THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN APC/BUHARI GOVERNMENT AND IT'S EFFECT ON NIGERIANS
CHAPTER TWO
MEANING AND CONCEPTS OF CORRUPTION
The putrid act (corruption) has been with the people for as far back as the colonial period and even beyond. It was active during the First Republic, turbo charged during the military interregnum, assumed a comical level during the profligate second Republic and like a vortex is still roaring along, wrecking destruction on national development (Nwachukwu, 2011:138). Hicks and Gullet (1981:127) therefore stated that man created corruption to overcome what otherwise would be utter with confusion in police force without structure stability, and order will achieve nothing but chaos.
The concept of corruption exacts heavy economic costs, distorts the operations of free markets, slow down economic development and destroys the ability of institution and bureaucracies to deliver the services that the society may expect. (Lambert Chidi, The readings on the Nigerian public service, trans, Ofosu Amaah et al, Nigeria Lagos, 1999:2).
II. Channels of Police Communication
An interest usage of channels provides an effective police communication in the Nigerian police force Owerri Imo State. Some of them are:
1. Meetings: which include the commissioner of police briefing with Divisional Police Officers (D.P.O’s) and other H.O.D’s organise lectures with other ranks in their divisions on Tuesdays. During the meetings, police officers discuss matters bothering on security and their welfare.
2. There are various forms of reports, some are very technical such as police investigation report which can be handled internally or externally to find the author of crime and proffer solutions to existing problems.
3. Signals: certain decisions are communicated upwards or downwards among departments, inform of signals, such as death of a member, murder of a citizen, serious of fatal motor accidents etc.
4. Verbal medium: This is a word of mouth to mouth that is most used, especially for interpersonal relationships example is the type existing among superior police officers (SPO) inspectors, other ranks and file.
5. House journal or organs special information and to secure the participation of all employees in the company.
6. Suggestion boxes are seen at conspicuous places at police stations: This is otherwise a useful method of collecting valuable suggestions or information is often neglected or under utilized because of the vindictive nature of some managers, employees are afraid to drop in suggestions into these boxes.
III. Police Press Relations
In the Nigerian police force Owerri, the principal links between local law enforcement personnel and the community are the mass media-television, radio, newspaper, magazines, and other communication channels. Except for the relatively few persons who become directly involved with the police, private citizens learn of police activity of crime prevention, of the pursuit and apprehension of criminals and their disposition in the courts by what they read in their newspapers, see and hear on television and radio. Thus, the image that a police department has in a community, favourable or otherwise, will depend almost exclusively upon what the typical citizen reads, hears, and observes in the Local media. These call for police cordial relationship.
IV. Society without Police
Nigeria is a country of limitless possibilities. One of those possibilities occurred on Thursday, January 31, 2002. That day, a group of Junior police officers inspectors downwards-openly protested against the establishment. Their grouse was the poor working conditions in the service. Before the January 31 incident, the protesting officer had intimated the top hierarch of the police of their intention to down tools if the authorities continue to take them for a ride. As prelude to the strike action, the inspectors and the Junior officers in collaboration with their equivalents in the army, navy and air force jointly circulated a list of grievance which they want the government to address in order to prevent an imminent show down. The 21 page document was dated January 27, 2002, barely four days before the strike action took off in calabar. The document was circulated in all police commands nationwide as well as among notable editors and human rights activities.
On 31st January, 2002, cross rivers state police command seized the ball by the horns; they when on strike, thereby taking the lead. The action threw the officers at Louis Edet House, the police’s new headquarters in Abuja off balance. A flurry of activities was triggered off. All the officers at the signal department sat glued to their radios receiving and transmittingmessages to state commands to know the situation report in each 36 state commands, and Abuja. Bukar Ali, the acting inspector General of Police (AIGP) was also on full alert. It was a tough day for Ali who was holding fort for Muslin Smith, the then Inspector General of Police, who was on a two-week vacation.
By Friday, the entire police operation in the country became threatened as more policemen joined the strike. Just then, Steven Akiga, the Minister of police affairs issued a terse statement denouncing the strike action and labelling it a muting. The minister statement was immediately followed by an announcement that the government had released a billion naira to the ministry of police affairs for immediate payment of salaries of personnel nationwide. The statement said that the money released by President Olusegun Obasanjo was an additional allocation to facilitate payment of the short fall in police salaries
The strike collapsed within 48 hours , but not before four officers in the Benue state police command were put behind bars for their roles. The officers include Jonathan Borya, Micheal Manageri, Stephen Idoko and Kyamagin Annabaka. Some other officers were also arrested elsewhere in the country. More arrests were made in other states. Fifty-nine people were arrested in Akwa Ibom, 29 from Federal Housing Division, four in Kebbi and two in Nassarawa State. On the whole, more than 150 police men were arrested nationwide.
