CORRUPTION, WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT?

When the word ‘corruption’ is said, politicians and top government officials come into mind as if they are the only ones who are corrupt. The word ‘corruption’ as defined by the Encarta dictionary is ‘dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain.

In the light of the above definition, can we search ourselves and still say we are not corrupt? Everybody that engages in any form of exploitation for personal gain is corrupt and this I say without any apology to anybody. Nigerians are great hypocrites who points to a broomstick in another’s eyes when an iroko lies unattended to in their own eyes.

The motivation behind this write-up was an incident that took place at the weekend. I had a business to attend to in Lagos, so early in the morning I went to the park to board a bus to Lagos. This I did at 420 naira. At the end of my business in Lagos, I headed for the park to board the one heading for Ibadan and it was at this place that I got the shock of my life. The bus I had taken less than 8 hours earlier had skyrocketed to 1,500 naira without a corresponding increase in the cost of fuel. I had only 2 options staring me in the face; pay the highly inflated fare or stay back in Lagos until that momentary madness was healed and because I did not have the luxury of the second option, I grudgingly took the first. If this is not corruption, then what is?

In Nigeria, if a politician embezzles 100 million, Nigerians will call for his head but what should we do to cab drivers that exploit and extort commuters? All through the journey, my heart was in my mouth because the bus was literally flying as the driver was moving at top speed just because he wanted to get to Ibadan on time to pick more passengers. In short, he wanted to maximize profit at the expense of the passengers’ lives.

So much for drivers, what about market women that dubiously shrink the container so that it would accommodate less at the normal price. We all need a change of orientation and attitude. It is not the amount that defines corruption; it is the motive behind it.