by Debo Adejugbe

 People like Alamieyesegha and Bulama –managed to be convicted- are getting pardons from the presidency while the president announced, in his majesty, that “corruption is not Nigeria’s problem”.

In one of my previous articles, I likened the process of making a charge of corruption stick in Nigeria to a mirage. In these words, I decided to court abuses and misunderstanding: “while our corruption index increases by the day, with constant beads slid into our abacuses, making it so hard to mathematically form an opinion on what is really wrong with us; the concept of corruption itself is basically a rumour”. I still stand by that pronouncement because nothing has really changed since I wrote that article.

Few days ago, while looking through stories about independence and the major actors before the 1966 coup, nothing struck a chord more than the larger-than-life personality of Festus Okotie-Eboh. He was the flamboyantly regaled first republic politician, who was Federal Minister of Labour and Social Welfare in 1955, then the first and longest serving Minister of Finance (for a period of ten years, 1957-1966) and later, the only Federal Minister that was killed during Nigeria’s first military coup on January 15, 1966. He was widely seen as the symbol of corruption in the first republic.

He has been described, in a lot of the literary works that I have read about him, as flamboyantly and genetically corrupt. One is tempted to believe without asking questions and in doing that, I have come to seriously question the motives of the 1966 coup itself. Not from the tribal or ethnic angle –that thought process has already been exhausted and it got us nowhere.

Questions such as: was he the only flamboyantly corrupt federal minister? Was the coup about sanitization or just a way for those young “patriots” to have a feel of domestic power? Did the “patriots” have a plan B on what to do with the country after the coup must have “succeeded”? What exactly was their definition of “corruption” seeing that so many corrupt politicians were spared?

Michael Ogbeidi noted in his analysis: “Politically, the thinking of the First Republic Nigerian leadership class was based on politics for material gain; making money and living well.”

Extenuating circumstances such as Okotie-Eboh’s establishment of the Central Bank, Nigeria Stock Exchange, Nigeria Investment and Development Bank, personally seeing that Eko Bridge was constructed has not worked in his favour –judging by his place in our history. He was adjudged to be so corrupt that, when Chinua Achebe released his novel “A Man of the People” depicting how rotten Nigeria was becoming after independence, the main corrupt figure in the book “Nanga” needed no introduction as he was seen as Festus Okotie-Eboh reintroduced in his glory.

Students of history will tell you that Nigeria’s fate in the subsequent dispensations became more worrisome than when Okotie-Eboh traversed our political scene. As much as 10 out of 12 military governors in the Gowon era were found to be guilty of corrupt practices by The Federal Assets Investigation Panel of 1975 instituted by General Murtala Mohammed.

The Shagari era, the grandfather of a certain Jothananian government to come, broke barriers in corruption and true to his weak leadership, did not do a single thing as several federal buildings went up in flames with traces of corruption disappeared with them. In that era, a certain Umaru Dikko emerged as the lord-in-chief Nanga and didn’t disappoint as he went on a corruption spree totaling billions of Naira.

Not long after that, the Buhari regime that, in trying to eradicate corruption, committed so many human rights atrocities got toppled by Ibrahim Babangida who institutionalized corruption and turned it into an art. General Sani Abacha built on the corrupt systems put in place by Babangida. He amassed more wealth than sense in his attempt to surpass some of the most despicable rulers we have ever seen in this part of the world.

From Nnamdi Azikwe’s role in the distress of Africa Continental Bank (ACB) in 1952 by flouting the code of conduct for government officials, to Obafemi Awolowo’s culpability in bankrupting the Western Region Marketing Board in 1962 with several loans that were not repaid and Festus Okotie-Eboh’s flamboyant display of corruption in the first republic, we have been on the receiving end of so much institutionalized corruption for so long.

What has really changed since the first republic?

The concept of corruption itself has undergone many restructuring. As Michael Ogbeidi also noted, “If corruption in the 1990s was endemic, corruption since the return of democracy in 1999 has been legendary”. The gladiators of corruption now employ us to guard their loots. The rate of unemployment among youths has turned the constituency into fine-beggars, who only pander to the whims of corrupt politicians.

The restructuring didn’t stop there!

Today’s corrupt politician has many things going in his favour; he builds shopping malls, hotels, and mansions with looted funds. He is guaranteed of a fair deal when the reports are out, because we now classify into slightly corrupt, more corrupt, most corrupt and exceedingly corrupt etc.

Do we care about what they can bring to the table, in terms of long-lasting developments or just the crumbs that we could grab off them during the electioneering period?

It is easy to paint Festus Okotie-Eboh and his first republic cohorts as the presagers of corruption in Nigeria but in today’s world they would be heralded as saints; judging by their achievement of several firsts and the incredible foresights they managed to squeeze out of “rumoured” corruption. Today’s Nigeria parades an extraordinary number of “rumoured” corrupt politicians that it seem the whole place is crawling with them, yet the will to prosecute is seriously lacking, as they perfect their act with each passing day.

It is almost 50 years now since that first coup, but the concept of corruption has remained a rumour, just as it was in those days. People like Alamieyesegha and Bulama –managed to be convicted- are getting pardons from the presidency while the president announced, in his majesty, that “corruption is not Nigeria’s problem”. It makes you wonder why we have hung on to this rumour mill for so long.

I still can’t fathom it. But I implore you to try.

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Debo Adejugbe is a trained Telecommunications/Electronics Engineer and a certified IT professional living in Lagos. Dad to amazing Hailey and an advocate against Sexual and Domestic Abuses. Debo has political sympathy for the Labour Party. He tweets from @deboadejugbe

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.