By Hisham Saleh Gidado
SIR: Corruption has become rampant as well as the daily naggings about it. It is a poison that has diffused into almost every mind. It is also the spine of all the impediments that have become a hindrance to the development and progress of Nigeria, thereby walking the nation down to the path of retrogression.
Yet the society has its arms folded bare-chested. Having seen the absurdity of having our hands folded, I couldn’t imagine any prospect of curbing the corruption that grabs Nigeria by the neck shaking it vigorously to its very root.
Our society is such a mysterious one where people are bound to apportion blames from one shoulder to another, instead of making a prompt stride towards figuring out and bringing about solutions to their gnawing problems.
We have conceptualized government as the threshold of corruption, which is wrong in the perspective that we are all playing our roles in one way or the other. It is often due to our corrupt minds that we vote them into their offices in anticipation of personal gains under their tables in spite of our knowledge of their corrupt acts.
It is paramount in this case to take cognizance of our government and who we are as citizens; we would certainly come to realize that we are the government which means we have been misusing the efforts we should have used in defining our problems on blaming our own selves. Albert Einstein has his word fixed perfectly on this point, ‘insanity is the repeating of the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results’.
To cure a disease is an exigency to know its causes; ditto for corruption. We must take its causes into radical consideration, where we would find corruption in Nigeria and the world at large very complex due to the conspiracies of various factors that triggered it.
Poverty is conceptually the ground that tightly grasps corruption. Albeit, it is quite a fact that poverty can never be obliterated but rather alleviated. Having failed its responsibility of alleviating poverty by providing employments to its people, citizens consequently develop a voracious appetite for money by hook or crook.
Another factor that encourages corruption is the peanut of salaries being paid especially to workers, notably civil servants, which is pretty insufficient for them to cater for their families and themselves. Such is one of the temptations stirring them up to accept bribe in order to reach their expenses.
Lack of education can be said to be another factor for making corruption to seem as a norm in the society. It takes education for one to see beyond pricks and fathom what the great damage corruption can make no matter how minor it seems. Now that the education is expensive with meagre quality, what do we see as the prospect of change?
Having corruption diffused into almost everything including our minds, to stamp it out we must have to prepare for a battle, I mean a great one. The hands we fold must be straightened out for working tirelessly.
We must instigate a strong disposition to bring change through praxis not theory, and obliterate diversity to pursue change via exercising the power of collective actions and unity.
A better salary should be paid, for the workers to work with alacrity, attain their expenses and get rid of corruption.
Equally, the expensive nature of education and its poor quality must change into cheap but with great quality for every citizen especially the youths to afford. This would give them a clearer view of the damage corruption has been making, thereby trigger them to salvage Nigeria from being capsized by the wave of corruption.
- Hisham Saleh Gidado, Gombe.
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