Nigeria is not the worst country in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption perceptions index. It is rated 136 out of 175 and score’s 27/100, on a par with Kenya and the Ivory Coast. But most interestingly our neighbors Niger, Cameroon and Chad seem to have scored better than us in the recent ranking. Where have we really gone wrong? Was this a deliberate attempt to rubbish the Nigerian government and it citizenly? I guess your answers are as good as mine, everything has being politicize in the country, and the zeal for a genuine fight against corruption is gone. The government felt corruption has been over exaggerated and have even come out to differentiate between mere thief and the real ones.
The vast majority of Nigeria’s people do not trust the police. Ninety percent of respondents in a 2014 TI survey in Nigeria considered security services to be either corrupt or extremely corrupt. It is widely believed that the security agencies in the country do not even want an end to the insurgency in the Northeastern part of the country because without the state of emergence most of the top official will have little to feed on, this give us an insight as to why there was frustration among the security operatives in the country over the government inability to get the national assembly extend the emergency rule.
It is bad enough, of course, that the Nigeria people are denied a better state of development and higher standard of living as a result of the institutionalized corruption in the country. Now they are denied the right to live in a country free of terror. Even the importation of equipment specifically designed to enable police to identify suspects is subject to corruption. A $50 bribe will get a terror suspect out of jail. It is a sad state of affairs, to be sure. The government has generally done a poor job of hunting down terror suspects. Left unanswered are questions about how military grade explosives often used in the attacks are acquired in the first place. Could the military be involved? There is talk in Abuja that some of the recent terrorist attacks are actually the work of domestic political forces, either seeking to make a stronger case for more foreign anti-terrorism funding (some of which will presumably ‘disappear’ upon arrival), or to attach blame to the President and his political party for political purposes. In fact the PDP lead government has always accuse the opposition of supporting terror, though without any sufficient proof.
The result is that the depths of corruption in Nigeria society permit terrorism to potentially threaten the very fabric of the nation. Nigeria is already 17th on the list of Failed States Index, sandwiched between Kenya and Niger. Number one on that list is, Somalia (home base for Al Shabaab); number four is, South Sudan (one of the world’s newest nations, at war with its sister nation, Sudan); and next to that is number nine, the Central African Republic (currently imploding, and a magnet for terrorist groups). In fact, Africa is the home of 15 of the top 20 failed or failing states on the Index.
There is a very real risk that Nigeria could become part of a swathe of states from Africa’s that are effectively ungovernable, what I have dubbed the ‘United Africa Failed States’. It may be argued that this is already the case. For example, despite its support from France and the UN, the Central African Republic is in a state of anarchy. Nigeria has already lost some of its own territory and if care is not taken might even lose more in days to come. A situation were civilian are allowed to carry arm all in the name of CJTF (Civilian Joint Task Force), is the beginning of a failed state, the heroic actions of this civilian has its own consequences, if not address on time.
So what does the future hold for a country in a bad neighborhood, unable to break free of the disease of corruption and terrorist organization wreaking havoc throughout the whole country? That depends on how effectively anti-terrorism assistance can be integrated into Nigeria society, and how long such assistance will continue to flow to the government. How effectively can the security forces deploy those assets, and to what degree can the government become proactive, rather than reactive, about the problem. Is that even possible? To date, regrettably, the security services have been relegated to the role of firemen.
My best guess is that Nigeria will continue to muddle along as it has for decades, failing to address the corruption issue in any meaningful way, and squandering the opportunity to become a genuine regional economic powerhouse. In the process, its people will endure even higher unemployment (currently at 67 percent) and crime rates, while the terrorism threat continues to rise. Crime is out of control. My last visit to Nigeria in June this year gave me the chance to speak with some of my friends, almost everyone I spoke with are tired of the system, 95 percent of my fellow graduate from ABU Zaria in 2011 are still unemployed till date. The society has turned them into beggars; some are forced back to the University for their Masters Program because of unemployment.
Nigeria is too important to fail. The government knows it, and so donor governments. So its dependence on foreign aid will also continue. Let us hope that Nigeria does not become part of the United Africa Failed States. As of now, there is just as much chance that it will, as that it will not. Change is inevitable like the saying goes; it will be too early to lose hope for a better Nigeria. I believe on the Nigerian populace to rewrite our history in gold.
Comrade Ahmed Omeiza Lukman,
Kiev, Ukraine.