“In Nigeria’s terrible state of discounted morality, extirpating the virus of corruption will take more than stepping on people’s toes . . . The proper place to start is by going to the basics.”

You begin to wonder what finally woke up President Obasanjo from the circus show and revelry going on in Abuja. Corruption, Nigeria’s national malady and its eradication has finally attracted the president’s monomaniacal commitment. It is a monster that should be done away with; he must have finally convinced himself in the dusk of his presidential tenure. Why did it take him so long to commence this war? Has he been an absentee president all along not knowing how this national tumor has grown? Yet, for this token act of staccato crusade, commentators are already applauding as if that is not what a responsible government should make a top priority in the first place. Even Nigeria’s Robin Hood of yesteryear who should become the first fallen guy in any genuine effort at eradicating corruption in Nigeria had the effrontery the other day after visiting his bete noire – Lagos, to commend Mr. Obasanjo’s anti-graft crusade. Poor Wabara, Osuji and their “hackers” who are now the guinea pigs in Obasanjo’s latest moral crusade. Tafa “Igripa omo” Balogun must have really missteped indeed for in Nigeria, as the locals would readily tell you, only those who eat their own stench publicly do get noticed and only a lousy cop who eats “alone” would end up suffering alone.

As the din of applause trail Obasanjo’s current moral crusade, his country men and women must be asking: Why and how best to fight this national monster? In Nigeria’s terrible state of discounted morality, extirpating the virus of corruption will take more than stepping on people’s toes as the president said the other day. To kill this, Nigeria’s Leviathan, heads must roll. The proper place to start is by going to the basics.

Why is corruption pervasive in Nigeria? Why do public office holders dip their hands into the public till? Why do law makers, rather than make good laws instead blithely compete for the apple pie? Corruption thrives in Nigeria because there is a fertile ground for it to germinate and blossom. People say it is the system, no, it is the people. No matter the type of system put in place, angels from heaven will not come and run it.

Political entrepreneurs, whether in the armed forces, serving or retired, have bandied with their civilian acolytes to thrive on the nation’s resources. To them, public office is a form of brokerage. As “representatives” of the people, they see government and public offices as avenues for personal enrichment. Their inability to distinguish between the purpose of government and governance and personal fulfillments has created a disturbing reality. In short, government is a huge racketeering enterprise where everyone must help him/herself. It is a simulacrum of officially-sanctioned armed bandits who share the spoils of brigandage after each successful raid on their victims. In this case, [members of the] state [are] the official gangsters. Here, law seems non-existent. It is like Al Capone becoming the Mayor of New York City or Robin Hood and his bandits joining the English King’s forces and Hood becoming prime minster of Britain.

In Nigeria, once you are “elected,” you are repeatedly told: “This is your time” meaning; “Steal, but make sure you’re not caught.” This Cargo mentality,as Sociologists would say, has produced a ferocious elite gang who has succeeded over the years in reaching a monopoly position among other competing “bandits” fighting for the national till. It does not matter which system is in place, whether through coup d’etats or rigged elections which are mere legitimizing tools, somehow the soldiers work in cahoots with their civil accomplices and so the looting goes on.

In a nation where government has lost its proper meaning or those in power don’t even understand the concept of governing, where every one must provide his/her own electricity, dig [their] own boreholes, provide security, build private schools to educate his/her kids, care about individual retirement, and must either steal or rob to provide shelter, “government” automatically becomes the route for stealing by those who can bulldoze their way, either by hook or crook into public offices. The game can be deadly indeed. Bereft of social contract policy between government and the governed, anything goes and it’s a free for all. The late Afro-Beat King Fela lyrically captured this survival of the fittest game: “Gofment sef e de, I no see dem there.” It is true. Today in Nigeria, the State and all of its organs: army, police, courts, secret police, the civil service and bureaucracy are a huge chug in the custodial web of corruption. Even organs on the margins of society who should be watchdogs of these bandits are not immune, for, in a culture where violence and unearned wealth are glorified; it is madness to be sane.

So where should President Obasanjo begin his moral crusade? He must first decriminalize the Nigerian State. That first step begins with him both as a citizen and a leader. A leader should lead by examples. That Ota Farm which he owns in the outskirts of Lagos couldn’t have been acquired by Obasanjo with his salaries as a former head of state or retired general. The man has been here numerous times and as a close chum of president George Bush, next time he comes visiting, he should be asked to be taken to Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Obasanjo’s Farm at Ota is twice [the size of] the [Bush] ranch. So, to convince the cynics, and perhaps attempt self-redemption and put his name in gold, give Nigeria a new beginning and shame even conspiracy theorists that his current crusade against corruption is not a nimble fodder for a third term bid, he should turn that Ota Farm over to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It a token price any genuine leader can pay to secure his country’s future.

