corruption has been a major problem in Nigeria hindering the socio-economic development of the country. The effects of corruption in Nigeria is vividly written in all sectors of the country. It has marred all the necessary machineries deployed for the development of the nation. Although, many reasons has been viewed as the cause of the gross deterioration of standards in the Nigerian society which of course are all correct; but there is this discrete subset which I believe is fostering corruption in Nigeria today-and that is “gratification”.

Gratification is a reward for a job well done which is given to an individual out of free will. But when one is compelled out of his or her own convenience or just to satisfy the “compulsory societal norm”, then there is a problem.

The saddening results of gratification is expressed more in the public sector than the private sector. The government officials who are paid monthly to carry out their duties are always expecting one form of reward when carrying out their duties. This has even graduated to a compulsory levy (bribe) to the officials in order to do their jobs. Government parastatals such as police, pension, customs and immigration to mention a few are well involved in this.

On the streets of Nigeria today, the products of this culture of gratification can be seen in the “omo onile’s”, “agbero’s” and street thugs who deem the giving of reward as their right. They even go to the extent of obstructing a law abiding individual in the pursuit of his day to day activities and hindering him of erecting his own building. They go about hailing well to do Nigerians and fraudsters hoping for a drop of reward. And if such person refuses, they begin to rain insults on the person and sometimes result to damaging the properties of such individual.

Also in the education sector-especially secondary and tertiary institutions, gratification as become a menace that needs urgent attention. In our universities today, students contribute monies to service lecturers’ birthdays, thanksgiving, ceremonies etc. hoping for a reward in form of “grade leniency”. Lecturers also expects gratifications from the students at the end of each semester- for teaching? I don’t know. In the secondary schools, teachers also expects one form of reward from parents and guardians for taking good care of their wards.

Finally, I am not against gratifications, neither am I encouraging it. One thing I observed in our society is if a reward is given to an employee by two or more persons, the employee tend to view such as a right which in turn do give the employee the temerity to ask for such reward from other customers or in the worst case make it compulsory before he/she performs his/her duty. I believe that gratification giving easily graduates to bribery thereby compounding the misery of corruption in our society.

It is so bad that even if you want to help fix road or the less privileged, they will demand bribe.

igbodefender:
It is so bad that even if you want to help fix road or the less privileged, they will demand bribe.

during my nysc, we constructed a billboard highlighting the effects of drugabuse in the society. the funny thing is dat one local government official demanded for #5k. b4 d billboard can b erected. we fought our way tru to the chairman who later revealed dat the official jst want to chop our money. dat such community development project do not require any form of payment. this tin is jst tooooo much is our society today