Sometime last year, Hillary Clinton, the American Secretary of State visited Nigeria and of the many things she said by way of giving advice to a country trying to find it’s foot, what she said loudest and longest was that Nigeria, as a country, is bed-ridden with corruption and would remain that way till we purge ourselves of this debilitating disease. These of course are my words, not her's, but the manner in which she said the things she did made me cringe with shame; shame that we should wash our dirty linens before such public eyes; shame that we have allowed ourselves roll so long and mindlessly in the mud, that a stranger finds it impossible to mince words with us in stating how filthy we are!
On Monday, Nov. 1st 2010, Rev. Jesse Jackson, an American envoy, speaking at the Kuramo Conference came all the way to our country to press his finger to our noses, as he labeled us corrupt to an extent that is criminal to humanity.
It’s not that I don’t know these things to be true oh! I fear that we may even be corrupt enough to have become a stench in the nose of our creator. It’s just that Nigerian thing about an outsider coming to your home to call your folks names. Even when you know the relation in question is a thief, you want to be the one to make the accusations.
Sometimes, I want to believe that the situation isn’t as bad as it’s painted; that people home and abroad just blow things out of proportion for the heck of it. The truth however becomes glaring when I come face-to-face with the deeply etched rot in our system, which is about everyday.
I know the situation is undeniably bad when I hear stories about the police and health care practitioners demanding that their palms be greased if they must perform in their various capacities. It's appalling to hear that people whose jobs translate into life and security, would think to hold clients to ransom for bribe!
A friend of mine who recently drove into a robbery and escaped from the scene with bullet marks all over his car had to go to the police station to obtain a Police extract/report. Without this, he can’t get his Insurer to cover the cost of the repairs on his car. It’s been over a week, and while he has been forced to grease many palms at the station, he is yet to obtain the much needed report. A police officer after collecting a sum of money from him, actually told him to, if asked, tell her superior that the sum given was less than the actual. As he sat at the station, waiting for a report that he eventually didn’t get, he learned a couple of things about our Police Force;
· policemen threaten not to release people whose bails had been paid until the persons who posted their bail gave them something extra ‘for their effort’
· a person who makes a complaint to the police that requires that a case-file be opened has to pay the officer in charge something extra to close the file if he decides to drop the charges
· a person could walk into a station to make a complaint and if for some reason, the policemen do not like something about him, he gets hauled in jail as a suspect in the case he came in to report
As if all these aren’t bad enough, one goes to the hospital to hear the person who receives payment for your bills complaining “Na wa for these patients sef! Don’t you people ever add anything extra?” and the nurse wielding the syringe that’s going into your bum, asking “Won’t you buy me Malt?” I cringe to think what would happen to the brave but foolish person who responses in the negative!
Picture source here
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