Winning the Anti-Graft War
It might be jeered at on the tables of the political elitist: that there is no room for morality or cleanliness in politics. Interest is what sets the tide and survival is what pushes the flow. In all affairs, to clinch power, morality and its brothers of similar lingua have only been slang to prod the naïve feelings of the populace to dance to tunes that request for votes. It has seldom gone beyond those rhythms.
The desire to fight corruption and instill a new moral ethos in the Nigerian society seems impossible; just another chant from sinuous politicians to gullible electorates some might say. This was however the philosophical underpin of the mantra in which the President Buhari administration rode into power.
No doubt, the seemingly impossible is what President Buhari seeks to do. The question that follows is how far this figment will become real to the Nigerian populace.
To instill a moral ethos in a society that has set chase to honest principles, made mockery of value systems, manipulated religion to enrich in god’s name, lauded wrong-doers for self-serving purposes, funded charities from stolen government funds and honored deviants as the standard; will take more than whips and EFCC charges – but a strong will to thoroughly wash and rinse Nigeria of every manifestation of corruption. This will, like kinesioligists observe, is evident in the body language of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The entrenchment of vile as norm in today’s Nigeria will take a revolution of minds to up-turn.
Can President Buhari’s wind of change proffer the legerdemain wand effect to do this?
Can the touch of President Buhari’s hardboiled mien towards immorality trickle down to the lowest levels of society’s echelon?
For a fact and without an iota of doubt, the war against corruption is indeed in the right course and track. A slow, systemic and steady start is what we see. What we hope is that it will be sustained, genuine and strongly institutionalized.
As corruption is being fought through the institutional arms empowered with the mandates to investigate and prosecute financial crimes and corrupt practices, the note of warning is being passed – even though subtly: that every man who errs will pay for the consequences of his actions.
This is the first and primal start to entrenching a mindset that eschews immorality. Emphatically: corruption must be fought in the mind, first.
Nigerians must get to appreciate the very fact that if they commit a wrong, they will face the prescribed punishment of the law; whether or not they have a god-father; whether or not they are the sons, brothers, cousins, aunts, sisters, daughters, mothers, uncles, fathers or friends of high placed politicians.
This fight must be sustainable. It must stand the test of time. Also, it must be institutionalized, so that even when President Buhari has long left office, the system will not return to its hitherto sleaze.
Ordinary citizens have the largest part to play. Those immoralities, anomalies and vices that have more or less become the norm and accepted culture of doing things must be reversed. And deliberately so.
The citizenry must consciously re-work their attitudes and mannerisms. They must consciously accept punishment where they are wrong and not pull out cell phones to call an ‘Oga at the top’ to come to their rescue when they have faulted.
The war against corruption will know true victory when the Nigerian citizenry deliberately resent, abhor, spite, refuse and rebuke corruption. The journey to re-model our attitude has just begun. And for the good start, we must applaud.
Johannes Tobi Wojuola.
What do you think?