President Muhammadu-Buhari

By Chris Nwaokobia-Jnr III

The world set out to vilify corruption by electing a unique day in December (9th) as the global anti-corruption day, first the number nine symbolizes fruitfulness, and defines the fullness of the NEW. To the Christian the number nine epitomizes the advent of a new dispensation inspired by the Holy Spirit which quickens the believer into living beyond corruption. To the Muslim and holders of other faiths it represents fruitfulness, and symbolizes the plenitude of talents with patience and mediation as virtue. Indeed corruption is inimical to all that the number nine stands for, so the world in flawless wisdom has elected to levy war on corruption knowing how invidious it is.

What is corruption? This direct word has attracted several cynical referrals, some have sought to make a mountain of this simple word. Some have argued that stealing is not corruption, some have said that corruption is so broad that you perhaps need a profound seminar to grapple with the issues of the subject. But I differ. Corruption is corruption, corruption derives from the word corrupt, to corrupt is to subvert, circumvent, compromise, taint, injure, rubbish and or violate due process. Due process is due process, if however you disobey an unjust law, you cannot be said to be corrupt because an unjust law in itself is against due process. I’m mindful of the words I bandy here because some laws aid and abet corruption, whereas the jurisprudence of laws is the delineation of societal margins to engender due process, decorum and proper conduct. Where individuals and institutions compromise the basic organizational quid pro quo profound for sane society due process is rubbished, corruption and corruptive proclivity grows thereto.

Do not allow the liven of politicians diminish your appreciation of the enormity of harm that corruption poses to our society and indeed our universe. Do not allow public commentators and analysts confuse you with partisan inveigle, wrong is wrong and corruption is wrong.

Can we have a NIGERIA WITHOUT CORRUPTION, yes we can. I know that when governance deepens the frontiers of her famed zero tolerance for corruption; I know that when we establish monuments of reference and monuments of deterrence by punishing corruption and discouraging corruptive proclivity; I know that when our legislation makes corruption a strict liability offence in all its parameters; I know that when leadership provides stringent requirements in her fiscal regime; I know that when appropriative protocols and monetary regulators see service to the majority as the permissible minimum; and I know that when due process and decorum becomes key in our public and private sector engagements, then corruption will be shibboleth and then we shall have a NIGERIA WITHOUT CORRUPTION.

This assertion is indiscriminate of the fact that there is no nation that is corruption free, but mindful of the fact that there are nations that are not corrupt. NIGERIA can be without corruption when leadership makes corruption anathema. When we repudiate all national honours and protocols that acknowledge past and present leaders be they in the private or public sector who plundered our patrimony, and at some point or another helped themselves illegally to our corporate till. When we enthrone a new paradigm in leadership where passion, purpose and patriotism becomes our governmental summum bonum. And when society lampoons and repudiate profligacy and illicit wealth.

It is important to state here that where official and corporate malfeasance attracts maximum governmental reproof and reproach; that where sleeze and sleaze attracts serious societal disdain; that where graft attracts the ire of the public and the private sector; and where every sector of society irrespective of creed, clan and or partisan prejudice congregates against corruption, such is a clime without corruption. And such is the NIGERIA of our dreams.

As we commemorate the world anti-corruption day, may we aggregate a new paradigm that salutes hard work over quick fixes. May we grow an activism that must challenge only passionate and purpose driven contenders to seek political office. May we congregate at the parlour of patriotism and make the parlous propensities of greed and graft a no no. May we lampoon and repudiate profligacy and corruption such that posterity will eschew all that rubbishes due process. And may we collectively orchestrate the evolution of a new national orientation paradigm that must prize profound values in leadership.

In the final analysis as we commemorate this day, may we never overlook the humongous collateral damage that corruption has brought our nation and indeed the third world. May we never underprice the avoidable deaths that come in her wake, death of under-armed soldiers in battle; death of pensioners on queue waiting for their pay, death on our highways due to bad roads, death due to bungled hopes and aspirations, and death of patriotism, all being the sad trajectory that the festering wound of corruption throws on our corporate canvass.

We must therefore unite in the spirit of this event and pioneer a NIGERIA WITHOUT CORRUPTION; and build a nation that brands wrong as wrong no matter whose ox is being gored; and punish offenders whilst institutionalizing a protocol that honours true patriots; and rework our collective values such that our collective mores and morals would have ennobling margins and fair minimums. God bless NIGERIA.

Chris Nwaokobia Jnr, the Director-General of Change Ambassadors Of Nigeria, CAN, presented this at the Citizen Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps conference in commemoration of the World Anti-Corruption Day, 9 December, 2015.