WAR AGAINST CURRUPTION

Corruption, as we already know, is the major hindrance of development across all sectors in Nigeria.

Experience has shown that citizens of Nigeria are not, in anyway, different from any citizens of any other country across the globe. If anything, they are even more hardworking and determined than many other nationals across the world. This is the pivotal reason why almost every Nigerian survives and thrives successfully wherever he or she finds himself or herself anywhere in the world no matter how hostile such environment is. In actual fact, Nigerians are more often than not preferred over other nationals whenever it comes to employment recruitment competition just because knowledgeable and experienced employers all over the world know that an average Nigerian is not only honest but also hardworking.

The main issue about corruption in Nigeria does not lie with the common man on the street of Oshodi, or in an alley in Kafancha, or the widow who is toiling on a groundnut farm in Yola, or the penury market woman who is trying to earn some living to feed her five children at Ishan village, or the overworked oil field man who is struggling with the hydrocarbon engendered renal failure in the Delta region, nor does it lie with the semi-illiterate sales boy who has been forced to man his master's shop at Onitsha market at the tender age of fourteen when he supposed to be in a class room with his peers, the problem of corruption lies right at Aso Rock and with those that wine and dine with people in the corridor of power both at the national and state/local levels.

The most recent event to attesting to this non-guilty verdict on common Nigerians in the case of corruption in Nigeria was the experience that followed the transition from the corrupt democratic government of the second republic in the early 1980s to one of the most accountable, though unpopular, governments in the history of Nigeria in the mid 1980s that was immediately followed by the most gruesome and corrupt governments in the history of Nigeria between late 1980s and early 1990s.

During the short era of the duo of Buhari and Idiagbon between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985, the sanctification that was breathed back to the life of Nigeria as a community after a near half decade social decadence and broken-down law and order proved that Nigerians as a people are honest and hardworking people who are only looking for someone that is honest enough to lead by example and be a pacesetter in eradicating social vices, including corruption.

For the sake of those who are not familiar with this regime that I am making reference to, during this regime, though judged as being forceful and illegitimate because they usurped power from the corrupt elected officers by the power of barrels of guns and military boots, Nigeria and Nigerians quickly regained the once lost respect amidst international community in the area of discipline and economic management. With War Against Indiscipline (WAI), the anti-corruption and anti-indiscipline campaign put in place by this regime fully functional, law and order became the rule of the day in an erstwhile community where there was no respect for discipline and social morality. People started queuing, for the first time, for their turns wherever two or more people had to wait to be served. You would be very careful to collect any gratuity from any one, even if offered with good intention without any string attached, for the fear of being charged and jailed for taking bribe. For the first time in a long time, no petrol filling stations would close doors to customers unless they had no petrol in their stock, otherwise the hoarded product would be auctioned to the public. In the same vein, no wholesales or retail shop dared lock the store's door during working hours if consumable items were available in stock, otherwise those products would be auctioned, after such store had been broken into by the WAI corps, as a deterrent to hoarding of essential commodities that was prevalent, before this regime came to power, in order to create artificial scarcities and inflations.

-PETER ATSEN AWARE

KUW/U14/SLG/2033