Like I have said, Nigeria's problem is chaos, not corruption.

Asking for anything less than a total restructuring of the system will be a waste of time. Anything that thrives on chaos will seize advantage, from "roger" demanding police to market women selling food above open sewers, from armed robbers to thieving politicians. Chaos is what allows a rich man to slap a poorer man in public for scratching his car.
More than anything, it is chaos that breeds the openings for corruption to take root, therefore what Nigeria needs is organisation. It is important to note that organisation can only arise from deliberate planning, it will never arise from spur of the moment protests against corruption. The effects of such protests will always be negated by the passage of time and the snatching of opportunities by desperate men in a chaotic system. Our chaotic national structure is the problem, corruption is merely a symptom of the more fundamental disease.

The continuous cycle of poorly targetted protest and defeat by time (because the system remains unchanged) only yields the sort of disengagement, apathy and despondency that is found in the average Nigerian. It will only get worse, because we keep expending our energies going after the symptoms of chaos, rather than attacking the roots of our chaotic system.

What we need is a struggle for true federalism. Any other battle is a foolish waste of time that will attain meaningless short term goals; the defeat of these short term goals will in turn sap our energy for future battles, and the fact that the root of the problem has been left intact will only reschedule the battle for another day. A cycle of useless struggles.

True federalism, a sense of belonging for all Nigerians, regional and cultural autonomies, enforceable state laws, productive states and LG's etc and we are talking.

ndu_chucks:

Beaf, stop the foolishness. Is the chaos not caused by corruption? olodo

Beaf:

How can chaos be caused by corruption? Corruption is caused by lawlessness and lawlessness is caused by a lack of order, which is chaos. Comprende?
Fighting corruption without battling its root cause is a waste of time.

Fix the Nigerian system and you would have fixed corruption, underdevelopment and the various fuckries around us that have sadly become normal to the average Nigerian; from loudspeakers in churches to soldiers beating people up in the streets, pen theft etc.

Xavier.:

Beaf, d right word is not 'Chaos' but 'impunity'. It is our culture of impunity that has gotten into ds mess. It is wat's fueling corruption.

sheyguy:

lawlessness is fuelled by corruption of security and judiciary system, and by extension those who monitor and maintain order at all level including the govt.

Beaf:

Impunity is a good word indeed.

I am afraid that Nigeria problems have nothing to do with the security or judicial systems. We totally lack a framework of existence, therefore anything goes in Nigeria and thats the very definition of chaos.

As an example, when last did you hear of food inspectors in Nigeria? Does that have anything to do with security or judicial systems or is it that our existence is so chaotic that in some cases, we are barely human and more animal?
It is the same thing that exhibits itself in every strata of our society (even NL).
Here are two sets of pics; one is from a rural area in Jamaica (a country thats much poorer than us), the other is from an urban area in Nigeria. Compare:

[size=13pt]Nigerian pic set[/size]






[size=13pt]Jamaican pic set[/size]


Health worker checks the meat in the slaughterhouse.


Butcher cuts the meat

kingoflag:


No matter how you want to slice and dice this like the beef above, Beaf, YOU ARE WRONG ON THIS ONE.

Corruption is why the Food Inspector (that you suddenly desire in your life) will turn a blind eye to the health disaster staring him in the face after pocketing a couple Dollars.

Beaf:

This is empty.
There is corruption everywhere in the World, but their systems work. There is corruption in Jamaica, but they will not eat food slaughtered in the manner that is common in Nigeria, talkless of the way it is sold (in their markets, every piece of meat has a stamp that proves its healthy).
The market I depicted shows chaos in all its gory details. It is everywhere in Nigeria.

Nigeria is chaotic, because it has no foundation, so anything goes. No matter how you patch and plaster such a system, it will still spring a leak.
We need to either hammer out an enduring framework of existence based on or keep screaming into the wind. That is what Jamaica has that we lack and it shows in everything from the way they have found a way to write their patois as a language totally distinct off English, to the way they have made reggae known Worldwide. Population? 3 million!

sheyguy:

Beaf, i still find your argument lacking. 9ja markets might look rough but that is nothing close to chaos, our markets r like that largely because of its spacing. The transaction r still the same.
As for standard inspection and certification lacking in our system, it is corruption. If some had not triggered the chain of corruption which eventually gives rise to chaos by doing the wrong thing, there would be no chaos.

