FORMER South African President, Thabo Mbeki was recently quoted to have said that, "ordinary Nigerians deserve as much blame as the politicians for the leadership failure in the country!" According to this man who took over the mantle of leadership from the late Nelson Mandela, it is only the citizens themselves that can put a stop to bad leadership. While many arguing about this speech, I honestly agree with the man totally.
But how do we begin to fight this demon called corruption that has eaten deep into our national fabrics? Anywhere the word corruption is mentioned, what readily comes to the mind of a typical Nigerian is those in corridors of power or the elected executives in government houses. Corruption cuts across the social strata rearing its ugly head in the markets, the motor parks, the schools, offices, hospitals....
Yet an ordinary Nigerian who's not a politician or not benefiting from a sitting government sees himself as a saint. Anytime a newspaper or magazine announces the arrest or detention of any past public office holders by the anti-graft agencies, the reactions from ordinary Nigerians are always annoying.
'Nemesis has finally caught up with them,' exclaimed a Nigerian roadside newspaper reader, who is equally a petty fraudster, short-changing the newspaper publishing houses of full payment of a copy by opting to pay peanuts to read at the vendor's kiosk. Roadside subscriptions are never credited to the publishing houses. But the road side readers never seen themselves as part of the corruption loop!
Those corrupt public office holders were once part of us. They didn't grow those traits when they got to the corridors of power. I am beginning to think that we hate those traits because when we look at our leaders, we see a mirror and standing in front of a mirror can be a very devastating if you don't look too good. Yeah, our leaders are mirrors who terrorize us with images of ourselves we'll rather not deal with!
Fact is, not many of us can claim never to have benefited from one corrupt process or the other and not many of us realize that the more corrupt we get, the more hardship we face in pursuit of survival. I had writing earlier that those empowering us to the detriment of our future aren't helping us. We buy certificates for our wards; send them to school with public funds and get them employed at all cost and even to the detriment of the more qualified ones. God have mercy!
It's a weird world where all is subject to natural justice and it's really so sad, because if this trend goes unchecked our coming generation will not only be facing unimaginable hardship but may find peace a luxury.
Corruption-free society is possible, but it begins with us. If I follow due process in all my dealings and every other person out there does the same and with the fear of God, gradually, corruption will be a past issue in our land!.
