Corruption and the Nigerian Development Quagmire

Introduction

Quality of life in Nigeria is far from desirable for the average person. It is common to compare quality of life in the country across regimes and eras. That is, when analyzing Nigerian development, scholars usually observe conditions during the military and democratic regimes and during structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and the post-SAP era. While quality of life diminished sharply during SAP and during the military rule, it has not fared significantly better under democratic dispensations. The only possible slight exception may be in terms of human rights. In terms of poverty, unemployment, security, and infrastructure, quality of life has taken a plunge. Since re-democratization in 1999, for instance, reduced quality of life has forced many to ask the question: what is the benefit of this re-democratization to an average Nigerian?

Poverty today in Nigeria is not less than 70 percent, youth unemployment is in the excess of 30 percent, most infrastructures have collapsed, and insecurity is astronomically high particularly relative to the activities of Boko Haram terrorists. Nigerians feel unsure about their development prospect than in the immediate postcolonial era when optimism was high about the future. Today, average Nigerians feel less secure than ever. This is notwithstanding the fact that Nigeria is the most populous country and the largest economy in Africa as well as among the most resource-endowed nations in the world (Akanle, 2013; Akanle, Adebayo, & Olorunlana, 2014). Nigeria is however rooted at the bottom of Human Development Reports in recent years; the country has been rated to be among the five poorest nations in the world and also among the most expensive nations to do business due to collapsed infrastructure and corruption.

Of significance is the role and ascendancy of corruption. Corruption is commonly figured as the most problematic issue facing Nigeria. Corruption pervades every sector of the country to the extent that even development interventions are mismanaged and are of no positive development significance (Hope & Chikulo, 1999; Kaufmann, 2009). According to Transparency International, Nigeria is among the most corrupt nations in the world. Corruption in Nigeria is gargantuan and visible across the world to the extent that Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, known to be among the most corrupt African leaders in the world, still described Nigeria as the most corrupt nation in the world. Although Nigerian political leaders rejected Mugabe’s comments and always reject Transparency International’s poor rankings of the nation, most average Nigerians see those comments and rankings as objective given prevailing realities and environments in the country. By objective reality and observation, the conditions of an average Nigerian remain among the worst in the world and are not better than of those in countries without natural resources. Even in Africa, Nigeria is among the poorest by quality of life and this is why nationals of the country emigrate in droves making Nigeria among the countries with highest number of illegal and economic migrants as nationals struggle to exit the country at all cost and by all means (Akanle & Olutayo, 2012).

Many reasons can be given for this precarious quality of life in Nigeria and the difficult development pathways of the country. These reasons include a long spell with military dictatorship, mono-product economy, ethnicity, religious problems, internal and global power play. Unfortunately, these reasons are both causes and consequences of an overarching problem confronting Nigerian corruption. Articles and commentaries have been published on corruption in Nigeria but many failed to give a pragmatic and current account of the nuances of the problem leaving a huge gap. This article adds new perspectives and expands the analysis on corruption in Nigeria with implications for identical societies across the world. As at the time of this article, corruption has not shown any sign of reducing in Nigeria. Even though successive governments in Nigeria have tried to reduce corruption, the governments actually ended up becoming nearly more corrupt than they could imagine. Corruption seems intractable in Nigeria to the extent that it is nearly becoming a culture.

This article discusses common and popular explanations as already documented in the literature and elsewhere and goes a step further to offer fresh, current and pragmatic interrogations of the trajectories of corruption in Nigeria. It examined why corruption persists in Nigeria even when it is popularly considered problematic and as the main development problem of the country. The article examined popular explanations and narratives as already documented in the literature and offered fresh interrogations. Popular narratives are used in this article to refer to established and accepted explanations of corruption that have dominated discourses over time. They are explanations that have become given as a way of explaining persistent corruption in Nigeria.

Popular narratives are explanations that are necessary to explain the problematic but have been found to be insufficient by the article given the extensive literature search and primary consideration and observation of the issue in the country. Popular narratives as used in this article are also in the order of the dominant narratives of Autesserre (2012). These popular and dominant narratives are stories and explanations that people create and innovate to make sense of their lives, environments and problematic (Autesserre, 2012). Sometimes, these narratives are so simple they cannot get to the root of the issue and are not dynamic, yet they are very popular because they serve the immediate purposes of meeting the need of uncritical and subjective actors. Popular narratives are also suitable as propaganda and advocacy renditions. Sometimes, they serve pecuniary purposes and they easily connect with the public and external actors. They are also very easily acceptable and commonsensical due to media and global buy-ins.

This article connects with these popular narratives and goes beyond them to give more current accounts and explanations. This article is based on secondary data as contained in the literature on the subject and some official but unclassified documents. Primary insights and many years (over a decade) of observation are also brought to this article to give practical and pragmatic perspectives beyond secondary data. This gives more nuanced and relevant perspectives of the article. This article is thus a practical blend of secondary data and primary insights based on extensive observation in Nigeria.

