It is no news that various departments in both the public and private sectors of Nigeria are riddled with corruption. Politics, Security, Media, Education, Health and the list goes on.

From political parties sharing food stuffs or handing out cash to voters, police demanding a certain fee before letting commuters on their way, paying JAMB/WAEC officials to tweak the results of candidates, paying DJs in radio stations to play artists songs (although this so-called payola system occurs in varying degrees virtualy everywhere in the world including the US, it has attained epidermic proportions in Nigeria) and so on. These are the quickest and simplest examples (as the complex ones we are aware of might take a significant percentage of this write-up) I could come up with as I’m in no better position of explaining a practice we are all very familiar with.

But what happens when a supposed innocent one gets caught up in the mix? Such was the story of a young man whose story I came across on social media. While driving through the infamous Lagos traffic, he was stopped for a random (most likely unauthorized) search and had to part with his hard earned money because the police officers wouldn’t believe the transaction information on his phone was legit. He was an online businessman mistaken ( perhaps deliberately) for a fraudster. After several of his explanations fell on deaf ears, he was forced to deep his hands in his pockets to wiggle himself out of the situation.

Is he responsible for informing/teaching the police force about online businesses? No. Where they even supposed to go into his phone? No, because a warrant is needed from a Judge before they can do so. At this point you readers might start to giggle about my naiveness and continue to wonder if I was raised within the shores of this nation. May be I was, maybe I fell of a tree or I was shipwrecked on one of the dirty beaches of Lagos and I’m using this medium to reach for help. Anyways that has nothing to do with the truth. News Flash guys, the truth is always valid irrespective of who speaks it.

As corruption continues to gain new grounds and unbelievable stories like this starts to emerge, it’s obvious that human rights which is the bedrock of thriving nations has no meaning to us in this country (notice how I said US(me and you) and not police forces, politicians etc.)And it’s just a matter of time before you get hit in an unbelievable way too. While many of you might see him as a victim of bribery and corruption, I don’t. He is as guilty as the police officers he paid to get away from. He continued a chain reaction he could have put an end to. He was in a position to start a gigantic revolution in a sector of the police force but chose to walk away from his National call. Many lives could have been saved by the young man’s bold challenge as we all know that many people are coming to walk that path that was left uncleared and their outcome might be the same if not more grievous than the young man’s. He could have gone to the station, written a statement, get locked up for a few days and stood before a Judge to narrate his ordeal.

He could have gotten the media involved in the case so that the rest of us can be motivated to stand up for injustice in any way we see fit. All that! When he could pay is way out of that stress?! Yes! All that! Redeeming this nation from its level of corruption is no child’s play and as corruption grows day by day we should expect the price to pay for stopping it to grow as well.

We’ve accepted many corrupt practices as the norm as almost everyone indulges in it either directly or indirectly. No wonder for an act to be labeled as corruption and reported as news in media outlets, it must either have to do with top officials or the money involved is ridiculous. Only if we knew these individuals moved on from regular corruption we considered as nothing to where they are now, the same way we strive to excel above our peers. Nothing new here, higher tactics equals bigger loots and costlier damages.

The heroes we celebrate today who have impacted this world and made it a better place are people who stood up against the abnormalities even at the expense of their lives. Martin Luther King stood up against racial inequality, Abraham Lincoln stood up against Slavery and Gani Fawehinmi stood up against oppression of the masses by the government. In Nigeria, its high time we standup against corruption. The more of these men you have in a country, the greater that country. Where laws are disobeyed through bribery and corruption, chaos is bound to happen.

The only reason these names are stuck in our memories and their legacies celebrated is because they were willing to give up the most precious thing to them ,life, in order to better others. This is synonymous to what Jesus said in Matt 16:25 for whosoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. For me means, Justice, Truth, Loving your neighbors as yourself, moral uprightness. These are the attributes of corrupt-free nations. As a Christian, engaging in any form of bribery or corruption is a sin. It simply means we are saving our lives instead of using it as a tool to impact the earth by fighting corruption and its likes in order to match the standards of heaven, as the primary goal of the creator was to have an extension of heaven on earth and not for us to come to heaven. And if earth is to be an extension of heaven, so should the application of it’s rules and regulations.



So of course continuous saving of our lives means we are bound to lose it. How? You might ask. Mediocrity is one of Corruption’s many children. Many of us are yet to discover how much we can endure and how tough we can be because of the crooked means we used in arriving at our various destinations. Many goals have been left unattained because of how corruption has shaped us i.e. weakened us. It’s a recipe for a failed state. Lives are lost on surgery tables to the hands of quack doctors who bribe their way through certain gates, poor performance of students in public schools are results of incompetent teachers who themselves were poor performing students that made use of cracks and faults in the system to obtain their qualifications, and the list goes on. Its ripple effect cannot be imagined or perhaps can best be imagined. I hope these few examples connects the dots to reveal a bigger picture of how this nation is losing its people and its integrity at an alarming rate to corruption.



I give kudos to patriotic Nigerians who are relentlessly wagging war against corruption and I encourage we all to participate in this struggle if we, love ourselves, our neighbors and are truly looking forward to a better tomorrow. Stand for Nigeria gallantly at the slightest opportunity presented. There’s nothing wrong in appreciating a service that’s well done by tipping, as long as it’s done with no conflict of interest and the department the beneficiary is attached to permits it. I’ve given tips to commendable customer service even when I had no job. All forms of leniency should be shown in courtrooms with no strings attached according to the power bestowed upon the Judge, and in cases where officials (Police, LAWMA, SARS etc.) have the authority to apply leniency, no forms of commodity should exchange hands in order to avoid conflict of interest.

The truth is we all (200 Million Nigerians) can have our names written in history books. We are presented with opportunities to do so daily (to take on every one of these challenges),to make Nigeria a better place but like a farmer who dreams to have many grains but refuses to plant the only one he has, we hang unto our dear lives as if we are promised tomorrow.

http://www.tosinspot.com/how-corrupt-are-we/