Beaf:

Our markets are like that because, anything goes in Nigeria; the markets are surely not so out of corruption, rather it is through chaos.
And anything goes in Nigeria, because we are chaotic.
The fact that you do no see anything wrong in the situation of the markets only puts clothes on my argument. The average Nigerian cannot see that life could be better organised and existence more humane. Just as our markets where we obtain food to sustain our souls are like a cesspit, so it is that there are sights one would never behold in other countries (see attached pic).

The country lacks a foundational framework of existence. So, its like a huge unweildy building, balancing on thin legs, and each time the wind blows we have to add new legs in the direction of the current wind; when the direction changes, the building begins to tip the other way and we have to find bricks or mud to shore it up. Its a never ending cycle of patching leaks, propping up, repainting, rewiring etc, all depending on whichever way the wind blows, cos there is no durable foundation.

You wouldn't find this sort of picture in an ordered society. This is not corruption, it is chaos:

Beaf:

Our markets are like that because, anything goes in Nigeria; the markets are surely not so out of corruption, rather it is through chaos.
And anything goes in Nigeria, because we are chaotic.
The fact that you do no see anything wrong in the situation of the markets only puts clothes on my argument. The average Nigerian cannot see that life could be better organised and existence more humane. Just as our markets where we obtain food to sustain our souls are like a cesspit, so it is that there are sights one would never behold in other countries (see attached pic).

The country lacks a foundational framework of existence. So, its like a huge unweildy building, balancing on thin legs, and each time the wind blows we have to add new legs in the direction of the current wind; when the direction changes, the building begins to tip the other way and we have to find bricks or mud to shore it up. Its a never ending cycle of patching leaks, propping up, repainting, rewiring etc, all depending on whichever way the wind blows, cos there is no durable foundation.

You wouldn't find this sort of picture in an ordered society. This is not corruption, it is chaos:

norrisman:

@ Beaf

I agree with what you have posted and it makes a lot of sense but do you know why most people will not agree with you? Because you usually defend the indefensible. I understand you have a job selling the ideas of your boss to Nigerians but there are sometimes when you have to take a step back and objectively analyse situations and view it from the eyes of the ordianry man.

ziga:

These things happen not because we do not have laws. But because the people who should prevent the chaos have been corrupted. Chaos and corruption go hand in hand, however, you need to remove the corruption to cure the chaos. And not the other way round.

Let our laws be enforced, and not pushed aside by exchange of ghana must go bags and we will get rid of the chaos.

PapaBrowne:

Sometimes we just run our mouths without practicalizing scenarios.
To all those saying to fight corruption and not correct the system, lets practicalize scenarios for a moment.

Mr President decides that from today, he will begin to fight corruption. So he employs a very strong hand in the EFCC and orders that they stop at nothing to halt corruption in every facet of society. The EFCC boss orders his boys to go to every nook and cranny of society and fish out corruption.

Mr A is an EFFC officer(Lets call him Musa). He earns N70,000 a month. He has a family of six. Pays rent 2 years in advance, school fees for 6 children and has an extended family in Kaduna he gives stipends to. His salary finishes on the first week of the month.

On the third week of the month, His Oga sends him on an errand to investigate a LG chairman somewhere in Delta State over funds misappropraition running into hundreds of millions. He gets there and is offered a bribe of N5 million to say everything is alright. He is a honest man, but he has bills to pay, so he accepts the bribe.

Now the President and the EFCC boss have done their best. But along the chain of command, realities begin to set in. The enforcers of the law meet with a willingly chaotic society. They would do their best, but as long as the structure is rotten, their best will end up like that of Ribadu! Fighting here and there with no change in sight.

If we fix the system, the likelihood for corruption would be much less.  If for instance the LG chairman in question was made accountable to his constituency rather than to his Governor, it is we the people that would deal with the corruption and not wait for Abuja to do it for us.

A good example of fixing the system is the passage of the passage of the FOI bill. The bill would allow us to know exactly what and what our Governments are doing at any given time. However, since that bill was passed the people have failed to use it to their benefit. I haven't heard of a single Nigerian that has gone  to any Government office to demand information that would make government accountable. Not even our media houses or Civil Society Organisations. We just keep complaining well as the tools to fight corruption have already been placed in our hands.
But no, we ourselves are even more corrupt than the government itself, so we can't be bother. We just love to run our mouths!!

jmaine:

[size=14pt]Corruption has never being our major problem[/size]

Sectionalism, ethnicity and tribal divide is our main problem . . .they feed the hatred and suspicion we have for each other . .This problem is deeply embedded in the name called Nigeria as we know it . . . Our early leaders like Azikiwe , the Sultan of Sokoto and Pa Awolowo et al. , did not make provision to solve this suspicion and hatred  for each other. All they did was to shift it aside hence giving room to corruption in the form of Nepotism.