The grievances of the National Union of police, (NUP) are legion. The immediate cause of the strike was the non-payment of rent allowances to all policemen living outside the barracks from January to December, 2001. All efforts made by the policemen to convince the authority to pay these allowances were said to have complained about poor remuneration, lack of adequate man power and equipments as well as the absence of good looking environment, accommodation, and duty allowance. The annual take home pay of junior officers in the police is too poor while the superior police officers (SPO’s) enjoy fat pay with servants allowances of eleven thousand, one hundred and twenty naria (N11,120.00) each, per month. A constable’s salary of a policemen and that of his counterpart in the state security service (SSS) or even road safety Marshals are not the same. What a disparity? There is also a constable disparity in a police man’s salary and that of the servant’s allowances. The police who daily confront armed robbers, ethnic militias and other hoodlums make do with obsolete arms and equipment. The work environment also is not comparable as well.
Apart from these when a policeman is transferred from one state to another, how he gets his new station entirely is his own problem. Nothing in the form of money or allowances is allocated for his movement. According to sources, that is why an average policeman must take bribe and other financial inducements in order to make ends meet. Recruit constables who pass out monthly, recently, have no accommodation planned for them to stay. The type of admitted accommodation barracks provided for police is nothing to write home about. Policemen with about five children always occupy one bedroom and living room apartment. Tell me, if that is good for an officer and it is estimated that only about 30 percent of the police force are accommodated in the existing barracks.
2.2 NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CORRUPTION
Some studies have taken a holistic (broader approach) in the discussion of corruption by dividing it into many forms and subdivisions. These are:
1. Political corruption (grand)
2. Bureaucratic Corruption (petty)
3. Electoral Corruption
1. Political Corruption (Grand)
This takes place at the highest levels of political authority. It occurs when the politician and political decision makers, who are entitled to formulate, establish and implement the laws in the name of the people, are themselves corrupt. Political corruption is sometimes seen as similar to corruption of greed as it affects the manner in which decisions are made, as it manipulates political institutions, rules of procedure, and distorts the institution of government. (NORAD, “ed” 2004:4).
II. Bureaucratic Corruption (Petty)
This occurs in the public administration offices or the implementation end of politics. This kind of corruption has been branded to a low level and street level. It is the kind of corruption the citizens encounter daily at places like hospitals, schools, local licensing offices, police, tax offices etc it is a petty corruption which occurs when one obtains a business from the public sector through inappropriate procedure. (The encydopedia Americana, 2000).
III. Electoral Corruption
This type of corruption connotes purchase of votes with money, promises of office or special favours, coercion, intimidation and interference with freedom of election. Nigeria is a good example where this practise is common votes are bought, people are killed or maimed in the name of election, losers end up as winners in election and votes are turned up in areas where votes are not cast. (NORAD, “ed” 2004:5).
2.3 FORMS OF CORRUPTION
A. Bribery: The payment (in money or kind) that is taken or given in a corrupt relationship e.g kickbacks, gratuities, pay off, sweeteners, greasing palms etc.
B. Fraud: It involves some kind of trickery, swindle or deceit, counterfeiting, racketing, smuggling and forgery.
C. Embezzlement: This is theft of public resources or funds by public officials. It is when a state official steals from public institution in which he or she is employed. In Nigeria, the embezzlement of public funds is one of the most common ways of economic accumulation, perhaps, due to lack of strict regulatory systems.
D. Extortion: This is money and other resources extracted by the use of coercion, violence or threat to use force. It is often seen in the police and custom officers who are main culprits in Nigeria. (Bayart et al 1997: 11).
2.4 ELEMENT IMPACT OR CORRUPTION
The element impact of corruption are vital part of modern business, government, educational and other complex, an effect of these elements or characteristics is to structure the Nigerian police force as described in the classical view defection of the television authority. These elements described the perfect or ideal corruption but in practise, police force often only practically meet those characteristics. (Akpala 1990:85).
