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Echoes of Corruption: UMYA Calling A Spade A Spade
By Dr Olayiwola Ajileye
Published: March 28, 2008
President Goerge Washington once said, “…honor and shame from no condition rise, act well
your part, for there your honour lies…” Nigeria as nation has been bedeviled with bad
leadership and missed opportunities since our independence in 1960. Successive governments
have been insincere with the management of our national resources and treasures in a manner
that has resulted in unthinkable colossal loss of lives, development and socio-economic
advancement.
The common denominator for this state of the nation has been grand scale corruption. Up until
recently, corruption has been clothed in stylish, classic, flashy and elegant apparel and courted
by many public servants and politicians, so much that it is seen as means of operational tool of
governance. It has been christened and celebrated under different names by all manners of
title holders in Nigerian…we have had Professors, Generals, Chiefs, Otunbas, Ambassadors,
Architects, Doctors, Honourables etc within the geographic space called Nigeria.
Without going into too many familiar details about the catalogue of corrupt political
dispensations, which the global community is well a washed with boundless information, it
appeared that with the current leadership under President Umaru Yar A’dua (UMYA), Nigeria
is beginning to wake up to the challenges of re-christening the monolithic cancer of corruption
that has been the bane of our national emergence and emancipation and pull out from the
abyss of underdevelopment it has positioned the nation over many decades.
The echoes of corruption are reverberating in this new dispensation. Provided this is not a
consequence of political vendetta akin to the state of affair in the last dispensation, Professor
Nike Grange, a world-renowned professor of Maternal and Child Health, an accomplished
academic and technocrat has just been relieved of her post as the nation’s minister for health
on account of graft. This is coming less than a year after her appointment as the nations
custodian of national health delivery and services. She and her co-travellers in the Ministry of
Health have shamefully contracted the disease of corrupt practices, the morbidity of odium
and shame is inevitable. But Why? The answer is not far fetched; the UMYA government has
decided to call a spade a spade, with decisive consequences. The trend is pointing in the
direction of public accountability in retrospective and prospective manners. The Energy/Power
sector and Health sector are cases in point given the revealed deliberate and irresponsible abuse
of billions of dollars ($16 Billion). I have written in the past about the opportunity cost of all
these wasted resources, the forgone conclusions, (www.nigeriansinamerica
com/authors/326/Olayiwola-Ajileye< www.nigerianmuse.com/articles/?m=499, www.
africanseer.com/articles) and the simple economic analysis, the benefits Nigerians have been
deprived of by this criminal mismanagements of resources that could have moved the nation
forward in the direction of growth and developments, for the common good of the citizenry
and generations yet unborn.
In civilised economies, corruption is abominable, inexcusable and punishable. Even it goes
beyond financial corruption in some other developed nations. Moral corruption has serious and
damaging consequences (Elliot Spitzer of New York, Profumo case in the UK), Lack of good
judgement in public life (executive mis-judgement) leading to pecuniary gains has
consequences (political donation and disclosure story in the UK,
Bribery of Food and Drug Regulator in China leading to his public hanging), corporate
corruption and mismanagement (Enron case, Conrad Black case) has penalty and
repercussions. This is so simply because in these economies, corruption and corrupt
endeavours have been well defined and named; they have learnt to call a spade a spade. Hence,
the hydra-headed ability of corruption is tamed and the damaging consequences on national
development is well minimised.
The unquestionable and indivisible constant in respect of the success achieve in these
countries is consistency and equality before the law. No Profs, Generals, Hons, Drs, Otunbas,
Chiefs, is exempt from the consequences of mismanagement in the affairs of public life.
For Nigeria to attain the ambition of achieving greatness, the bull of corruption has to be
tamed and taken head-on. Allocated resources has to be subject to scrutiny of public
accountability, awarded contracts has to follow due diligence and process, national projects
has to be monitored, supervised, implemented and delivered for the benefit of
Nigerians. Services has to be rendered with a view to meet human needs and not
for selfish aggrandisement, disservice has to be investigated, questioned and justice seen to be
done appropriately without favour and in fairness and oversight functions should be thorough.
These are the challenges the UMYA government faced, if he is not to be casted in the light of
our past leaderships. Corruption has no other name; let’s call a spade a spade.
