obvious that nothing motivates such honest civil and public servants to stick to their principles except their sincere belief that no matter how long they evade punishment in this world they shall one day give their full accounts of how they spend every single penny entrusted to them and of course be appropriately judged accordingly.

  

Though the largely hypocritical public, who celebrates looters according to the amount of their loots, considers such honest officials too “foolish” while many people describe them as “inherently unlucky” to the extent that, as they would say, “ko a garwar mai aka tsoma su haka zasu fito abushe” i.e. even if they were to be dipped into an oil jerry can they would still come out dry, they hold on their principles anyway and continue to manage their lives within their meagre but legitimate incomes.

Nevertheless, it is unfortunately noticeable that many of such few honest officials unknowingly fall into the various traps set against them by some people with vested interests and selfish aims which they are desperate to achieve at the expense of public interests. The most common of such traps is the unnecessary show of generosity to such honest officials without necessarily attaching it with any request in return. This has always been an effective means through which many highly principled and honest civil and public servants in various government establishments are gradually lured into corruption.

To put this point in appropriate philosophical context, and before I give some of the common examples of such tricks, I intend to cite a case involving a Zakat collector employed and sent by the Prophet of Allah, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, to a town to collect their annual Zakats and bring it to Medinah, as authentically narrated by Bukhari and Muslim, Hadiths No 6578 and 1832 respectively.

The Zakat collector went and collected it in full from all the individuals who were supposed to pay it. In addition to that, the people, out of their generosity, voluntarily gave him some gifts for himself. He came back to Medinah to deliver the Zakats to the Apostle of Allah to distribute it to the poor, where he gave his full account of all what he had collected as Zakats and also showed the Prophet what the people had given him as gifts.

The apostle of Allah, who was clearly saddened, immediately climbed his pulpit and gave a short but very serious warning where he, among other things said, “How dare an employee we sent on an assignment comes back to declare that this (i.e. a portion of the collections) is for you and this is for me? Why didn’t he remain in his father’s or mother’s house to see if he would be given such gifts? By Allah in Whose Hand is the life of Mohammad, (any hired employee who collects such “gifts” ) will be resurrected in the Last Day carrying on his neck whatever he had collected be it a grunting camel, a bellowing cow or bleating ewe.”

       

In the light of this Hadith and other relevant evidences, it is concluded that a government employee is barred from accepting gifts from the people he serves, though according to some jurists he can accept it provided that it is not of any reasonable value, or if it is from a person who has been giving it to him before he got his official position, provided also that the gift is not more than the same value of gift he was giving him before.

The point is that, the sense of indebtedness that a gift taker inevitably feels towards the giver is a strong influencing factor that can influence the taker’s attitude in favour of the giver at the expense of fairness. As a matter of fact, a gift to a public official can sway him in the same way as a conventional graft does; hence it entails the same punishment in the Day of Judgment as maintained in the above mentioned Hadith. This explains why, in his particular case, a government employee in a position of influence has some very strict conditions to meet before he can legitimately accept a gift from individuals and corporate bodies.

Incidentally, going by the warning contained in this Hadith, so many people will definitely be seen in the Day of Judgment carrying “Ghana must go” bags full of cash, cars, mansions, and even “ragunan Sallah” etc, which they of course can’t justify how they got them.

    

Anyway, apparently out of lack of familiarity with this Islamic rule, many among such already very few honest civil and public servants are being compromised through gifts and other forms of fake generosity and kindness. It usually starts by arranging a reception to honour and/or congratulate a potential target to compromise. Then he is showered with gifts by some individuals and entities supposedly out of goodwill, even though prior to his appointment he might have suffered neglect under the watchful eyes of the same people who now pretend to honour him.

This is because in reality when such fake gift givers shower a government official with such gifts, they don’t actually mean to be kind to him as a person per se; instead they simply give it to him only being the person who happens to currently occupy that particular position, period. This is the reason why they immediately vanish and abandon him once he loses his position or loses out in the struggle for influence and power.

Having been able to conquer the urge to do as most of their colleagues do and enrich themselves at the expense of public interests, I believe it is much easier for such honest officials to reject any questionable gift from anybody with questionable motives and goals.