“The mind is in its own place and in itself can make a hell out of heaven or a heaven out of hell”….John Milton.
Scientists in this millennium are in agreement that the human brain is wired into its own pleasure or pain and never that of others.
In plain language, humans do not have any considerations for the life of others. Humans are by nature selfish, and wicked especially when they are put in charge of peoples commonwealth.
Except religion is able to change or renew their mindset towards greater good; (for which the government is pleased and as such waives tax payment for Churches and Mosques and a host of others), humans will continue to stick to the concept: “I before others’.
For such ignoble act, the society has words to describe those who remain in the animalistic level and sets consequences for bad and offensive behaviors.
That precisely is what is needed to be re-examined in the new wanton season of looting.
But even at that,(well the religion seems failing), the concept of corruption continue to grow and continue to develop strong and powerful immune systems pervading all aspects of the modern society.
The idea here is: can we redefine corruption and give it a more appropriate name other than the euphemism we dress it up with?
Can we then give appropriate punishment for the crimes committed against humanity?
ICPC,agency in charge of Corrupt Practises
For example, every four years in Nigeria, a unique specie of people called politicians (another euphemism), are either elected or selected into positions of authority to serve the people by superintending their treasures and also to organize the whole society in such a way that it functions optimally. Unfortunately, it is no longer a mystery or secret that after the end of every government tenure, all manners of revelation of stealing, looting and plain robbery surfaces.
Probe panels are set-up and in some cases never set-up but my point in this article is that the media, academias and the larger society continue to tag what these evil people do as “corruption”.
It becomes the norm as the looting progress from the 1960s at thousand to the 1980s at millions and now at billions inching to trillion.
The question arises; should we continue to accept corruption as the right word or concept to describe their heinous crimes?
What are the exact words to describe the acts they have perpetrated?
Would the use of the right description of the evil done against the present society and the future ones attract the right amount of sanctions and punishment and then act as deterrent?
According to the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “Corruption is a fluid and evolving concept… encompassing misuse of public power, office or authority for private benefit through bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud and embezzlement “.
UNODC went on to describe a generation of damages done to the societies where the evil is prevalent like
Nigeria.
They described it as a “fluid concept”, meaning it is almost impossible to tag the evil with a particular description.
Recently, some fantastic figures of money were alleged to have been transferred from the government coffers into private accounts. Note that the official word used is “Transferred”.
This is precisely why am writing this piece of article to at least urge the media to begin to call a spade – a spade especially in news reporting.
The word corruption doesn’t strike a chord in our minds again. It has become the new normal.
Olukoyede,EFCC boss
From the word go, it has been a dummy sold into our soul to make an otherwise a grievous crime mild in our minds. In Nigeria of today, corruption has become a common word used as a substitution or pleasant expression for criminality, stealing, dishonesty and in some cases robbery.
What on earth is “embezzlement” other than fantasies.
What is wrong in saying “his father is a thief”.
Imagine the administration of the entire country as a very giant water vessel leaking profusely on every side.
Imagine the country appointing civil servants from among the society to mend the leakages.
Imagine the country using billions of Naira to conduct elections so as to have politicians supervise the civil servants in the job of sealing the leakages so that the water being poured into the vessel can flow towards the general members of the society.
Now, see the administrator of Tax who for a considerable sum of money help crooked people and companies evade Tax.
See also the legislators who creates or refuse to seal loopholes in the laws of the land in exchange for constant share in the loots. What will you call the bureaucrats who gives away the country’s natural resources like oil, gold, silver and titanium to foreigners for considerable monies warehoused abroad?
Would it suffice to call them “corrupt officials”.
What attention would a man who steals goat get when ‘shouts’ of “thief” rend the air around him.
However, shout “corrupt man” a thousand times and gauge the reactions.
Consider also the spending side of governance. Officials and politicians in charge of investments and divestments, infrastructural projects, and subsidies using proxies to buy large chunks of healthy companies and their properties for peanuts.
For example, Nigeria Airways was said to be beyond redemption even when it has exemplary assets in Central London, New York and places of high pedestrian values all over the world, and, amazingly a quarter of the values of those properties surpasses its indebtedness!
Yet they were sold off as “force sales” for peanuts to its real values.
Consider those legislators who crafts “padding” the national budgets so as to cream off billions of dollars and Naira.
On top of it, they ride on “oversight functions” to extort money all over the country and never remember the so-called constituency projects they collected billions to do.
The story of December Palliative of N200 million is still in question in January!
Should we continue to contentedly call them “corrupt politicians”?
We all know too well that our procurement process is based on over-pricing, bribes and plain extortion in many cases. Resultantly, we get low quality products and services and in some cases, nothing is supplied or no roads awarded are ever built.
What about direct siphoning of our crude oil earnings into dubious foreign accounts thereby leaving little or no money for our foreign reserves. Or borrowed money stolen by diversion from the source. Consequentially, nothing gets done and planing for the future of the country remains in jeopardy.
Should we still be content in using the word “corrupt” for these black hole events?
