All Nigerians are corrupt

I AM sure a lot of people are already throwing tantrums at the sight of the title of this piece. It was the same way we reacted When Oprah Winfrey said something similar.

But the truth is, it changes absolutely nothing about its veracity, and over the years I have come to find out that truth does not diminish or fade away with a people‘s obstinate love for ignorance. We only display unawareness and lack of comprehension of what really corruption entails, what it really is all about, who corrupts, and why they do corrupt.

The most important input we offer about corruption is our silence, our unalloyed reticence, our preference to be quiet no matter the cost, or the loss we suffer in it. We rather let sleeping dogs lie inside our bedrooms while we make do with the garage, just so we don‘t upset the peace mindless of the inconvenience there is to us.

It would seem from this analogy that we are so much of a peace loving nation. Well that again is false; rather we are poltroons fleeing the battle ground, afraid of facing our demons and conquering them.

Over the last few weeks we have had a series of corruption related charges having to do with Nigerians and Nigeria as a country.

We have been able to unconsciously create a system in this country that makes corruption a necessity for public office holders. Our system of governance and politics ensures that every one going into the public service must have had full understanding and knowledge of how corruption does operate, otherwise that person will not last in that position. The system has given legality to corrupt practices and mere words and false intentions are not what will stop the seemingly inexorable process of decay that corruption is bringing our nation.

The new Inspector General of Police, who loves parading suspects, should also be prepared to parade those so called highly placed individuals in the society, who are found guilty of misappropriating public funds. This should do well by clearly removing class stratification from public offenders in the country.

Sylvester Awenlimobor,

12 Jida Road,

Agbara, Ogun State.