It started out regionally as the resolve to hold tight to whatever you feel is good (positions, allocation e.t.c ) for your kinsmen cos of the fear that no other region will do that for you , so your need to look out for yourself and your people, than allow any other tribe come close to your chest supposedly meant for the populace. Just like a seed when planted will grow into a tree over time with roots reaching deep down to the depths of the soil, what started out as regional "hold tight for your people" syndrome became more polarized as people even in the same region began to see others as majorities or minority  . .from minority - majority debate . .it went deep down to the clan level where even in the same L .G. A . .they even fight in a very bloody manner just to acquire that wealth forcefully.

When the stakes went higher , the focused now shifted from clan driven struggles to family struggles . . . and this family struggles is the phase we are in our our corruption expedition . .a phase that is more monstrous than the regional, tribal and clan related corrupt tendencies . . .  Now people feel the need to emancipate their family and their entire generations yet unborn by amassing illegal wealth to the detriment of the others . .with the thinking that they are making hay while the sun shines . .and the next family seeing this trend and the appealing yield would fight doggedly by any means just to get his/her family to the pie only meant for the strong and mighty . .while the poor are the mercy of the strong political gladiators

The only voice of the poor is at the election but the mighty elites who  benefited from the past ensured that they also controlled the dynamics of the electoral process introducing money politics, rigging ,and the last option arming youths with guns to acts as enforcers to their greed . . .  If the electoral process is strengthened where people can get to chose who they want , and a feeling of oneness is entrenched by solidifying development in all areas . . .  relegating religion to the background in whatever we do . . .having the believe that i can comfortable travel to other regions and trust my neighbor like myself . . .then you will see corruption suffer a very painful death

If we start loving our neighbor as ourselves, that will be the end of sectionalism, ethnic and tribal divide . if those trio are successfully reduced to level that won't cause economic damage then more than 80% of the problem we are facing as a nation will be solved . .

The bottom line: corruption is not our major problem today . . .

Wish you well as you go all out to make your choice, we shall all come back in one piece . .

Culled from the stables of Jmaine 

jamace:

Corruption =    cause

Chaos        =      Effect

So, which should be tackled first, corruption which is the cause or chaos which is the effect?

jmaine:

Nigeria's problem is a delicate twist of many wrongs  . . .and those wrongs, is further fueled by the high level of tokenism we practice . . . .i support the notion that, the high endemic corruption in our system is not the root cause of our problems, but an after effect . . .and also the root cause is not chaos . . .chaos and corruption fuel each other, hence are evil twins . .

Nigeria was destroyed by Extreme Ethnotribal sentiments, which gave rise to nepotism . . . .Nepotism destroyed the structural foundation for building an organized society, where values,competence and abilities were eroded . . . . Nepotism nurtured corruption . . .and corruption exploded cos it was condoned by all in a bid to fight only for the interest of their[b] ethnotribal regions[/b] . . .and since there was no organization in the system . . .Chaos set in . . .further fueling the corruption . .

To fight corruption . . . the chaos from the system must be arrested . . .then corruption would be very visible to identify and curtail . .

Below is a post i made before the presidential election . .and it chose to address the concerns of this thread . . .

norrisman:

What you guys are arguing about is no different from the Egg and Chicken question; Which one came first?

It was learnt that the announcement of the removal of the subsidy on New Year’s Day came as a shock to many FEC members, who were anticipating the removal in April 2012 as announced by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation last December.

A source close to the Presidency said that even the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who had been consistently criticised by the public as the person behind the hurried removal of the subsidy, didn’t know that the subsidy was going to be removed in January.

It was learnt that the minister was occupied with making elaborate preparations for consultation and awareness creation among the relevant stakeholders on the issue of the subsidy ahead of the April date when the subsidy removal was announced by the FG.

The source said, “It was the Minister of Petroleum Resources that instructed the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to announce the total removal of the subsidy on Jan 1, 2012.”

It was learnt that Okonjo-Iweala was in the United States when the PPPRA, a subsidiary of the NNPC being supervised by Alison-Madueke, announced the removal of the subsidy.

When contacted, the Group Public Affairs Manager of the NPPC, Mr. Levi Ajuonuma, said that he did not have time “for that nonsense (alleged role of the petroleum minister). The subsidy has been removed and it has been removed.”