Democracy and Development Linkage: Narrative of Corruption

Nigeria as at this time is a democratic state. Before return to democracy in 1999, the country spent 33 years under the military. During those 33 years, human rights abuses and corruption were the norm. This was in fact why the whole world supported Nigeria to return to democracy. When General Abdusalmi Abubakar handed over power to democratically elected president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, it was a huge relief and the beginning of a new hope. The country and the whole world breathed a sigh of relief because of the hope that a new era has dawned. The popular view was that development would become more achievable since human rights abuses will vanish naturally and corruption will become appreciably minimized.

This expectation of development through positive human rights and corruption-free democratic environment is justified as popular narrative in the literature is that democracy brings development closer and makes corruption tractable. Popular narrative is that democracy leads to development faster, that democracy is inclusive governance, and that protected human rights and development are the hallmarks of democracy. Popular narrative is also that democracy is synonymous with responsive governance. Corruption is considered human rights abuse and violation of people’s development potential as manifested in widespread poverty, which is the greatest human rights scourge of our time (Arbour, 2006). Democracy is popularly considered an adaptable system critical for development (Diop & Leautier, 2007) and it overcomes autocratic legacies (Siegel, 2007) that enable corruption. Democracy also allows and encourages institutional capacity (Piccone, 2007) building for solving development problems.

According to Piccone (2007), building institutional capacity for democratization will encourage the establishment of a positive public service culture and public policy decision making that protect popular development. Democracy encourages positive human rights, proactive governance, and development (Kaufmann, 2006). Democracy is thus commonly seen as a necessary factor for development. Although recent happenings like in Nigeria, Venezuela, and many other developing nations’ democracies have not shown sufficient sign of growth and development and are leading to new questions on the linkages between democracy and development, democracy is still seen as a necessary factor for development even in the developing nations. This is why military coups are always swiftly condemned as was the case in Egypt and Thailand for instance. Military interventions are seen as political retrogressions rather than positive intervention.

Corruption is the bane of a positive link between development and democracy (Bardhan, 1997). According to the World Bank, corruption is a major impediment to development and this is why the World Bank has played increasingly active roles in supporting good democratic governance and anticorruption (Puri, 2006). Corruption is an impediment to growth and poverty reduction; corruption limits opportunities, creates inefficiencies, and forms additional barriers to the smooth delivery of services (Leautier, Petkoski, & Jarvis, 2006). Corruption makes it difficult and nearly impossible for governments to function effectively, disempower individuals to perform optimally, negate development assistance including aids (Kaufmann, 2009; Rimmer, 2000) and stifle private sector efficiency (Ahunwa, 2002; Amao & Amaeshi, 2008). Corruption also destroys democratic processes and makes democratic efforts meaningless even at the grassroots (Vaughan, 1995). Corruption is a destroyer and collateral destroyer of democratic institutionalization (Nye, 1967). Corruption trades off democratic gains. It is impossible for democracy to drive development once corruption is rife in the democratic space. When democracies do not perform effectively for development, a searchlight could be beamed on corrupt tendencies. Corruption limits electoral processes and choice that are the hallmarks of democracy. Corruption also makes regulatory environments needed for development impossible and reduces trust in public institutions.

According to Olojede (2006), corruption is the principal cause of the mass impoverishment of African people, a grinding, agonizing poverty that shrivels ambition and leaves people susceptible to deceit including religious ones. Olojede (2006) further observes that widespread indifference to ethics by much of Africa’s political elite has helped reinforce the view that the government is primarily an obstacle to ordinary citizens even though the government is crucial for development. Corruption has become so endemic in many African societies that people have resigned to fate and faith and hardly see any reason to discuss the issue any further. Governments are often seen as the only agency capable of fighting corruption, yet in most African societies, citizens, except the political class while in power, see the government and the political class as not only the cause of corruption but also the actual corruption enablers and only pay lip service to fighting corruption (Mulinge & Lesetedi, 1998). Corruption is thus best seen as the bane and the main clog of democracy and national development not only in Nigeria but also in most parts of Africa (Dreher & Schneider, 2010) particularly when corruption is embedded in societal, economic, and power relations of countries and social actors (Heilman & Ndumbaro, 2002).

Clausen, Kraay, and Nyiri (2011) empirically demonstrated that well-functioning institutions matter for economic development and established a correlation between corruption and confidence in public institutions. Lee (2010) also demonstrated, clearly through empirical studies, that a relationship exists among globalization, democratization, corruption, and anticorruption going by East Asian anticorruption situations. Clausen et al. (2011) then demonstrated corruption inhibits development by eroding confidence in public institutions and individuals with low confidence in institutions exhibit low political participation, show increased tolerance for violent means to achieve political ends and have a greater desire to emigrate. In the same vein, it is possible to maintain that corruption is now generally recognized as one of the greatest impediment to prosperity, economic competitiveness, political stability, and social stability. Sullivan (2006) agreed with this by also observing that widespread and persistent corruption remains one of the leading problems businesses, governments, and citizens across the world confront.

