CORRUPTION AS NIGERIA’S BERMUDA TRIANGLE

In modern times, most countries have peculiar challenges that are obviously man-made which cripples all developmental goals targeted by the people of such countries to such an extent that the wise persons are bewildered by the fact that their nations cannot surpass their present day backwardness. In the same vein, different countries also have certain social crimes that they are seriously battling to overcome so as to make their societies the kind of friendly environments that their people crave for.

In the United States of America, the major social vice tearing their society apart, going by news reports, are the intermittent attacks by gunmen who embark on mass shootings. The US has a constitutional provision which allows the ownership of arms but most people are asking that there has to be some control on how and when to bear those arms.

In early October, there was a massacre along the Las Vegas strip which remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history whereby a 64-year old retiree grandfather Stephen Paddock killed 59 people and injured over 500. No motives have so far been found for such dastardly crime.

In Mexico, the main problem of contention by the government is the bloody violence by dreaded armed drug gangs. Mexico accounts for over 50 per cent of the illicit drugs smuggled into the US yearly.

India faces the social problem of gang rapes of young girls whereas Pakistan has the phenomenon of Islamic terrorism to contend with.

In Africa, the South African government is battling with the black- on-black violence. There are also cases of violent xenophobic attacks of other black Africans living in South Africa.

But Nigeria has the notoriety of being a nation contending with so many challenges including Islamic terrorism, armed Fulani attacks and the almighty crime of corruption by public officials.

A former British premier Mr. David Cameron who was hosting the then newly elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was secretly recorded telling the Queen of England that Nigeria is fantastically corrupt. The Nigerian government and some persons living in denial protested this remark by the British politician but millions of other Nigerians accept that indeed politicians in Nigeria are fantastically corrupt.

The United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC) has on many occasions conducted research on the phenomena of official theft of Nigeria’s public fund and is known to have concluded that at least $400 billion of crude oil revenues have disappeared into private offshore accounts of different Nigerian officials in the last four decades. Nigerian public office holders including serving military Generals are known to own exotic cars and housing assets in choicest parts of America, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates.

The transparency international has consistently rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt entities in modern political history. It can then be stated without contradiction that corruption is the political Bermuda triangle of Nigeria.

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s triangle, is a loosely – defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances”. Why do we now rate corruption as same as the Bermuda triangle in Nigeria? The answer is to be reached by asking the question of what has happened to the enormous wealth generated over the years from the export of crude oil for instance. The simple answer is that these humongous sums have disappeared into private bank accounts of privileged political office holders over the years due to corruption.

For instance last year June, the Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun was quoted in the media as stating that in the year 2016, President Buhari’s administration spent over N1.2trillion on capital projects even as she stated that the government would continue to place emphasis on infrastructure spending.

Now here is the catch 50/50 phenomenon around the huge sum quoted by the Finance Minister: the majority of the federal roads have collapsed as was attested to by no other person than the Vice-President Professor Yemi Osinbanjo during one of his few whistle stops in the South East of Nigeria.

The Vice- President was quoted in the media few months before the Finance Minister made her fantastically ridiculous claim of the monumental expenditures invested into the area of infrastructure. Osinbanjo described the road networks in the Southeast zone as worrisome.

Emmanuel Onwubiko, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria