How corruption now steals not only public resources, but also certainty, sympathy, and the public’s ability to know where truth stands.
Some years ago, I wrote sarcastically that the yam of the king was already eating the goat of the king. Many people in my small circle called to share their opinions. Some thought I had mistakenly twisted the familiar phrase; a few others wondered what mischief I was up to again. Others simply said I was “always confusing” them. Some asked me to explain what informed the statement.
What I meant was simple: the abnormal had become normal, and the very things meant to preserve order had begun to destroy it from within.
Corruption is endemic, and it has become increasingly uncontrollable in our clime.
Growing up in Ekiti, my first contact with the word “corrupt” was as a veiled description of promiscuity. When someone was described as corrupt back then, it meant the person was sexually immoral. Remember, we were either too shy or too pretentiously modest to mention the word “sex” in ordinary conversation.
By the 1980s, we began to hear about corrupt politicians, popularly called ten-percenters. These were people who demanded 10 percent from contractors before awarding legitimate contracts. Then the military struck, claiming it had come to rescue the nation from corruption.
Before long, however, the military regimes themselves became a cesspit of unmitigated corruption. Accountability became a strange phenomenon. And when a superfluous democracy was eventually bequeathed by the military, they inserted immunity into the Constitution.
Immunity is ideally meant to prevent unnecessary distraction from governance, but it has instead graduated into impunity.
In my book, Oddity of Impunity, I explained this in poetic verses.
Today, corruption has grown so bold and brazen that its perpetrators are no longer afraid to seek public sympathy when one actor feels cheated by a seemingly superior crook, or by a league of crooks. Corruption has become a well-entrenched and self-protective system. Yes, corruption now protects itself against any and all external aggression.
If you wonder why, remember that systems are ordinarily established to protect themselves and guard against deviation.
It is, therefore, unfortunate when we, the innocent public, quickly take sides whenever corrupt elements choose to dance naked in public. It may be true that we are frustrated by our inability to know the true position of things amid the cacophony of many competing narratives.
Today, everything is twisted. Evidence is conjured, and the louder voice is adjudged the victim. Put differently, the first to complain is often seen as the innocent party. But in the Maccabee dance of the corruption clan, the more you see and hear, the less you understand.
Take the ongoing drama around the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. The name alone is enough to intimidate the innocent and impress the gullible. One moment, it appears in public conversation wearing the garment of officialdom; the next moment, it is disowned as fake and unknown to the Presidency.
Then allegations begin to fly, denials begin to march, lawyers begin to threaten, and the Chief of Staff to the President is dragged into the market square of public suspicion.
In such a theatre, the ordinary citizen is handed popcorn and confusion in equal measure. One camp shouts “impostor”; another whispers “cover-up.” Documents appear, disclaimers follow, social media judges begin to pass sentence, and the real issue is buried under the noise.
That is the new face of corruption: not merely the act itself, but the performance after the act. The quarrel is often no longer about morality. It is about who cheated whom, who exposed whom, who disowned whom, and who can recruit the loudest congregation of sympathizers.
The lesson is not that every allegation is true; the lesson is that corruption has mastered the art of making truth arrive late.
People now come to equity with soiled hands.
The one who said, “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us,” ended up presiding over a system that gave corruption more room to breathe.
Corruption is bold. It is not afraid of the mob. It plays on our emotions to garner public support whenever a member of the clan has been excommunicated.
In corruption, both the complainant and the defender are often guilty. But the public is forced to choose whom to support. When the going is good, the clan cares nothing about us.
Simple advice.
When listening to the gbas gbos of corruption, do yourself a favour: do not rush to become a rented sympathizer. Watch carefully, ask questions, and resist the temptation to crown one thief a saint simply because he shouted first.
You will hear various shades of the same event. Like the narratives of quarrelling couples, the core issue may be glossed over, and you may never get to know the whole truth.
As in the not-too-distant past, I am #JustThinkingAloud again today.
©TheVillageBoy.
(The figure man who loves alphabets)