It is thus not surprising that democracy has not performed well in delivering development to the people in most parts of Africa even after over a decade of re-democratization. In many countries, corruption is the main reason for bloody contests and combat for power. This ranges from terrorism in Nigeria to wars in Sudan, Congo, and Central Africa Republic and Rwanda in the recent past among others. Ethical leadership is already traded off for corruption in most developing countries particularly in Africa. Corruption is the only and main reason the Human Development Report (2013) ranked all sub-Saharan African nations in the Low Human Development category with Nigeria rooted to 153 even with the entire and enormous human and natural resources (see Ahmad, Ullah, & Arfeen, 2012). Corruption is also the reason most African countries have not exited the resource curse conundrum (Akanle et al., 2014; Genova & Falola, 2003; Pendergast, Clarke, & Kooten, 2011) and the reason many stomachs in the continent remain empty even when the economy of the continent is acclaimed to be growing (Ighobor, 2014). Corruption is also the reason Africa flies on a wing and a prayer demonstrating the decay in the African aviation sector and the level of insecurity in the African airspace.

Corruption and Nigeria Within: The Contours and Trajectories

This section excurses some popular themes (narratives) in the literature on the subject of corruption in Nigeria. A common agreement and trend in the literature is that corruption is a problem in Nigeria and that it has assumed near intractability because of unique contours and trajectories already developed in Nigeria (Adebanwi & Obadare, 2011; Agese, 1990; Akanle, 2013; Akinpelu, Ogunseye, Bada, & Agbeyangi, 2013; Akanle et al., 2014; Brownsberger, 1983; Chabal & Daloz, 1999; Joseph, 2008; Mbaku, 1996; Oliver de Sardan, 1999; Rotimi, Obasaju, Lawal, & Iseolorunkanmi, 2013). Even though Nigeria faces many complex and complicated problems, the place and enormity of corruption are special and major sources of concern and threat to development. Every problem in Nigeria, including terrorism and human trafficking, is traceable and actually traced to endemic corruption (see Agbu, 2003). For instance, one other major problem threatening Nigeria is terrorism from Boko Haram. The ascendancy of terrorism is commonly traced to systemic corruption just as Streamlau (2000) traced unending Africa’s wars to widespread corruption in the continent (see also Akinnaso, 2014). Corruption thus exerts an overarching influence on Nigeria’s overall development outcomes.

What then are the popular and common narratives in the literature? These are definitions of corruption, types of corruption, causes/reasons for persistence of corruption, consequences of corruption, and solutions. These are common engagements in the literature to the extent these narratives are almost becoming redundant or only useful as points of call in researches on the problematic. There is thus the need to transit and transcend these popular narratives but not until they are examined. There are many definitions already given to corruption. An interesting portion of this however is that these definitions largely depend on the context and the scholar/writer. It is difficult to define corruption because it is very dynamic particularly because corrupt characters and leaders are constantly innovative and advance (Akinnaso, 2014, Agbu, 2003). This definitional difficulty notwithstanding, we attempt a useful synthesis and analysis of common definitions and transcend them.

According to the World Bank (1997), corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gains that can manifest in form of briberies, patronage, nepotism, cronyism, fraud, and embezzlement. The World Bank’s definition remains among the most influential given its robustness and practicality. Transparency International also gives a working definition of corruption that has become popular and relevant to the Nigerian case. According to Transparency International, corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain (Labelle, 2006). Although this definition is very short, it is succinct and not radically different from that of the World Bank. This relationship also demonstrates the agreement among global bodies on the ramifications and composition of corruption. This supports the view that everyone knows corruption. This is however not to suggest that corruption is very simple and as clear as black and white.

According to Sen (1999), corruption can be broadly defined as perversion or a change from good to bad; corrupt behavior involves the violation of established rules for personal gain and profit. For Lipset and Lenz (2000), corruption is efforts to secure wealth or power through illegal means for private gain at public expense, or a misuse of public power for private benefit. According to Nye (1967), corruption is a behavior that deviates from the formal duties of a public role, because of private advantages and gains regarding personal, close family, private clique, and pecuniary of status gains. For Nye (1967), corruption is a behavior that violates rules against the exercise of certain types of duties for private gains regarding influence. Barnfield (1958) listed behaviors, such as, bribery, nepotism, and misappropriation of public resources for personal and parochial gains as corruption.

For Osoba (1996), corruption is antisocial behavior conferring improper benefits different to legal and moral norms and which undermine authorities to improve the living conditions of the people. Osoba (1996) further observed that corruption became the principal means of private accumulation during the process of decolonization and this lingers in post-colonization Nigeria. This suggests a long history of corruption in Nigeria. According to Friedrich (1972), corruption is the misapplication of public goods to private ends. For Brownsberger (1983), corruption is misapplications of public goods as manifested in bribery, nepotism, politics, and favoritism in violation of the Western legal and regulatory codes that have been inherited by many developing countries, along with Western state structures from their colonial governments (see also Scott, 1969). What is common to these definitions however is that they virtually mean almost the same thing. Even when different words and vocabularies are used, they say the same thing in manners that nearly turn them tautological.

