The price is N50

This may sound too familiar coming from a Nigerian, but we will never completely eradicate corruption. That is because human beings are inherently corrupt and this resonates even more to religious Muslims. That was one of the two complaints the angels laid before the lord almighty as he revealed his plan to create human kind.

One may find it difficult, however, not to conclude that those angels did not have Nigeria in mind when objecting humanity. I’ve traveled the Kano-Sokoto road too many times to count and have seen everything to be seen but the past few days have been surreal. Especially following the calamity that befell the people of Silame on Christmas Day and Kakindawa community few days back. The Nigerian Air Force struck targets suspected to be raving bandits but turned out to be innocent civilians. Less than two years prior, some 85 people died in Kaduna when the Air Force mistook a maulood gathering for a bandit meeting and bombed the gathering to kingdom come.

There are uncountable security checkpoints between Kano and Sokoto and while that provided a welcome safety reassurance, this fact has produced an eyesore of open corruption and another sad indictment against the viability of the Nigerian state for the long term.

These days, the toll to get through anyone of those checkpoints, manned by army and police special forces, if there is anything about you warranting close attention is N50. Motorists simply stuck out their arms clutching the magic note and they are met by police hands and the motorists do not even have to stop. That is unless they don’t have the correct change… if they don’t, they hand whatever note they have and together with the rest of the cars waiting to pass patiently wait for the policeman or soldier to sort out the change. In full view of the whole world!

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Corruption will never be rooted out but of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to limit the opportunities for corruption to happen. We must work to starve it of oxygen. But how do we do that if our roads are to remain motorable?

The thing is, you can only imagine the difference it would make if our roads were not so porous. So much that insecurity has remained so intractable the armed forces is forced to make mistakes that needlessly takes the lives of helpless Nigerians in droves.  

No, Nigeria is not the most corrupt entity on earth. Corruption hides in the shadows of all local, national and international economies. All markets, organisations and cultures face different levels of exposure to fraud and corruption. Not all of it is intentional – it could come from incompetence, from a lack of understanding regarding internal controls and processes or from promoting family members without proper accountability. But mostly corruption is motivated by two factors: need and greed. These are powerful drivers and can easily influence a person’s behaviour.

Corruption then becomes a vicious circle that’s hard to escape – the deeper you become entangled in it, the harder it is to break free. It is disheartening to think of our special forces, our action heroes being reduced to street touts.

So how can we turn this circle, which only benefits a few, into a virtuous circle of integrity that benefits everyone? The first step is acknowledging the difficult reality that corruption is everywhere. The next step is prevention.

The more time and effort put into preventing corruption from happening in the first place, the less attractive the environment we create for those seeking to act illegally or irresponsibly. Clearly, our problems are not those to be solved by the EFCC or ICPC or even the fear of god. There won’t be any reason for an action hero to solicit N50 in bribes if he got by well wish his pay.

A good example of an environment where corruption can thrive is when there’s widespread public panic, confusion and desperation such as the problems we face. As governments around the world desperately scrambled to procure medicine, PPE and equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic, they often ended up spending billions on questionable contracts. So too do they end up spending billions to tame Turji, to subdue ESN, Boko Haram and Lakurawa. In the name of a national crisis, following agreed-upon procurement procedures often took a back seat to delivering services at a faster pace. And no one bats an eye, because it is a national emergency. The defence and security budget of Nigeria for 2025 is unheard of, but no one is making any fuss about it. More often than not, we are left with nothing to show for these unheard billions spent.

Corruption has serious repercussions for the public sector including the police and the armed forces. When public institutions become victims of fraud or neglect, this sets off chains of events such as lengthy investigations and efforts to try and recover lost funds. But these recovery activities use precious resources and taxpayer funding that could otherwise have been diverted into more beneficial areas. A much more cost-effective approach is to prevent corruption from happening in the first place – although this is also no easy task.

There is a greater recognition that corruption can have a serious adverse impact on development and has been a cause for concern among developing countries. In a recent survey of 150 high-level officials from 60 third-world countries, the respondents ranked public sector corruption as the most severe obstacle confronting their development process (Gray and Kaufmann 1998).

Countries like Nigeria ought to be worried about this problem. We are all in substantial agreement that corruption is a major constraint that is hindering our economic, political and social development, and hence view it as a problem requiring urgent attention at the highest levels. The problem is that the price of thwarting all this is as low as N50 and that is scary.