How Corruption Deteriorates Poverty in Nigeria

International Journal of Engineering and Information Systems (IJEAIS) ISSN: 2000-000X Vol. 1 Issue 9, November – 2017, Pages: 152-164 How Corruption Deteriorates Poverty in Nigeria Besong, Eric Ndoma Department of Philosophy, Federal University Lafia P.M.B 146, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria [email protected] Abstract: Amidst plenty, Nigeria continues to wallow in abject poverty all because of corruption from the top to the bottom. Corruption is endemic and devastating. The pitiable increasing poverty level in Nigeria is mainly caused by corruption. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer, as corruption permeates every sector/phase of the Nigerian society, since the bourgeoisie and elite have held on to the pervasive popular culture of corruption and economic exploitation. It is unfortunate and worrisome that the giant and supposed richest nation of Africa, richly blessed by God with huge human and natural resources, has been one of the poorest of the poor nations of Africa and the globe. Corruption is responsible for this whole mess and irony. This paper thus rises to scholarly describe how corruption deteriorates the poverty rate in Nigeria. It maintains that corruption is both the prime cause and aggravator/accelerator of poverty in Nigeria. The status quo of corruption can be realised only through responsible, disciplined and virtuous leadership and followership. The change is very possible with willingness and diligence. The paper draws from closely related secondary sources besides intuition and observation, anchored on qualitative approach and analysis. Keywords: Corruption, Poverty, Deteriorate, Nigeria, Government 1. INTRODUCTION Poverty and underdevelopment are the off-shoot of corruption, an endemic nefarious scourge in Nigeria that has been rivetingly rocking the society since the colonial era up to the post-independence era of failed, disappointing indigenous leadership/elitism of western mimicry, anchored on the colonialists’ tailored structured institutions of capitalist precepts, ideologies and practices. Alien (2010:45) lends credence to our stance thus: Corruption is diametrically antithetical to development. Poverty and underdevelopment are the products of corruption. There is a consensus in the literature that corruption breeds poverty. The prevalence of poverty, unemployment, inflation, inequality, crime, ethno-religious and political violence, insecurity of lives and property, comatose infrastructure, lawlessness, electoral malpractices, retrogresses educational system [including sub-standard education, arising from exam malpractice and other corrupt practices], illiteracy, diseases, starvation, misery and squalor; under the stewardship of a visionless and kleptocratic political leadership is an indictment on the capacity and ability of government to engender good governance and development. In the face of these woes, corruption, no doubt, is an important part of the continuum that has ensured that the economic, governance and development crises in the country are pronounced and persistent. Corruption in Nigeria is endemic. In the same vein, Ikubaje (2006:1) notes that corruption has become so prevalent in Nigeria that almost all governance crises, economic woes and development predicaments are attributed to the problem. Prah’s (2009:13) observation also reflects the foregoing thus: The African post-colonial elites have consistently failed to provide the sort of leadership which is needed to improve the quality of life of the teeming masses of African humanity. Contestation for resources and recourse to ethnic mobilization instead of clear ideological positioning reduces politics to egotistical grandstanding and philosophically barren personality rivalries. This has been the stock-in-trade of our political elite; power at all cost in the absence of political hygiene. In our different countries, to different degrees, Pentecostalist Christian fundamentalism and Muslim fundamentalism, both, have captured the religious fancies and experience of increasing proportions of our populations. Undeclared conditions of military and bureaucratic elements have in different shapes and forms been used with sometimes the connivance of the political elite in order to dominate the state and blissfully loot. www.ijeais.org 152 International Journal of Engineering and Information Systems (IJEAIS) ISSN: 2000-000X Vol. 1 Issue 9, November – 2017, Pages: 152-164 Corruption is as old as Nigeria (Aliu, 2010:49). According to Joseph cited in Ujomu (2004:24), every Nigerian government, from the regional administration under colonial rule in the 1950s to the most recent regimes, has carried corruption to an unparallel degree. This also justifies our above muse that traces corruption and impoverishment to the colonial era, from which both corruption and poverty began to degenerate upon independence in 1960, through several defunct republics and regimes to the present era. The so-carrying of corruption by every Nigerian government since the colonial epoch illustrates how corruption has been institutionalised by all the Nigerian governments across times (cf. Besong, Dibie and Robert, 2016). Ekeh (1980) argues that colonialism in Nigeria was built on corruption. Because of its corrupt disposition to exploit the state (Nigeria) for the exclusive benefits of the white colonialists, it liquidated the social structures against corruption associated with pre-colonial Africa and replaced or transformed them to suit its purpose. This process led to the emergence of two publics in Africa, such that while the primordial public was built on a system of accountability and control based on moral principles, the civil public became a contested terrain of private accumulation based on a moral principle (Ekeh, 1980; Ighadalo, 2009:22; Omotola, 2005:7; Aliu, 2010:49). Omotola (2005:7) notes that the colonial era marked the beginning of official corruption in Nigeria and the idea of a privatised state began to manifest. A state is said to be privatised when it is appropriate to the service of private interest by the dominant faction of the elite (Ake, 1996: 42). The elite class in Nigeria seems to assume dimension that is unusual of realistic functions in development context. Analysis of contemporary situations in Nigeria reveals that the country elite class has no consistent and significant linkage to its national exploit. The formation and conduct of Nigeria’s elite group have not been translated into a source of national development, despite the fact well observed by an American political scientist, John Purcell (1974) that powerful initiatives from within the elite groups is critically important for national development (Frank, 1991). This highlights the nature of the Nigerian elite class, whose powerful initiatives are antithetical and inimical to development and as well only good at the greedy welfare of elite, themselves. The Nigerian elite class had little disposition to contemplate the positive use of elite advantage as strategic instrument for engineering national development. Nigeria has realised very little of her potentials because of ineffective mobilisation of these potentials by the elites. Today, the people (masses) have limited access to education, lack of good drinking water and adequate medical care, good roads that would aid the free and easy transportation of agricultural produce, markets, storage facilities, electricity, to mention but a few. Millions of Nigerians are said to be suffering from various deadly diseases. There is a prevalence of poor income and unemployment, street trading (hawking) by children, hazardous reproductive behaviours, etc. (Kia and Vurasi 2013:162). Prah (2009), again, aptly lends credence to the above thus: Clearly, if 50 odd states in fifty years are unable to make development headway, then obviously something must be fundamentally wrong with our approach to development. We need to go back to fundamentals. If after a half-century we are bogged down in an immobilising quagmire of underdevelopment, then we can say that there are serious inadequacies with the paradigms we are using in order to approach the development challenge. Fundamentally, all governments have elites at the head. Everywhere elites are viewed as essential elements of the political and social life of the country, and in every country, the stability of the nation and its regime seem to depend, in a large measure, on the way in which the elites is organised and fits with the other sectors. There are qualities which constitute the hallmark of competent groups. These qualities are so essential for national development. Essentially, elite formation is legitimated by their identification with the most pervasive goals in society. That is, elites are an embodiment of national consensus. Elite, therefore, is a nexus of need fulfilment that binds situational demands and group membership. Thus, the failure and success of national development depends on elite’s effectiveness in knitting together political influence so that it responds to functional demand on the system. By personalising the national values and giving a relentless drive to development, the elite energise the productive capacity of their society. Indeed, the quality of a nation’s elites and the image which they project to the world constitute an important source of power (Kia and Vurasi, 2013:165). This clearly tells the quality of elites that Nigeria has always had since the colonial era into the post-colonial era. This means that greater proportion of woes suffered by

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