A quick summary of these definitions is that corruption is illegal and anti-populist accumulation and siphoning of public goods and materials for personal, private and parochial benefits. Once anyone corners or diverts resources meant for popular use for less popular-cum-parochial use then this becomes corruption. The process corruption is also observable from the definitions. Once laid-down procedures and processes are not followed, even when the ultimate goods and benefits are not diverted and the public still benefit from the end product, it is still corruption. This has come to be known as following due process in the Nigerian governance lexicon. Definitional issues of corruption thus remain common and popular narrative as the literature is replete with them.

It is also popular in the literature to find typologies of corruption. This is against the background that it is impossible and improper to lump all ramification of corruption together because they have different manifestations, intentionalities and consequences. Konie (2003) identified two broad types of corruption based on the degree of involvement and perpetration. For Konie (2003), there is vertical corruption and horizontal corruption. Horizontal corruption involves any corrupt activity engaged in by people at the helms of affairs like decision makers, managers, and political office holders. Horizontal corruption is the type involved in by the entire populace and rank and file officials. Corruption can be a political one, civil service/administrative/bureaucratic one or electoral one. These tripods are crucial for analytical purposes at the macro level at least. Political corruption is the most popular and celebrated one in Africa and most developing societies. This is particularly because political corruption is usually at the centre and the most visible.

Civil service/Administrative/Bureaucratic corruption is less visible yet it is usually the most endemic and the most consistent as civil servants circumvent rules perpetually to enrich themselves and frustrate the process. This is why most civil services do not function well in developing countries. Generally, it is possible to insist that most civil services in Africa for example are dysfunctional rather than functional. Electoral corruption has to do with rigging of election results and manipulating electoral processes beginning from disqualifying strong opposition candidates, manipulating elections dates or outright frustration of electoral laws like seeking unconstitutional political terms to be legitimised at the polls as is recently the case in Burundi. Other types of corruption that can be identified in the literature are: bribery, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, favoritism, and nepotism (see Amundsen, 1997; Bayart, Ellis, & Hibou, 1997; Girling, 1997). Often times, the essence of typologizing corruption is only for analytical purposes and to direct attention to the essence of the analysis of the author. Many works on corruption do this but, while it has analytical benefits, the essence does not readily connect with pragmatism, corruption epistemologies, and ontologies.

In order to understand corruption, many reasons have been adduced for its causes. These causes are also usually seen as the drivers of corruption persistence. It is commonly argued that until the causes are addressed, corruption will persist. Literature converges on the reasons for corruption. What is observable in the literature is complementary analysis of causation rather than divergence. According to Mbaku (1996), corruption in developing countries, such as, Nigeria, is only a manifestation of incompatibility between traditional values and imported norms that accompany modernization and sociopolitical development. In other words, developing nations are caught in the adjustment processes between primordial values heavily based on kinship networks and patrimonialism and legal rational systems based on routine and formalization of work and value systems. In this regard, Alam (1989) and Bayley (1966) see corruption, especially bureaucratic corruption, as unavoidable outcomes of modernization.

Along this line, Apter (1963) traced corruption to kinship and social pressures as relatives and friends mount pressures on public office holders to the extent they are forced to satisfy clan aspirations from public goods they hold in trust. African social systems are very communal as against the individualistic systems of the Western society. Unfortunately, it is within the Western prism that corruption is constructed and judged in Africa. Other common causes of corruption in the literature are great inequality in income distribution, conception of political office as the primary way of gaining wealth and advantages, conflict in moral codes, weak government and state enforcement mechanisms and weak sense of patriotism, trade restrictions, government subsidies, price controls, low wages in civil service, ethnicity, and ethnic conflict (Akanle et al., 2014; Brownsberger, 1983; Bryce, 1921; Rotimi et al., 2013; Shwany, 2012). What is commonly accounted for from the above however is what I call generalized, popular, and obvious corruption. Even the popular corruption is still insufficiently accounted for. The role of modeling and unpunished/lack of retribution relative to corruption is still poorly accounted for in the literature.

Corruption in Nigeria and in many African countries is glamorized and incentivized rather than punished. When corrupt officials are caught, they are fined less than the stolen amount and let off to enjoy the balance. In many instances, the corrupt officials steal so much to the extent that a fraction of the stolen money is enough to buy the judiciary and subvert justice. Sometimes, the corrupt officials enter plea bargaining through their public cronies. This is why many struggle to also engage in corruption. As mentioned above, unaccounted for in the literature is what this article calls generalized, popular, and obvious corruption. This is corruption perpetrated by an average person not in politics and not in any official role. Why is an average Nigerian corrupt? Attention is always at the level of macro-corruption and formalized corruption. Very micro-, personalized-, and individual-level corruptions go unexplained in the extant literature. What is accounted for is what McFerson (2009) described as hyper-corruption, yet among the most problematic corruption is widespread corruption at the nonpolitical and nonofficial level. Many Nigerians today do not think of the system but the self. Even when they have kin and friends in power, they compel, directly or indirectly, the one in power to steal for the kinship and/or social networks.

