Taming the kleptomaniacs

Also published in Daily Trust

Though just two months into its promising tenure, the Muhammadu Buhari-led government has discovered some relatively few but extremely shocking instances of systematic plunder of public funds involving massive amounts of money that are staggering enough to be described as malala gashin tinkiya, as we, when we were kids, used to innocently describe any amount of money beyond our limited comprehension.

After all, obviously there are several millions of Nigerian adults who equally can’t fully comprehend the concepts of billions and trillions often attached to the outrageous amounts of public funds being stolen from the public treasury, hence they equally find the stolen amounts simply incalculable and, of course, confusing, even if they don’t say it.

Anyway, though pretty outrageous indeed, the amounts of stolen public funds officially announced so far or leaked out, are apparently the tip in the iceberg compared to the practically uncountable number of cases of monumental theft being perpetrated in the corruption-ridden government ministries, departments and agencies in collaboration with the equally largely corruption-ridden private companies and financial institutions in the country.

This highlights the institutionalized culture of blatant impunity in the country, which, by the way, doesn’t only shield the perpetrators from punishment but it also effectively rewards them with socio-political recognition for that matter; depending on the perceived or real amounts of public funds each particular perpetrator has been able to steal.

It also explains the apparent and indeed growing eagerness of the vast majority of Nigerian government employees to get any opportunity to steal public funds, knowing that they will almost certainly get away with it or, in the worst-case scenario, induce some corrupt judicial and/or law enforcement officials with some portion of the stolen money in order to evade appropriate prosecution and punishment or secure an outright acquittal for that matter, after which they will keep their ill-gotten wealth and continue to enjoy social recognition accordingly.

By the way, the absence of the provision for adequate incentive and reward for honesty, hard work and professional expertise in the country’s official and corporate system constitutes a pretext under which many otherwise honest and hardworking Nigerian government employees and officials steal public funds.

Yet, what is particularly unfortunate is the amount of social pressure that practically compels many otherwise principled government officials to engage in stealing. This is because, the very grassroots communities, which are the worst affected as a result of corruption, ironically stigmatize anybody who has had a chance to enrich himself with stolen public funds but restrained himself and lived within his legitimate income.

The foregoing, among other things, explains the particular difficulty in tackling corruption in the country, as it equally explains the country’s failure to check, let alone reverse the trend of the resultant persistent economic decline and socio-political instability. After all, prior to Muhammadu Buhari’s phenomenal political popularity and his eventual emergence as President of Nigeria, the sense of despair in the country was so strong and prevalent that even the most optimistic Nigerians had to apparently summon up extra inspirations to remain optimistic and hopeful that things would one day actually change for the better in the country.

However, now that President Buhari is increasingly proving his sincere commitment to clear up this accumulated mess, also, as his reform measures continue to yield positive results, having, for instance, successfully blocked many revenue leakages while many more others are being blocked, which is steadily improving the revenue generation and the delivery of some strategic public services, the beneficiaries of the status quo, particularly who have, over the decades,  made massive fortune at the expense of the wellbeing of the successive generations of Nigerians, wouldn’t simply succumb to the new order.

The deep-rooted culture of systematic and enormous corruption in Nigeria has produced some very powerful individuals among former military officers and civilians who, while serving as public/civil servants or in the private sector, grossly exploited their respective positions to illegally amass massive fortune in the process of which they developed intense insatiable greed, chronic and unquenchable thirst for the accumulation of illicit wealth, stopping at nothing in order to protect their individual and collective interests at all costs.

With their massive investments in strategic economic sectors especially oil and gas, banking and finance, telecommunication, construction, importation, industrial and commodity supply sectors, and also with their extensive network of collaborators among top government officials and political office holders, these kleptomaniacs will definitely find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to come to terms with the kind of reform President Buhari would like to pursue, let alone willingly accept it. 

Therefore, Nigerians and President Buhari in particular must not be carried away to completely rule out subversive plots against this promising government, which such extremely corrupt individuals definitely perceive as a real threat to their selfish agendas. After all, presumably President Buhari hasn’t forgotten, and probably can’t forget, the internal conspiracy that overthrew his military regime thirty years ago, even though he had apparently never suspected any act treachery at least from within the regime at that particular time.

President Buhari, and indeed all patriotic Nigerians, mustn’t take anything for granted with regard to the sustainability of this hard-earned change in the country’s leadership. Nigerians have had enough and can’t afford any retrogression anymore, and probably the country can’t survive it either.