By Prof. Protus Nathan Uzorma
Workers Welfare Induced Corruption: For, Seymour Lipset and Salman Lenz (2000:112-117), cultures that stress economic success as an important goal but nevertheless strongly restricts access to opportunities will have higher levels of corruption. For instance, it is a common life pattern in Nigeria to see civil servants work for months without getting paid (This Day: Sunday, July 7, 2002; Daily Trust: July 9, 2002), yet, the society expects them to be honest and productive. Many of those civil servants working without pay are parents, who are expected to train their children in schools with empty wallet. How can they do that? Are they magicians? No!
Under this condition, many citizens would reject the rule of the game (societal norms) and criminally innovate to make ends meet (Dike, 2010). Sometimes, the money is there for monthly salaries of workers but the unscrupulous ones lodge them in their private fixed deposit accounts to accrue interest for them first or use it to invest in short term personal businesses.
All these, including bad practices of non-payment or late payment of workers, bad business culture of delays and refusal, or late payment for services executed by business establishments in Nigeria are forms of corruption. These kinds of behaviours have the tendency to scare away foreign and local investors, with tremendous negative effects on the economy (Daily Trust: Tuesday, July 9, 2002).
More so, the scandalous low pay received by public servants and the ambiguity of some laws that aid public servants to interpret these laws as they wish, are also parts of the causes of corruption in Nigeria. As a result of this, one would encounter an overworked public servant asking for bribe to speed up processes.
This attitude and system of operation enables an inefficient bureaucracy to work faster (Wikipedia, 2011). In the same vein, Dike (2010) argued that the culture, value system, polygamous households, extended family system, lack of effective control of taxation system, poor reward system, lukewarm attitude of officers enforcing the laws, poverty and income inequalities are some of the reasons for corruption.
Societal Life Pattern Induced Corruption, for Austin Aneke (2014), the endemic corruption that ravages the Nigerian society has various possible causes. Some of them are: A society in love with ostentatious lifestyle, which makes its occupants delve into corrupt practices to feed the lifestyle and also embrace a style of public sleaze and lack of decorum. A society that has gift giving as expressions of loyalty or tributes to traditional rulers, a political environment that excludes favours towards elites or wealthy citizens is prone to be influenced by corruption, as the wealthy elites may resort to sleaze in order to gain power and protect their interest.
Ethnicity or tribalism, which makes friends and kinsmen seek favours from officials who are their relatives and therein impose difficult strains on the ethical disposition of the official. The reciprocity between the spread and acceptability of corruption in a given society also contributes to the rise of corruption. The more widespread and acceptable corrupt methods are in a given society, the more corrupt that society is said to be.
Public institutions where legitimate means of getting ahead are circumvented by allowing individuals to enhance their personal power with money or favours. In these conditions, it becomes harder or impossible for others to operate above board. Besides these, it is also true that ostentatious lifestyle leads to public misconducts as the people involved, device means of keeping up with their lifestyle, clinch unrestricted unpleasantness and nasty-going-on and thus display indecencies. These attitudes often come with traditional living patterns such as gift-giving and gift-taking. According to Egwu (2001:131) “African societies are characterised by a network of gift-giving and gift-taking. Thus, when gifts
connotes loyalty and homage or tributes are paid to stakeholders, elders and traditional rulers, and are accepted as customary, there are possibilities of generating therein various forms of corruption.
It has been noted that one of the popular, but unfortunate indices of good life in Nigeria, is flamboyant affluence and conspicuous consumption. Because of this, some people get into dubious activities, including ‘committing ritual murder for money-making,’ (Dike, 2003).
Political Instability and Inefficiency Induced Corruption. Change of government also causes corruption. Olayiwola (2013) on this argues that when a government changes, the new one usually sets up a judicial or administrative Tribunal with a view to checking the deeds and misdeeds of the former one. As laudable as the practice may appear, but due to the insincerity and lack of good motive for the practice, it is bound to yield no positive results. Panels of inquiries are often set up in Nigeria to witch-hunt and settle scores among the various classes and in-groups jostling for power. Occasionally when there is a good motive for probing past governments, good and noble recommendations which are unfavourable to the government in power may be jettisoned especially when their people are indicted. These among others have immensely contributed to the growth of corruption in Nigeria. Olayiwola (2013:60-61)
Law Enforcement Agencies Induced Corruption. The law enforcement agencies in Nigeria are also involved in deep corruption. This makes them compromise prosecutions of corruption cases, and these lead to continuous corruption in Nigeria. According to Olayiwola (2013:60-61), “all the agencies of government that are involved or set-up to fight the cancerous pain of corruption in the land are themselves highly compromised. For instance, former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, former Oceanic Bank MD Cecelia Ibru, former Edo State Governor Igbinedion, former Bayelsa State Governor Alayemesigha have been left off the hook even though, they were found guilty of corrupt and criminal practices. In fact, President Jonathan gave state pardon to Alayemesigha who was the State Governor when he, Jonathan, was his Deputy. It is of common knowledge that a corrupt institution like this can never fight corruption in any form. The situation is so bad that anybody who wants to play the role of the conscience of the nation in fighting corruption, will think twice because, the official to whom report of corruption will be made may turn such information over to the suspect with dare consequences to the whistle blower or informant.”
The lukewarm attitude of those who are supposed to enforce the laws of the land (Judges, Police officers and public officials) could lead to people engaging in corrupt behaviours, knowing fully well that they would get away with it.
The effect of this is that it undermines credibility, integrity, respectability and image of institutions charged with the responsibility of law enforcement and adjudication of punishment, such as the Police, the judiciary and prison services. (Olayiwola, 2013:60).
Economic Induced Corruption, for Paolo Mauro (1997), the causes of corruption include: Trade restrictions, government subsidies, price controls, multiple exchange rate practices and foreign exchange allocation schemes, low wages in the civil service, natural resources endowment and management, and sociological factors like ethno-linguistic fractionalization.
Bad rules and ineffective taxing system that makes it difficult to track down peoples financial activities, contribute greatly to breeding corruption (Edward Lotterman, Pioneer Press: Thursday, April 25, 2002). Generally, it is common that corruption is best seated in developing countries, which poor economic policies contribute to the growth, spread and enrooting of corruption.
Ineffective taxing system and erroneous international trade policies (like bans on importation of fairly used cars in Nigeria) that affect the economy and exposes those making a living in the business to poverty, conversely leads to devising corrupt means of survival either in the business or elsewhere (The Vanguard: Tuesday, June 4, 2002).
Poverty Induced Corruption: Poverty also is an attributive cause to the upsurge of corruption, occasioned by poor standard of living, very low income, poor salary structure and incentives for public servants especially those in hazardous professions, poor infrastructural development and distribution of essential life amenities, etc. The cycle of poverty keeps growing with all its attendant consequences, which among other ripple effects contributed to the high level of unemployment in the country (Ogbeidi, 2012:19). This is because some privileged individuals have hijacked the communal properties of the society and shifted them to private usages. Thus, corruption surges and blossoms when the societal legitimate means of progress are evaded and outwitted by a group of individuals who cease such opportunities to peddle their influences and boost their power with money and favours.
The above causes are testimonies that virtually all sphere and levels of government and leadership both in the state and federal, as well as all domains of life in both the private and public sectors are ridden with corruption. The varied sectional inducement to corruption thus shows that all fabrics of the society has been ravaged by corruption, and thus paves way for the assessment of the difficulties Nigeria has in its frays for development.