The kinship and social networks usually encourage corruption by demanding assistance that are beyond the individual in power or by out rightly encouraging him/her to steal by saying this is the time of the one in power and the kin/social networks and the ethnic group to have their share of the national cake. Hence, individuals, not even in power, cut corners and take shortcuts to achieve values. In fact, anyone trying to avoid corruption is either seen as sick or foolish by the significant others. The person is actually seen as the deviant rather than the other way round. Many Nigerians think of personal selves in isolation relative to values rather than the other way round. Most Nigerians think of their self-interests rather than the system and the society. No one is however to be blamed for this but the system that has not rewarded hard work and honesty over time while incentivizing corruption by condonement and accommodation.

New schools (more recent schools of thought) have even emerged in the literature that corruption should as a matter of fact be accepted as an African way of doing things since it has become the norm and anticorruption as the aberration. According to this school, corruption is actually what makes Africa work and it is a sign that Africa is unique and is working and must be understood against these lines of reality (Chabal & Daloz, 1999; Mbaku, 1996; Shwany, 2012). This is more so as corruption always fights back in the face of threat and always has its way (Adebanwi & Obadare, 2011). This view of corruption accommodation, rationalization, and reinterpretation is however complicated and should be handled with care in the age of globalization.

Common consequences of corruption in Nigeria and Africa are widespread poverty, wars, collapsed infrastructures, weak social systems, values in constant state of flux, influx into politics, collapse and prohibitive bureaucracies, cyclical corruption cycle, hyper-corruption, and diseases. Common solutions to corruption in the literature are value reorientation, judiciary strengthening, accommodation, special tribunals, increase in reward system, and trained public servants (Adebanwi & Obadare, 2011; Brownsberger, 1983; Chabal & Daloz, 1999; Mbaku, 1996; Shwany, 2012). A major problem is that the solutions do not capture common and inclusive ¹ corruption and Nigeria remains among the most corrupt nations in the world. According to the 2013 Transparency International assessment (the most recent as at the time of writing this article), Nigeria scored an abysmal 25 out of a possible 100 percent making the country rank 144 out of a total of 177 countries studied. Going by this ranking, Nigeria ranked 2 percentile lower than the earlier year’s (2012) score meaning corruption has actually increased more than ever before (see also Akinnaso, 2014).

Unfortunately, most, if not all, of the extant solutions in the literature have been used, yet corruption continues to be on the rise in the country. It is only the people in the government and the ruling party as well as their kin and cronies that will deny the cancerous existence of corruption in Nigeria. Newspapers and public commentaries are awash with reports of corruption preponderance in the country. Corruption is in fact a reality in Nigeria and it is tangible and substantial. The consequences are also physically observable and sociopsychologically felt. While ruling politicians and their cronies deny the existence of wide-scale and increasing corruption in Nigeria, objective academics, civil society organizations, public observers, and many international agencies as well as the common woman/man have more practical and nuanced perspectives even though the nuances are shocking and frustrating. The time has therefore come to attempt fresh, current, dynamic, and objective interrogations of corruption in Nigeria for a robust and contemporary understanding of the issue with implications for Africa and identical societies.

Explaining Nigerian Corruption: Refocusing the Areas

Existing explanations on corruption in the literature are useful. They have captured appreciable areas of importance. While this article is not discarding all previous explanations, this article builds on them and expands them for areas of emphasis. A key issue is that stemming corruption may not be possible without subsisting and competent institutions. Institutions drive the state operations and agenda of the state. The lack of institutions and culture of institution is a major problem of corruption in Nigeria. Nigerian rulers formulate and implement policies piecemeal and individualism is a major way of doing things in the country. What happens in Nigeria is that agencies, ministries, and parastatals lack system and structure.

Directors, governors, and presidents run public affairs as private affairs. They embody public offices as personal affairs and rule whimsically. Anyone that sees anything wrong with this is labeled as opposition and/or disgruntled elements. Public office holders also do the bidding of the political class and this in itself is corruption. Corruption can never be prevented and can never be fought without institutions and systems because systems represent preventive measures and distributive and retributive structures. Rulers, administrators, and bureaucrats come and go but institutions and systems remain. This is why the president of the United States of America (USA), Barrack Obama, on a visit to Africa encouraged Africans to build strong institutions and not strong men. Where institutions and systems are lacking, thriving corruption is the result (see Nwabuzor, 2005). This is why it has become the norm to have corruption in Nigeria and it has become impossible to fight corruption in the country because of the lack of enduring institutional legacies (see also Heilman & Ndumbaro, 2002; Kalu, 1996; Nwabuzor, 2005).

