The face of a fantastically corrupt country
About a fortnight ago, James Ibori, the convicted criminal and former governor of Delta state returned to the country and to his hometown of Oghara to a tumultuous welcome. It was not just about political leeches and acolytes welcoming him on the pages of the newspaper or paying high level visits. No, it is about the people of Delta state who still see him as a hero. His popularity and acceptance by all strata of the society was demonstrated last week at the N350 million church thanksgiving and reception packaged, according to Sahara reporters, by the Delta state government to welcome him home. Not only was the entire Delta state government machinery diverted to Oghara, all politicians of note, the who-is-who in the state, plus a massive and tumultuous crowd were on hand to rejoice with and welcome him home. Even the Archbishop (Goddowell Awomakpa) was so overwhelmed by the occasion that he described Ibori as a gift of God, going further to compare him to great men of God in the Bible, like Jesus Christ, who suffered tribulations in the course of their duty to God and humanity.
Ibori isn’t just a new-found messiah. He has always been regarded as a generalissimo in Delta state. In April 2010, when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission wanted to arrest him for crimes of corruption, fraud and money laundering, his Urhobo kinsmen quickly rallied round him in support. In fact, he escaped to his hometown in Oghara, where youths barricaded the community and successfully prevented the EFCC from having access to the community to arrest the embattled former governor. The same Urhobo people organised his escape (he confessed to being ferried out of the country through a river by Oghara youths) to Dubai in the United Arabs Emirate, where he was subsequently arrested and extradited to the United Kingdom and was convicted and jailed for money laundering and fraud.
Similarly, in September, 2005, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha – the self-styled Governor General of the Ijaw nation – was arrested in London over alleged money laundering activities, the immediate response of his Ijaw kinsmen was to threaten a possible reprisal attack on personnel and oil facilities of British interests if their governor general was not released with immediate effect. When eventually, Alamieyeigha jumped or was allowed to jump bail and escaped to Nigeria dressed as a woman, he was welcomed back to the state by a jubilant crowd as a ‘hero’ of the Ijaw nation. No member of the Ijaw National Congress or anyone has anything negative to say about him despite the glaring fact that he was caught with the states’ embezzled money in the UK.
These are just two examples out of hundreds of cases of kinsmen rallying to defend their ‘sons and daughters’ being accused or tried for corruption in Nigeria.
This is the dilemma of fighting corruption in a deeply fractured and ethnically sensitive country like Nigeria. It also shows why, despite hues and cries and attempts by various governments to fight the scourge, Nigeria still remains, in Cameron’s words “fantastically corrupt”.
A Nigerian Professor of Political Sociology, Peter Ekeh, in his seminal work “Colonialism and the two publics in Africa: A theoretical statement” in 1975 provided a unique explanation to this phenomenon. For him, corruption is traceable to the way colonial structures and institutions were forcefully and unilaterally engrafted unto African traditional institutions. This imposition inevitably led to the bifurcation of the states into two realms with distinct moralities. The first is a public realm represented by the colonial state and the second, a primordial realm represented by kinship, village, local community, or in modern times, the ethnic group. Largely as a result of the activities of the local petit bourgeoisie who sought to replace the colonial personnel, the two ‘publics’ were kept separate and distinct. The colonial state came to be seen as an ‘amoral’ entity bereft of any moral obligation and which can be plundered at will, while the ‘primordial/native’ realm was seen as a reservoir of ‘moral’ obligations, an entity which the individual must work to preserve and benefit.
What, for Ekeh, is the most distinguishing characteristic of African politics is that the same political actors simultaneously operate in the primordial and the civic publics. Hence, the state or ‘civic public’ becomes for the actors a thing to be plundered, despoiled, raped, and desecrated and the proceeds used for the good of the primordial public. This attitude ultimately legitimises official corruption. In fact, with time, it became the norm and even ordinary people expected state officials to take as much as possible from the public coffers for themselves and their local communities. Little wonder federal and state appointments as seen as opportunities for ethnic and primordial groups to get their cut out of the “Nigerian Cake”.
It was the late Sunday Michael Afolabi, Former Internal Affairs Minister who publicly excoriated his former colleague, late Bola Ige, for trying to restrain the food owner when he was only invited to “come and eat”. The more current phrase in use to refer to this tendency is “Turn by Turn Nigeria Limited.” In explaining this phrase, Ahmed Kurfi, said: “this arrangement provides opportunity for various groups in the exercise of real power in the governance of the country, unlike the present dispensation whereby the vice-president/deputy governor has little or no power: and act as a “spare tire” for his boss and can hardly dish out patronage for the people he represents in government’’. It is in that regard that even current supporters of President MuhammaduBuhari are aghast at his recent appointments which points to a tendency towards provincialism, which has been the tradition in Nigeria since the first republic.
The poet and storyteller, Chinua Achebe, in his novel “No Longer at Ease” also demonstrated this theory with the story of Obi Okonkwo, whose town union sponsored him to England to study and on his return, expected him to get a government job, use his position to help his kinsmen and women, and ultimately the union. Such pressures led the otherwise honest Obi into taking bribes and when he was eventually caught, his town’s union, even though not pleased with his actions since joining the civil service, rallied to defend him because he is one of their own and they did not see anything wrong with him taking small bribes when others take huge bribes.
While it is seen as normal to steal from the public coffers, it is deemed unacceptable to steal from the primordial group’s coffers. Primordial groups ensure that their members make it to state institutions so that the group can subsequently benefit. But no member of the primordial group is to steal from the group. That will be a taboo. And if a member of the primordial group is caught s/he will be defended with all the resources of the group.
That is the reality being witnessed in Oghara and all other parts of the country. We really do have a long way to go in creating a nation with a unified morality.