As the great Nwalimu of Tanzania, the late Julius Nyerere once said, no leader can make $1 million from his own sweat or from public office without stealing. President Obasanjo therefore needs to first dance naked to convince those who have given up on Nigeria that it will no longer be business as usual. That significant step can even earn him a third term in order to properly clean this putrefying Augean stable. There are known, certified and globally-acclaimed thieves, robbers and drug peddlers in Nigeria who should be cooling their feet in jail, but are walking freely, even thumping their noses at civility with impudence. They are even plotting a comeback bid in a nation where morality has since taken flight. Perceptive Nigerians must chafe at a genuine anti-graft war shooting down minions like Osuji, and Wabara while political Anini’s and their 419 gurus are roaming freely in Minna, Kano and Lagos.

Next, Mr. Obasanjo should follow the dynamics of the Nigerian state rather than of a clique that continues to hold the nation by the jugular. The corruption monster runs amok because there is plenty to steal at the federal level. Top-down nationalism has robbed the different nationalities of their capacities to develop because the man in Abuja (it used to be in Lagos), sitting on the nation’s purse behaves like a potentate administering collective property at will. Why is there too much acrimony, mud-slinging and even war to become a senator or member of the House of Representatives? Why are politicians ready to die just to “capture” power at the center? Simple! There is plenty to steal in Abuja.

This ferocious war comes periodically when there is an “election” and the spoils of war, as bandits and robbers will tell you, are their loot. The gangsters in Nigeria call it “national wealth.” This has legitimized gargantuan corruption in Nigeria. Those who are doing the banditry see themselves as “stake holders,” a new-fangled lexicon Nigerians have now adopted and these stake-holders often behave cavalierly with such abandon . . . that [in the end] “the national wealth is everybody’s, and what belongs to everybody belongs to no one.”

So what to do? At the cosmetic level, the revenue-sharing formula should be heavily skewed against the apex power. The federal government has no business in some of the businesses she is currently enmeshed. In both axiological and ontological terms, communities predate individuals, so let power devolve to the constituents of the country. When there is less to steal in Abuja, the party will be over and everybody will go to their villages. This communitarian politics looks at development from below rather from the top. The current system is too overheated. It is also fostering fissiparous and separatist tendencies. Every political analyst here will tell you Nigeria is another Yugoslavia in the waiting. Failed states often begin like the Nigerian experiment.

When power concentration at the center is relaxed, government becomes meaningful to the people. The season of migration to Abuja will stop. Communities will begin to monitor their leaders and woe betide anyone who appropriates what collectively belongs to the locals. In Ondo State when I came from, they have a way of liquidating such local “long throat” politicians. But in Abuja, identities are obscured; representatives hoodwink the voters that they are stealing on behalf of the people. Every community rejoices when a gladiator returns to the village with spoils of war. In Nigeria, Abuja is the arena of the war, how much you bring home in tons of pilfered funds is your spoil of war so your traditional ruler congratulates you; you acquire more local maidens and are bestowed [with a] chieftaincy title. At the local level, the dynamics will change.

Next, for any meaningful war on graft and public thieving to succeed, the government must invest heavily on education. At the height of the civil rights movement here in America, Malcolm X told his fellow African-Americans: “Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for today.” There are only few individuals who have attained real success in life without proper education. We are not talking about money here, but ability to employ; divine endowments for creative purposes and enduring legacies. It is also with nations.

Japan and Western Germany came out of World War II battered and humbled but both picked up the pieces of their lives [through] massive investment in education. Mao put China on the world map on October 1, 1949 and declared war on illiteracy. The Asian Tigers confounded Western critics and found their feet in the global economy by investing heavily in education. No Western nation will help develop Nigeria. In fact, it is to their interest we remain impoverished. Incredibly, Nigeria is abundantly blessed. I have been to virtually every part of the continental USA. There is nothing so fantastic about this place. There is nothing they have that we do not possess in Nigeria. Our problem is: we are not organized.

The histories of nations all over the world from the ages have been of conquests and dominations. Nigerians have squandered great opportunities. Our rapacious leaders have eaten their tomorrows because of fleeting enjoyment, but we can still see good days. Divine benevolence will peradventure shine on us if we can learn from our mistakes and begin from the beginning. God is a God of second chance. This is why I believe Obasanjo came up for a particular purpose in this epochal time of Nigeria’s history. There is no place like home.

Those of us forced out of our native land by the Madman of Nigeria yearn to return home to begin the task of nation building, but the signals from home are not encouraging at all. It appears we have learnt virtually nothing from our recent ugly and sordid past. Thus, if Obasanjo, in his own experience on the Way to Damascus has now realized why God brought him back to power after Festac ’77, now destiny beckons on him to fulfill this divine mission. He should give all his all, without shrinking back, even if it will cost him his life. After all, what is life and the worth of a man, for as Martin Luther King Jr. once said: ‘If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

Fayemiwo, most recently author of M.KO. Abiola: A Biography is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Information Science and Policy, State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany, New York, USA.

Moshood Ademola Fayemiwo, Nigeria World, May 2, 2005