WHY IS NIGERIA CORRUPT? (PART THREE)

Our judiciary is one of the major donors to the impediments in the fight against corruption. Corruption cases are unduly elongated at the courts till they get erased from

the public memory, people who are accused of stealing billions of our commonwealth are hastily granted bail of tokens against the crying eyes of public opinion, morality and legality. More worrying is the newly acquired canopy of plea bargain that is now shielding corruption and corrupt individuals from the showers of justice.

In this journey, the train of blame stops at the doorstep of we Nigerians. Nigerians have for long now been throwing ‘spanners in the wheel of progress’ in the fight against corruption, knowingly and unknowingly, direct and indirectly through our actions and inactions. Ethnicity has torn the garment of our conscience into pieces and we have ignorantly refused to sew them together. Whenever a prominent person {especially our kinsman} is charged for allegations of corruption, we raise the dust of ethnicity, making breathing almost impossible for the law.  Theses needless ethnic and religious sentiments have cultivated a fertile ground for the breeding of sacred cows that our tribes men cannot be prosecuted if the government in power does not have the same ethnic, religious, political and regional affiliation with us; without we raising our eyebrows.

To the government, the common principle is “what money can’t buy, more money will buy”. Our political landscape is flooded with those whose biographies are stained with allegations of corruption {embezzlement and misappropriation}. In consonance to this is the laundry list of over bloated government contracts that are seen and heard all over the country, with the weir wind of uncompleted projects impairing our eyes from having a vista of Nigeria.

All these infamous reports have succeeded not just in giving us a name tag of corruption but also in devaluing the brand called Nigeria. We are always ranked by the transparency international corruption index as one of the most corrupt countries in the world slightly above renowned corrupt countries like Pakistan, Eritrea etc. those carrying the Green {Nigerian} passport are embarrassingly singled out for extra scrutiny by the immigration officials in foreign countries not just in Europe or America, but also our African brothers who ordinarily should be looking up to us as their ‘big brother’. The comments of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe about corruption in Nigeria is an attestation to the fact that corruption has and is killing that giant in the name Nigeria.  The revelation by the Us government that over 150 billion us dollars have been stolen from Nigeria over the past decade is one biter truth that can cripple the patriotic spirit of any citizen in the world. Corruption has turned Nigeria into an unfortunate sick man who is not responding to sickness, yet has refused to die. 


written by Justice Agan

twitter: @Aganjustice

Read more of my articles on www.justiceagan.blogspot.com