I hear ministries and parastatals now route payments through third parties, which then send the correct payment to ultimate beneficiaries after deducting their own addition

Assembly, Dr Ali Ahmad, a close ally of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and APC top gun, said President Muhammadu Buhari had bungled the anti-corruption war. He averred that corruption cannot be fought via reliance on the judiciary alone as this present government aims to do.

The statement from the Saraki protege got me thinking. I know he reflects his boss’ ideas, and he even went on to say the solution is to ‘strengthen lawmakers’, which I think is self-serving and will lead to nowhere. Have lawmakers not shown that they are masters of corruption themselves? There has to be a better way. Ahmad did say also, that there was a need to get the buy-in of Nigerians, which in his words is zero for now. That is valid; but how he didn’t say.

Before I explore just how any government can make a dent on this issue which has now taken on several lives of its own, it is important to consider some of the traditional and cultural brick-walls that such a war might face. The same man Ahmad used a Hausa proverb which says: “malammai sun ce halal ne cin dukiyar gwamnati tunda bat a kowa ba ce” [Islamic clerics say it is legitimate under Islamic law to appropriate Government resources since such resources belong to no one]”. That is one.

On the streets in pidgin English, we say “na where man dey work na im man dey chop”? Or the popular axiom that “gofment property no be anybody property”? In Yoruba land they say “ao kin se’se ijoba laagun”, translated as “no one must do government work to the level of breaking sweat”. In other words, government work is what you do with half-heartedness and levity. And of course you can help yourself to the enjoyment when the opportunity presents itself.

With these thoughts ingrained in our culture north, east, west and south, we have a big problem and there is a need to roll back these ideas no matter how ingrained in our local cultures. It will take a herculean effort by all means but the effort must be started immediately. If we have spoken about the Islamic cleric above, the Christian clerics - of which we have thousands in Nigeria - have not made matters better as many preach get-rich-byevery-means doctrines that emphasise selfishness and the bingeing on materiality. Many have been known to collect proceeds of corruption and theft without a care, and many have rationalized these actions by claiming “if you don’t take what belongs to God, the people who serve the Devil will take everything”. In general we haven’t run our society in a reasonable manner at all.