Even where such institutions appear to exist, they only exist in figure and presence but do not have institutional character. They only represent ad hoc interests of the existing controllers and hold functions in trust for the political elites. Patrimonialism and godfatherism is commonplace. This is clearly replicated in the activities of the anticorruption and anti-graft agencies. The anti-graft agencies only perform as enabled and capable by the chairpersons in power. The anticorruption agencies are only subject to the wishes of political godfathers who appoint anticorruption agencies’ chairpersons. A related point is that anticorruption agencies are themselves infected with corruption due to the corruption-infested environments in which they operate. Anticorruption agencies that were established to fight corruption in the country are thus also dealing with corruption within making them very untrusted and unpopular with the public.

Successive governments since the re-democratization experience have attempted to display anticorruption posture. In the recent times, President Olusegun Obasanjo vowed to deal with corruption but this later lost momentum. In fact, it is now the fashion in Nigeria for governments to make anticorruption strategies a major agenda to win public trust and interest. Unfortunately, such anticorruption fights have achieved negligible results if any. Popular anticorruption efforts/initiatives and agencies’ consideration is in order at this juncture. It is important to note that availability of relevant legislations is not the problem in the Nigerian corruption matrix. In fact, Nigeria has one of the strongest anticorruption legislations. The problem is that the processes of enforcing these anti-corruption strategies are themselves trapped in the corrupt environments as occasioned and enabled by the corrupt sociopolitical climate prevalent in the country.

On legislation, Nigeria has ratified most of the popular anticorruption conventions. For instance, Nigeria ratified the United Nations Convention against corruption in December 2004, ratified the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption in 2006, signed the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act in 2000, signed the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act in 2004, passed the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act in 2006, passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act in 2007, established the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) (2007), and signed the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2007. The Nigerian Constitution (1999) is also full of provisions that should ordinarily make corruption impossible in the country. These are just examples of extant legislations in the country targeting corruption. All the acts and laws specify rules that should prevent abuse of office, fraud, extortion, money laundering, embezzlement, abuse of process, and stealing. The legislations target public officials, financial institutions, international operations and operatives, and the entire citizenry. Importantly also, the legislations are very dynamic and involving going by their provisions and evolutions to cope with emerging trends in corruption domains since corrupt individuals and groups are always very innovative.

To enforce these legislations, successive governments of Nigeria have established agencies and commissions to enforce the laws and make corruption impossible in the country. Interestingly, anticorruption initiatives in Nigeria predate the current democratic environments. Recent anticorruption drives in Nigeria are Ethical Revolution (1981–1983), War Against Indiscipline (1984), the National Orientation Movement (1986), and the Mass Mobilization for Social Economic Recovery (1987). These first set of initiatives were mainly for value reorientation and cannot be said to have real force of the law. Current anticorruption initiatives however have legal makeup. These are the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act (ICPC) of 2000 as signed by President Olusegun Obasanjo, which imposed heavy sanction on corruption, the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) (1999), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) (2004). These anti-graft agencies have the power to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials.

While there are extant enabling laws and institutions, the laws and the agencies are also systematically emasculated. The appointment of presiding officials in these agencies is obscure/suspect and the processes of prosecution are far from fair and not transparent. During the Obasanjo regime, while the EFCC started well and won international accolades and recognition for gallant anticorruption achievements, it soon became hijacked by the political class to fight personal wars and vendetta. Later, when the chairman was perceived as too popular and too powerful, he was unceremoniously removed and replaced with a less active official. Hence, the anti-graft agencies are guilty of selective prosecution while high-profile political cases are never successfully prosecuted once political godfathers interfere. Rather than been truly independent, anti-graft agencies have become political appendages making their role lopsided and politically infiltrated. This has made the possibility of successful anticorruption campaigns an exercise in futility (see Mbaku, 1996 for related situation in Tanzania).

The role of the judiciary is key in explaining the ramifications of corruption in Nigeria. The judiciary interprets the law, is the custodian of the law, and protects public interest by bringing corrupt elements to book. Once the judiciary becomes accomplice and serves the interests of corrupt rulers, corruption becomes tolerable. Once the judiciary is corrupted, anticorruption legislations, and anticorruption agencies become emasculated especially when the agencies and the judiciary serve the uniform purpose of protecting corrupt individuals and group. The Nigerian judiciary certainly has not performed well in propagating anticorruption crusades. Many of the judgments in the corruption cases have been very controversial and pro-corruption. Cases abound but the role of the courts in enabling cancelation of the June 12, 1993, elections was pro-corruption (Akanle, 2009, 2010; Akanle & Owasanoye, 2013; Ashiru, 2009; Ige & Ige, 2006; Nnamani, 2014).