Large or humongous amount of monies are stolen in Nigeria on daily basis and it is needful to classify the thieves as 1- Psychopathic Criminals,
2 – Professional Criminals ,
3-Organized Criminals.
Criminologists posits that there are other four classifications but then is it safe to put the government looters in Nigeria in those three brackets.
I am reliably informed that Psychopathic Criminals are those who are not able to adjust and control their mind and therefore they suffer from mental diseases like superiority and inferiority complexes. They are not capable of, and lack emotional structure and as such steal billions they will never need, thus denying millions of people basic amenities of life without bating their eyes.
So, when we ask questions like “what are they going to do with such huge amount of money, we need to understand that they are not capable of rational capacities, rather, their desirers thoughts, and feelings are organized by egocentric tendencies.
As such; politicians, civil servants and the so-called consultants deceptively wear “masks of sanity”. When caught, they ought to be put in mad peoples asylum or very long prison term sentences.
Professional Criminals according to criminologists are those who have adopted crime as means of income or means of amassing wealth.
As civil servants and politicians, they see public service as gold mines and fair game. Their minions are the smugglers, car-lifters, kidnappers, armed robbers, and bandits and even land grabbers.
These endless list evil perpetrators hide under the wings of Professional Criminal in government and the civil service, getting information, weapons and legal protection from them.
In some cases, they even set them up using their position as levers of power. Wouldn’t it be an understatement to say they pose great dangers to the society and are the direct purveyors of woes of Nigeria even as you read now?
Then comes the most dangerous of the trio.. the Organized Criminals.
In Nigeria today, if you are employed where they have successfully established themselves, you may have only the choice to join them or quit the job.
From poison to assassination and framing, one will be deployed on you if you choose to stay without cooperating with them.
A man in the finance department known for his exceptional clean character was murdered on the way from the bank in the the central area of Abeokuta not long ago.
ICPC boss
These lots are ruthless. They are the very reason why early and successful convictions are rare in the courts. They are like a cult of Mafia. They have tentacles all over government establishments. From the the executive and all its arms to legislature and judiciary, they hold sway. And although they are not in the majority, yet they are very powerful.
They do their recruiting by contributing large sums of money to sponsor strategic politicians into office. They also use smart technologies which ironically is used to detect ghost workers and pensioners to steal money from government treasury. They have “back doors” built into the devices as it were.
In their schemes, they have bankers in the loop in the opening of illicit accounts in the name of government, in changing and amending of existing signatories, in depositing and transferring of funds and other dubiousness.
Now l ask you, is it sensible to continue to do sameness and expect different results?
We need to change the way we see bureaucrats and politicians who are caught stealing public money.
We must understand that some of them are indeed psychopathic criminals.
These category are convinced there is nothing wrong with them as such they would not visit psychiatric doctors. When campaigning, they are brilliant enough to use words acceptable to voters. They are capable of imitating the emotions of totally sane people. I have seen a politician who allegedly broke down at a campaign rally because of extremely bad road in the area. He sobed and you can see tears dropped from his eyes.
But after being elected into office, he never visited the place or did anything about the road for eight years he was there.
These type of politicians are also very clever and strategic in giving out lots of gifts both in cash and equipment to the general public for photo opportunities.
And, in dark places, they are ever ready to unleash thugs and hired killers on those who oppose them in any way. They hide their bestialities to the members of the public consciously.
We are all thinking creatures. But much of our thinking is geared towards our own good. In most cases it is biased, prejudiced and sometimes wry.
Our thinking often leads to problems in our lives and for appointed and elected officials, it leads to gravely problems for the country.
However, because they are adequately paid even( overpaid) for the jobs they are hired to do, there has to be grave consequences for the crimes they commit.
We need to change how we see them. We need to change our minds on how we address the crimes they commit beyond the value of money. We must address the issue as in these people are not just “corrupt officials and politicians”, they are psychopathic, professional and organized criminals and should be seen and addressed as such.
Can we learn anything from China who around 1999 said enough to corruption and with a vision to become the number one economic power in 30 years addressed corruption and other crimes as evil plaguing their ascension and thus give death penalty as consequence.
It worked because 30 years down the road today, they are competing to be number one.
Meanwhile, they are not relenting despite international pressure on them to cancel death penalty.
For example, Fu Zhenghua, the ex-Justice minister was sentenced to death penalty for receiving $16.7 million bribes, but with a reprieve of two years. Li Jianping was also found guilty of pocketing a massive sum of money, $420 million and was sentenced to death for corruption, bribery, embezzlement and engaging in organized crime.
They have not covered other crimes with the togas of corruption as you can see. It is just one of the crimes and not the totality per se.
We need to get serious on these sets of evil.
Tinubu needs to have serious talk with the judiciary and we need to hold our legislators to account for why are they not holding “Town Hall Meetings”.
Is it true that they were given N200 million by the executive arm to purchase rice in December 2023?
Let them hold meetings in their constituency to shine light on this issues.
One thing is sure, we need to tweak our lexicon to fit today’s crimes by the white collar job people.
Whether they are men or women, elderly or youths; they are simply dishonest person, thieves and robbers in the ilk of psychopathic, professional and well organized criminals!
