Fight against corruption: Where we got it wrong

BY RIDWAN JAMIU 

Corrupt people do not like to hear the word ‘corruption’ or read it. Thieves overreact when ‘theft’ is mentioned as their conscience pricks. You too may feel reluctant to read this piece to the end if you have a guilty conscience. Corruption is the clog in the wheel of progress and well-being of many societies. Corruption opposes honesty and trustworthiness as sickness is the opposite of health and wellness. To be corrupt or trustworthy and to be sick or well is just part of the life phenomena. Everyone has propensity to be sick or healthy and corrupt or honest. Corruption is a moral sickness as disease is physical or physiological sickness. The sick need attention in order to forestall incapacity, proliferation of liabilities, and loss of precious lives or spread of diseases to the sound. Likewise, the morally sick people, the corrupt, need attention in order to eliminate loss of lifeline and erosion of humanity. Morality is the essence of humanity, immorality reduces man to bestiality. But in Nigeria, fight against corruption has hardly shown any positive outcome. Where did we get it wrong?  

Most attempts to fight corruption seek to treat the symptoms; they rarely focus on nipping the problem in the bud. What are the causes of corruption? The causes are multi-dimensional but palpable causes include rot in the homes, schools and religious institutions. Everyone has been a member of a family or religious institution or student of a school. You can virtually trace the corruption in anyone to the influence of one or all of those agents of social socialisation. We all are what we see and hear. The bulk of what we see and hear is primarily determined by people of those institutions. They are our environments and we are all children of our environments. Most Nigerians are corrupt because we grow up in a corrupt culture. That is not a justification though.

We speak our parents’ languages. At birth God (Allah) gave us the potentials but left their function to the determination and orientation provided by parents in the family and environment. Bad parents often raise bad children. Corrupt parents are the primary producers of corrupt members of the society. Irresponsible parents are bad leaders and bad teachers. They would not only harm themselves in the future but also harm the society and the nation.

Traditionally, men are earners and women are carers. Being carers does not prevent them from having careers but not at the expense of the family role. Women’s works outside their homes can be performed by men but women’s natural roles in the homes cannot be performed by men. Priority has been misplaced and the society is left in disarray. Today, many children become wayward because they do not have any fatherly control. Many men do not sit or talk with their children. They are left to the mercy of the peers and negative influences. It is worse that women also abandon the homes and children in search of money. They earn the money and lose their happiness in the children. Example abounds. Children are left to the schools and nannies that lack moral propriety. Others can do our jobs but we alone can be parents of our children.

‘May your child be like you.’ Can you confidently say ‘Ameen’ to that? Evaluate the kind of parents you are by that.

Five things can shape our families and thereby impact the society positively: time, trust, discipline, good neighbourliness and good leadership. Quality Time spent with family is a great investment. It bonds the couple and the children. It is a demonstration of love and care. The time could be spent together listening to the spouse and/or children, helping them with assignments, home work or house chores, outing, book reading and story-telling. If you are not part of the lives of your children today they may not be part of your life tomorrow. Time is more precious than money. Material things do not often guarantee happiness; it is good relationship with members of family, relations, neighbours and friends that often bring happiness and longevity.

Trust is the backbone of marriage. If all married couple could strictly guard their nuptial trust and guard against infidelity and debauchery, there will be a healthy marriage which is a panacea for peaceful home where upright children can be groomed. Proliferation of children born out of wedlock is a harbinger of destruction. Only animals have sex without marriage. This is why great people are hardly found in three places: brothels, bars and night clubs. Nothing impacts the children positively better than exemplary and righteous parents.

The school on the other hand is today another major supplier of corrupt youths. Schools used to be ‘ile Eko’ [a place of learning discipline and books) but it is today ‘Ile Iwe’ [a place of learning books]. In fact, most school-leavers are bereft of both discipline and books. They are schooled but never educated. Many go to higher institutions for certificate not for knowledge. We read to pass not to know. Who wants to live where students are, especially those of higher institutions? Students’ places are a place of cultism, debauchery, adultery indecency and lawlessness. What do you expect from such psychopaths when they assume leadership of various sections of the society and the family?

Many teachers in high and higher schools are moral dwarfs. They are a real virus. They are meant to be custodians of knowledge, discipline and role models. But the opposite is the reality of many. They demonstrate in their words and conduct that schools are for certification not for learning and discipline.

Education without morals can only make man a cleverer devil. Education is meant to develop an individual intellectually, physically, morally and spiritually. It is moral culture in our schools and homes that can engineer the birth of righteous and responsible youth and a progressive society. It is now time parents, communities and governments should see to the moral uprightness of the schools children attend. Academic excellence without moral excellence is an insidious achievement. A morally corrupt educated person is worse than an armed robber. Teachers and school staff should no longer be employed only on the basis of their qualification but also on the basis of their track record in moral uprightness and discipline. Stiffer penalty should statutorily be laid down for moral offences by school officials in all tiers of education ladder.

Religious institutions are very instrumental in building a corruption-free society. Fear of God and fear of the Day of Judgement is a good impetus to good conduct for true believers. Our faith teaches that punishment for corruption is both mundane and spiritual. Only the wretched can feel secure from the scheme of the Almighty.

Unfortunately, we are mostly religious and never godly. Our religiosity is sometimes for selfish interest and materialism. Many atrocities are now being committed in the name of God. Deception, exploitation and megalomaniac overtures are being perpetrated in the name of miracles and salvation. Most Asalatu, Maulid celebrations, Dhikri nights, night vigils, and most Sunday services are just noises and nuisance; they are largely against pristine religious teachings. Hatred and hostility are sometimes promoted in the name of salvation. Government should regulate religious houses. Some of them are worse than shrines. Moral offences and crimes by clerics must carry stiffer punishment while anyone aiming to publicly address people as religious scholar in respective religions must have requisite certification. I learnt the same obtains in Rwanda. Whether the society will be better or bitter largely rests on the activities of these three institutions.

Aught can be achieved though if law enforcement agencies are also corrupt as it is. As it appears now, our courts are only courts of law not courts of justice. Justice is sometimes for sale to the highest bidder. Those who pervert justice are legal and moral perverts. I have realised in the corrupt legal practices in Nigeria why Prophet Muhammad said that two-thirds of law officers will go to the Hellfire. It takes great courage and determination for any government to reform this crop of people. What of if the government is also a product of miscarriage of justice? Leaders in all sections of the society should rise up to their task if they are worth the salt. Leadership is to influence, motivate and inspire people to know and do what they would not have known or done ordinarily.

It is moral corruption that gave birth to most of the world’s problems and social vices. No one is safe from its consequences. All hands must be on deck to salvage our society and nation. We are our problems and we are the solutions.

God says, “Corruption has appeared on land and sea, because of what people’s hands have earned, in order to make them taste some of what they have done, so that they might return.” Q30/41

Jamiu, chief imam of Lekki Central Mosque, can be reached via [email protected]