According to Weber’s element of corruption refers to a theory of television authority’s best suited to the needs of large and complex police force that perform services for a large number of clients. Ikeje et al (1992:59) connotes that legal corruption is characterized by the following components:
i. A division of labour based on fundamental specification; whereby official duties and power are legitimized by possession of specified spheres or work competence.
ii. A well defend hierarchy of Authority; the structure of a large police force is exceedingly complex, bureaucracy is the broader objective of the police force which are divided into sub-objectives work activities to accomplish these objectives are broken down, typically by specialization, to the smallest possible unit and assigned to specific positions. Power and authority are delegated downward beginning at the top, from each supervisor to his subordinates. In fact, there is dear cut division of work, competence, authority, responsibility and other related job components where each official is accountable to his supervisor for this and his subordinate job components where each official is accountable to his supervisor for this and his subordinate job related actions and decisions. All are accountable to the highest official at the top of the pyramidal hierarch where orders and decisions are taken.
iii. A carer orientation: This has a number of career orientation that closely-related to and perhaps in some cases cover a professional element just described. The work is a career with tenure and pension rights promotion is abased on seniority and achievement, decided by segment of superiors. Corruption maximises vocational security and for this reason it has suggested that if often attracts persons who value security above are:
- Legal authority and power: In a corruption, authority and power rest in the institution or office. An individual holds an office and the power he exercises is legitimatized in the office. That is, the power does not personally belong to him. It is a part of the office because the office holder has been selected on his technical ability. He wields his influence because of his expertise.
- Professional Qualities: Corruption has numerous professional qualities. The professional aspect of employment in corruption can contrast to a more traditional police force where the chief is free to encounter grace on the basis of his personal pleasure or displacement, his personal likes and dislikes quite arbitrarily in return for gifts which often become a source of regular income. Because of the greater opportunities for abuse of power and exploitation in such a personally oriented traditional television authority many people prefer bureaucracy.
2.5 CAUSES OF CORRUPTION
The causes of corruption are myriad and they have both political and cultural variables these includes:
- Great inequality in distribution of wealth or allowance to the public officials.
- Political office as the primary means of gaining access to wealth.
- Conflict between changing moral codes.
- The weakness of social and governmental enforcement mechanism and
- The absence of a strong sense of national community. (Bryce, 1921).
2.6 BUREAUCRACY
According to Hamilton (1993), Bureaucracy is a set complex of hierarchical departments, agencies, commissions, and their staffs, existing to help the president carry out his constitutionally mandated charge to enforce the laws of the nation. Without bureaucracy, government as we know it would come to a grinding halt. According to Muozelis (1967) Max Weber sees bureaucracy as a rational organisation controlled on the basis of rational management, hierarchical authority and technical knowledge aimed at maximum organisational efficiency.
2.7 FUNCTION OF BUREAUCRACY
Okoli (2004) identified six functions of bureaucracy they include:
- Presentation of Research: They are research oriented in the sense that they collect information and this information gathered helps in making a decision the quality of data used to formulate such decision he states.
- Policy Recommendation: Further more, bureaucrats are permanent in their positions used as experts in their field. He argued that they make recommendation; to any government from the wealth of their experience.
- Enforcement of law: In addition, when most of these drafts are sent up they are debated upon and when they are ratified and make into law, the bureaucrats then see to it that these things are carried out; example of this can be seen in this collection of taxes or rent control in Nigeria.
- Planning of Development: The bureaucrats draw up loans in the ministry of economic and planning. This is because they are the only institution who has the necessary information collection since a long time.
2.8 PRINCIPLES OF BUREAUCRACY
According to Anhiem and Akanwa (2003) the principles of bureaucracy structure area are:
- The Scalar Principle: It is simple called the chain of superiority, there the authority should flow from top to bottom of the television authority. Every position is related to another to which it is accountable. There is boss subordinate relationship which spells out the chain of command.
- Units of Command: This means that employee should receive orders from one superior only. A situation where a subordinate receive orders from more than one boss, the bible says “he will either obey one and disobey the other” in this case therefore it is appropriate that no member of a television authority should be accountable to more than one superior for any single functions.
- Span of Control: It talks about the number of subordinates an officers is capable of supervising effectively. Because of the limitation in human capacity to attend to and supervise only a certain number of people ie the higher number of subordinates reporting to an executive directly, the less attention be can give to each number.
- Division of Work: This is the specialization which economics consider necessary to efficiency in the use of labour. Fayol applied the principles of all kind of work, managerial as well as technical.