There are high-profile cases of corruption already trapped in court and the media is not covering them anymore. Many judges allow/connive with lawyers to delay the justice process by raising frivolous objections and getting ex parte injunctions. Many judges who are themselves corrupt allow plea bargaining and many give shameful judgments, such as, the now-corruption-epitomizing case of the Police Pension Fund Fraud where the official was asked to pay far less than the amount stolen. The government and the judiciary were so embarrassed that the judge has now been sacked. This punitive measure was however due to the extreme public outcry that trailed the judgment. The cases that emanated from the fuel subsidy saga and probe are today never settled in court, yet the dramatis personae still hold public offices and still walk as free women/men in the country (see Akanle et al., 2014).

While the judiciary was used to frustrate pro-democratic elements during the military regime in Nigeria, the judiciary is being used to frustrate anticorruption efforts in civil rule Nigeria. The judiciary itself is very corrupt and already corrupted in Nigeria. The judiciary is used to endlessly delay cases until they fizzle out of public consciousness to the extent that there has been clamor for special tribunal for corruption cases since the conventional courts are actually pro-corruption. A very relevant case in point is that of Mr James Ibori (former governor of Delta state) who could not be convicted of corruption for many years in Nigeria and was actually discharged and acquitted but was convicted of massive corruption and money laundering in less than 3 months in the Crown Court of United Kingdom.

The role of the media is critical in explaining corruption in Nigeria. The media sets the agenda for the society. They decide on what issue to put in the front burner and public domain. They determine public opinion through follow-up reports, interviews, and news. Generally, the media in Nigeria has done fairly well as the fourth realm and fourth organ of the state. The Nigerian media has demonstrated its capability to blow the lid and blow the whistle on corruption and corrupt officials. The problem with the media in the country however is that it lacks the capacity of follow-up. Once corruption news is brought up in the media, it is not followed up for a sufficient period of time. After a very short time, the news moves away from the headlines and it is forgotten. The media needs to play a more consistent role of follow-up on corruption cases so even when the corrupt officials use the corrupt judiciary to delay cases, the media keeps them in the front burner and public consciousness. Another problem of the media is the lack of capacity for investigative journalism. Most journalists in the country only scavenge news and share the same story lines. They cut and paste from one another. Very few actually investigate cases and bring the nuances to the fore for more concerted action.

While the role of the media has been mixed, the Nigerian masses and public have been very passive and docile in fighting corruption. This is however not strange and surprising because corruption in the country is pervasive and the modal values are corrupt. This is because according to Akinsola (2006), in Nigeria today, corrupt behavior has been overlearned to the extent that it has become a mind-set as the “normal way” to get things done and the mind-set has affected our perception of, and our attitude toward, “what is the norm, and what is okay” (pp. 305–306). Akinsola’s (2006) view was also earlier consistently shared by Bammeke (2005) and Ogunlade (2005). The Nigerian public appears not to be shocked any longer by the share magnitude and pervasiveness of corruption in the country.

This is not unconnected with the orientation that whoever is in the helms of affairs has the opportunity to take his/her share of the national cake while every other person is also waiting for his/her turn. For instance, very recently, a governor in the south region of the country while preparing to leave the office allocated a N 200,000,000.00 (200 million naira), about US$12 million (about 12 million US dollars), per annum pension for himself, yet the public and the labor movement did not raise any alarm in a state and nation with widespread poverty of not less than 70 percent. While the political class at the level of federal government and state government abuses power to earmark outrageous pension for themselves, an average Nigerian does not have access to pension. Even pension contributed by workers is embezzled as already mentioned above. This is another main reason people rob the country blind because of the fear of uncertainty and unsure tomorrow. The Pension system is not institutionalized so individuals can tamper with the whole pension meaning there is no retirement benefit and security.

A very common way of explaining corruption in Nigeria is the role of social networks, kinship networks, nepotism, tribalism, and ethnicity as explained in the previous section. Groundbreaking essays and works exist in the literature on this. Examples of such works are: Ekeh (1975), Joseph (1991, 2003) and Ake (1993, 2000). These authors traced corruption in Nigeria to the propensity of public office holders to satisfy private and primordial relations’ quest for wealth accumulation. Ekeh (1975) for instance traced this as the two publics while Joseph (2003) described this as prebendal politics (see also Olutayo & Olutayo, 2009). While these extant explanations are factual to some extent, they are only useful as base analysis. While primordial relations served some explanatory purposes previously, corruption in Nigeria has gone beyond the role of primordial relations. Current occurrences suggest that corrupt public officials even exploit ethnic and primordial sentiments for personal gains.

Across regions of Nigeria, evidences suggest ethnic groups do not really benefit from the corruption of their kin in power as the regions remain grossly underdeveloped. The only indirect benefit primordial groups may have is the psychological achievement of having a kin in power. The people that may directly benefit from such position holding are the actual close networks and many of these are neither kin nor primordial relations. In fact, when political office holders engage in corrupt practices, it has backlash on the primordial groups. While accounts of Ekeh (1975), Joseph (1991), and Ake (1993) may be sufficient in explaining corruption in the immediate postcolonial Nigeria, they certainly do not explain corruption in twenty-first-century Nigeria as corruption in contemporary time transcends primordial advantages seeking to extreme private interest of the corrupt.