Dr Ajileye writes from Birmingham, United Kingdom drajileye@hotmail.com
By Dr Olayiwola Ajileye
Published: March 28, 2008
President Goerge Washington once said, “…honor and shame from no condition rise, act well
your part, for there your honour lies…” Nigeria as nation has been bedeviled with bad
leadership and missed opportunities since our independence in 1960. Successive governments
have been insincere with the management of our national resources and treasures in a manner
that has resulted in unthinkable colossal loss of lives, development and socio-economic
advancement.
The common denominator for this state of the nation has been grand scale corruption. Up until
recently, corruption has been clothed in stylish, classic, flashy and elegant apparel and courted
by many public servants and politicians, so much that it is seen as means of operational tool of
governance. It has been christened and celebrated under different names by all manners of
title holders in Nigerian…we have had Professors, Generals, Chiefs, Otunbas, Ambassadors,
Architects, Doctors, Honourables etc within the geographic space called Nigeria.
Without going into too many familiar details about the catalogue of corrupt political
dispensations, which the global community is well a washed with boundless information, it
appeared that with the current leadership under President Umaru Yar A’dua (UMYA), Nigeria
is beginning to wake up to the challenges of re-christening the monolithic cancer of corruption
that has been the bane of our national emergence and emancipation and pull out from the
abyss of underdevelopment it has positioned the nation over many decades.
The echoes of corruption are reverberating in this new dispensation. Provided this is not a
consequence of political vendetta akin to the state of affair in the last dispensation, Professor
Nike Grange, a world-renowned professor of Maternal and Child Health, an accomplished
academic and technocrat has just been relieved of her post as the nation’s minister for health
on account of graft. This is coming less than a year after her appointment as the nations
custodian of national health delivery and services. She and her co-travellers in the Ministry of
Health have shamefully contracted the disease of corrupt practices, the morbidity of odium
and shame is inevitable. But Why? The answer is not far fetched; the UMYA government has
decided to call a spade a spade, with decisive consequences. The trend is pointing in the
direction of public accountability in retrospective and prospective manners. The Energy/Power
sector and Health sector are cases in point given the revealed deliberate and irresponsible abuse
of billions of dollars ($16 Billion). I have written in the past about the opportunity cost of all
these wasted resources, the forgone conclusions, (www.nigeriansinamerica
com/authors/326/Olayiwola-Ajileye< www.nigerianmuse.com/articles/?m=499, www.
africanseer.com/articles) and the simple economic analysis, the benefits Nigerians have been
deprived of by this criminal mismanagements of resources that could have moved the nation
forward in the direction of growth and developments, for the common good of the citizenry
and generations yet unborn.
In civilised economies, corruption is abominable, inexcusable and punishable. Even it goes
beyond financial corruption in some other developed nations. Moral corruption has serious and
damaging consequences (Elliot Spitzer of New York, Profumo case in the UK), Lack of good
judgement in public life (executive mis-judgement) leading to pecuniary gains has
consequences (political donation and disclosure story in the UK,
Bribery of Food and Drug Regulator in China leading to his public hanging), corporate
corruption and mismanagement (Enron case, Conrad Black case) has penalty and
repercussions. This is so simply because in these economies, corruption and corrupt
endeavours have been well defined and named; they have learnt to call a spade a spade. Hence,
the hydra-headed ability of corruption is tamed and the damaging consequences on national
development is well minimised.
The unquestionable and indivisible constant in respect of the success achieve in these
countries is consistency and equality before the law. No Profs, Generals, Hons, Drs, Otunbas,
Chiefs, is exempt from the consequences of mismanagement in the affairs of public life.
For Nigeria to attain the ambition of achieving greatness, the bull of corruption has to be
tamed and taken head-on. Allocated resources has to be subject to scrutiny of public
accountability, awarded contracts has to follow due diligence and process, national projects
has to be monitored, supervised, implemented and delivered for the benefit of
Nigerians. Services has to be rendered with a view to meet human needs and not
for selfish aggrandisement, disservice has to be investigated, questioned and justice seen to be
done appropriately without favour and in fairness and oversight functions should be thorough.
These are the challenges the UMYA government faced, if he is not to be casted in the light of
our past leaderships. Corruption has no other name; let’s call a spade a spade.
Dr Ajileye writes from Birmingham, United Kingdom drajileye@hotmail.com