Opinion: Corruption is not Nigeria’s problem, we’ve got it all wrong

by Chuks Okeibunor

Few days ago I read an article by a colleague; he was speaking to how in Obama’s 8 years at the White House, he didn’t visit Nigeria; and how that this is because we are a ‘fantastically corrupt’ country.

He borrowed that label from Cameron. (I thought to reply that Obama did visit Kenya, and that Kenya is more corrupt than Nigeria according to Transparency International, but I let it slide.)

A lot of Nigerians share this view; obviously…we were very quick to vote out Jonathan’s administration because we believed it was too complacent in the fight against corruption.

So, vote him out, we did.

To give comfort to our decision, the Buhari administration embarked on a massive (?) clamp down of corrupt politicians, and has, with the intent of gaining international support for this fight (my only way of rationalizing it) acceded to our ‘fantastically corrupt’ status on international media platforms. We understand, we pardon…at least I do.

But is it working? I could say ‘no’ and support my assertion with the fact that night abductions of judges by DSS operatives is an abuse of power and an act of corruption; I could further buttress my point with the lack of prosecution of many other government elements accused of corruption in the current administration. You could, however, argue that it’s working; and cite the very same examples as your points of reason: the fact that security agencies are now bold enough to arrest sitting political office holders says we are serious; the fact that sitting public office holders are being called out is proof that we are healing; but, at the end of the day, when we’ve sweated our points of view, we will have done nothing but stated our private opinions.

Objectively speaking, neither you nor I know if we are better or worse off! Why? Because there is no meaningful data to support either side of the argument. This author tried to document the “cost of corruption in Nigeria” but in all his discourse, not one shred of data was cited. Do you blame him?

Try answering: How transparent are our institutions today relative to last year, two years ago, one administration ago, and two administrations ago?

Tough question? But fight corruption we must. Yes? So we keep the fire burning…even if it means burning down our very own homes.

Few months ago I had my performance appraisal; it lasted 4 hours!!! It wasn’t just a tick off of KPIs; it was heavily data-driven; to score any point, I had to provide data and it had to be foolproof; my CEO says “In God we trust, everyone else show me the data”, shrewd huh? It’s nothing personal, it’s business.

How much have we made today as a country and from what revenue lines? How many cars have been stopped today by FRSC/Police/LASTMA and for what offenses? Do you know? Care to share?

How many court cases are open in our legal system today and what is the distribution of offenses across the different age groups across the federation? How many convictions have been handed out this week relative to last week and what is the growth pattern? How many Nigerians are in Lagos, how many are in their offices now, how many are living under the bridges and how many will be out of jobs in the next quarter if the economy continues to wobble?

Tough questions? We want to feed children in schools; how many children do we have in our schools today? How many from poor families? How many from poor families with only one parent? How many orphaned and living with extended family?

Heck, do we even know the exact number of Nigerians or foreigners in Nigeria?

Folks, our problem isn’t corruption. Our problem is DATA! The lack of it!

How can we hold people accountable if we don’t have data? How can we drive transparency without data? How can we ensure sustainable growth without data? How can we make informed policy decisions without data?

Let’s kill corruption! Yes Sir! But killing corruption isn’t by flooding the courts with cases, abducting judges, and spinning tales on news media! It isn’t by setting up multiple committees to review past contracts awarded and the processes by which they were awarded (if anything, it kills investor confidence when contracts awarded by previous administrations are continually reviewed by every new administration; yet we wonder why people sell off their contracts when they sense the administration that awarded it will no longer be in power); when these approaches work, their results are only fleeting; they are seen as nothing but witch-hunting, and there is no sustainability to their effect.

Let’s leave corruption alone please; it’ll go by itself if we concentrate on investing in proper data capture systems; in automation; in driving transparency! It’s pretty easy to know how many cars pass through the lekki toll, and, consequently to know how much each booth operator should remit at days end…because there is data.

The way we are fighting corruption today can be likened to a man who wants his house illuminated; but instead of switching on the light, is busy announcing to the world how dark his house is, capturing pieces of the darkness and locking them away in a container. Switch the damn light on!

Sirs, if we are serious about fighting corruption, we will change the narrative; we will shush on throwing folks in jail (when/if we do), we will shush on calling ourselves corrupt before international media or on social media, we will stop circumventing due process in the name of fighting corruption, we will quit blaming past governments and previous administrations; instead, we’ll dig for the data and publish it; we will begin to invest in pretty much anything data capture, data cleaning, reporting, and transparency; we will stop influencing independent government agencies, but rather set KPIs for their operations and let the performance data determine the fate of those who steer their affairs; we will invest in local tech companies that are strategic to data capture to the extent that we can see, in real time, every birth, every death, every import, every export, every Government Naira earned, every Government Naira spent, what it was spent on, who approved, and who it was paid to.

Where there is no data, all is subjective; and a subjective government will always be perceived as corrupt, no matter how honest its intentions.


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

Chuks Okeibunor is a StartUp and human capital enthusiast. He tweets @CEOkeibunor. This article was first written HERE

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