Looking back into the history of Nigeria, one major black spot is the persistent cases of corruption that continues to characterize the public domain. As severally opined by several watchers, analyst, authors, and scholars, -both locally and internationally- Nigeria public office holders continue to plunder our common wealth and loot the treasury of the country.
According to the recently confirmed EFCC boss Ola Olukoyede, Nigeria lost a staggering 2.9trillion Naira to procurement and contract fraud alone between 2018-2020. This is a whopping sum that could have provided critical infrastructures, dealt with insecurity, as well as address out-of school children menace.
This hydra-headed problem that has refused to abate continues to act as an albatross to growth and development as well as contributing to the very wide inequality gap. One would imagine why public office holder continue to involve in the ignoble act of perpetrating prebendalism occasioning primitive accumulation of wealth by way of pillage, looting, and plundering of public funds and resources.
It behoves on government and policy makers to look deeply into the immediate and remote cause of corruption and corrupt practise as well as develop enduring framework for the effective control of same. Corruption continues to take the dangerous form of a cancer to eats deep into the fabric of the nation and we must ensure that the trend is curtailed.
As successive administration take over the saddle of responsibility in government and governance, with each of them making lofty promise as regards nippling corruption in the bud, it turns out that their own appointees become enmeshed and tainted with severe allegation of corruption and massive financial heist.
Most recently and very disheartening also, allegations of corruption and financial impropriety as well as non-compliance rocked the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, disaster management and Poverty Alleviation under the leadership of Dr. Betta Edu. Issues surrounding allegedly using personal accounts to receive funds meant for distribution to vulnerable groups came to the fore.
As if the said ministry is bedeviled by the spirit of corruption, three successive ministers and top civil servants are under probe at the present moment. It is important to note however that the president was proactive enough to respond quickly to the allegations by swiftly suspending the minister from office, placing the implementation of certain program in the ministry on hold, and calling for a holistic probe of the ministry and it’s several intervention programs; kudos, Mr President.
As if that’s not enough, Nigerians also have to grapple with the unpleasant news that’s the performing minister of interior got consultancy contracts for his company by way of undue influence and seemingly conflict of interest as against public service rules and regulations. One can only imagine how true or untrue the allegations are since there are claims and counter claims flying around.
As a matter of fact, corruption seems to have found a way to continue to mess with our nationhood and nation building process so much that we can hardly find a public servant or administration that hasn’t been tagged or linked with corruption at a very alarming rate; corruption is on the loose again, somebody should please hold it down.
Writer: Adedamola Benard, Adedejo.