It is also important to examine the role of the international community and agency in understanding corruption in Nigeria. The international community is an accomplice on two counts: labeling and redress. While the international community is quick in labeling Nigeria as a corrupt nation, it is not quick in redressing the problem. According to Olojede (2006, p. 29), the dirty secret of the Western world is that governments and banking institutions, in Europe and America, find it convenient to let Africa’s ruling kleptocracy make off with the family silver, so long as it ends up in bank accounts in London, Washington, and Switzerland. Even after the corrupt officials are caught, dead, or out of power, such stolen funds are not returned to owner countries from where the funds are stolen in the first instance. A case in point is the Nigerian funds stolen by General Sani Abacha. Even though Abacha is dead, all the funds stolen from Nigeria and kept in foreign accounts are still being held abroad, almost two decades after Abacha’s death, even after Nigeria has made repeated requests for such funds. Nations abroad rely on technical rules to deliberately keep the money.

Hence, even when some Nigerian and African rulers are known to be richer, or almost richer and bigger, than their countries with questionable demonstrated opulence, such individuals are still positively related to by Western powers. The international community thus becomes accomplice in Nigerian and African corruption and directly or indirectly benefits from it. Corrupt officials are banned from traveling and they are not ostracized while in office and out of office to disincentivize corruption. While this is not to suggest that the international community has not done anything positive to fight corruption in Nigeria and Africa, there is a need to do more if the international community will support the country and continent in fighting the scourge of corruption especially as the corrupt officials get bolder, more innovative and more dynamic.

Conclusion Remarks

Different, in fact competing, positions have emerged in relation to corruption in Africa. While there are few who believe that corruption is bad, dangerous, and should be eradicated, there are few who opine corruption should be allowed and only recognized as an African way of life and only factor it into the way of doing business and development. While these sharply opposing views in practice and scholarship on corruption are appreciated in this article, this article submits that corruption is bad, counterproductive, and drives development further afield. It is dangerous to consider corruption positive in any manner. While it is agreed here that no society is absolutely corruption free, the quantum leap of Nigeria and Africa further into corruption is massive and depressing. If the current scenario is accepted and tolerated, Nigeria and Africa can never develop. Corruption makes it impossible and at least difficult to do business and makes the government irresponsible just as funds and resources meant for public development are embezzled by the few oligarchy (political and bureaucratic corruption).

Rank and file administrative officials collect bribe to move files and write memos and will not do their jobs except after receiving bribes. Governments cannot function well in these systems. In the case of generalized and popular corruption everyone will just not do things right just as the culture becomes development disabling. How then can sustainable development emerge in this scenario? Yet, everyone agrees that development is needed in Africa and the continent actually remains a development burden and liability of the world (see Easterly, 2007) and this is dangerous for the whole world especially in the age of globalization. Nigeria today confronts an existence threatening terrorism problem. The country is so deep in poor governance and corruption that world leaders have come to the agreement that corruption is the actual reason for the emergence and growth of the terrorist groups. More disturbingly, corruption is the only reason Nigeria does not have the capacity to fight simple insurgence as all the institutions, agencies, organizations, the police, paramilitary, and military formations that are supposed to counter insurgency lack the capacity, spirit, orientation, and resources to fight the problem and have been eaten into by institutionalized corruption over the years.

Corruption systematically disables and disempowers the government, the state, and the people and should not be rationalized and justified particularly given its negative outcomes on development. Nigeria today does not have any reason to be in poverty and underdevelopment. Poverty level in Nigeria is abysmally high in the region of 70 percent with the inbuilt possibility of an increase just as youth unemployment is over 30 (Akanle, 2013). Health systems are very weak and what kills people in Nigeria is actually not diseases but the strong and dangerous nexus of poverty and misgovernance as money meant for facilities end up in private pockets. What subsists is general infrastructural decay, yet the country is among the most human resource endowed in the world with almost 200 million people and among the most oil-rich nations in the world (Akanle, Adebayo, & Olorunlana, 2014).

According to Ibrahim (2006, p. 32), there is a consensus that Africa today suffers from underdevelopment and many studies have attributed this to different causes: climate change, colonialism, cultural diversity, geographic fragmentation, the curse of natural resources, political instability, state ownership, and underinvestment in education and infrastructure (see also Report of the Commission for Africa, 2005 and Bardhan, 1997). According to the research and analysis in this article, while the factors identified by Ibrahim (2006), Report of the Commission for Africa (2005), and Bardhan (1997) are important, the real problem of Africa and Nigeria is corruption. In fact, corruption accounts for the causes above. What is to be done is to continue to interrogate the problem toward a sufficient understanding for development. It is not until this is done that Africa can develop and Nigeria can exit the development quagmire!