- Equality: This principle requires that the supervisors, in the attempt to elicit loyalty and devotion from the a subordinates, should apply a combination of kindness and subtend, thus desire for equity and equality of treatment are aspiration to be taken into account in dealing with both employers and employees of labour.
- Espirit-De-Corps: This is the principle that means in union there is strength as well as extension of the principle of command emphasizing the need for team work and the importance of communication in the police force.
2.9 EFFECTIVE CONTROL OF CORRUPTION AND SUMMARY
Corruption can be controlled in the Nigeria public service more especially in the Nigeria police force by:
- The society must develop a culture of relative opens, in contrast to the current bureaucratic climate secrecy.
- They should adopt Max Weber’s principle of merit system which state that “the process of selecting, recruitment and training must be on merit system where the employee must be on merit system where the employee must have a technical competence instead of tribalism, state of origin problem, nepotism, and favouritism which have coloured the landscape in employment opportunities.
Also, it is very important that leadership must master the political will to tackle the problem ahead, (Report on second Global forum on fighting and safeguarding integrity 1999). In summary, the Nigerian police in Imo State face problems which are both internal and external in executing their lawful duties. Some of these internal problems include poor salary, uniform accommodation, equipment like radio messages set, walkie-talkie, GSM, patrol vehicles, shift duties, leave denials, non-promotional exercise, stationeries and academic up-liftment etc.
Experience in many countries, including Nigeria shows that fiscal policies in particular intended primarily to stimulate output growth and enhance read income often ends up as a major source of financial imbalances and macroeconomic instability.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS
The problem of corruption in Nigeria is a complex and sad one: it can be analyzed from diverse perspective of morality, values and conscience. Theories of moral development have been well postulated by such notable scholars as Jean Piaget (1968) and expanded by Lawrence Kohlberg in 1971 and Kohlberg L, & Candee, D. (1984). These scholars’ position shall be used for the analysis of this work.
Morality simply refers to the relative goodness of people as it is reflected in their behaviour and beliefs. Piaget (1968), maintains that children progress from an initial pre-moral stage to a stage where morality is defined by outside authority (heteronomy). The final stage is one of moral autonomy where morality is defined in terms of the personal individual’s judgment of right and wrong. Thus, a time comes when an individual matures to decide whether to do what is right or what is wrong.
Kohlberg L, & Candee, D. (1984) speaks of three different aspects of morality: the ability to resist temptation; the amount of guilt that accompanies moral transgression; and the standards by which the individuals judge or discern what is right or wrong.
These different aspects culminate into three progressive levels of moral development. The first is labeled pre-moral which characterized an authority-oriented definition of good and bad as well as the belief that behaviour that lead to immediate gratifications and pleasurable outcomes are good, while those that lead to less pleasant outcomes are bad. The second level is the period of conformity to family and peer standards, motivated in part by a desire to maintain good social relations. At the highest level of moral development, children re-examine the rules that have previously governed their behaviour and theoretically arrived at a set of self-accepted principles of moral conduct to them.
From Piaget (1968) and Kohlberg L, & Candee, D. (1984), it implies that individuals redefine their behaviour towards good and bad, as they grow. It therefore means that societal conditions and influences affect people’s behaviour and perception of corruption. For instance the Nigerian society’s perception of success has changed from what it used to be in the past when people worked hard to earn it. Today honour is given to those who can make it by all means (usually dubious means) and red-carpet receptions are given to undesirable men with questionable characters in society. This has adversely affected the citizen’s perception of life. Indeed, the decline of morality at the expense of hard-work, honest and integrity can be adduced to be facilitator of corruption in Nigeria. This is why Oyebode (2006) concludes that corruption connotes impropriety and therefore encompasses all forms of reprehensive, indecorous and in famous conduct of some officials and performance of judicial responsibility while Adekunle, F.
(1991) concludes that a society’s social and moral values reflect are firmly anchored on specific material conditions.
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA
According to Bagshaw (2004), a number of factors can be identified as causes of corruption in Nigeria. These include:
1. Low Public Sector Remunerations: The salaries of public servants in Nigeria are so low that they cannot afford to live above board. This makes them to look for any opportunity to enrich themselves as they believe that “where you work is where you chop”.
2. Secrecy in Government Offices: Lack of information to the public on activities of public offices leads to financial misappropriation as most of the government transactions are done in secrecy.
3. Bad Procurement Practices: This creates room for inflated contracts and diversion of funds meant for capital expenditure.
4. Immunity of Public Officials: Some government officials are immune from prosecution while in office. For example most governors divert monies meant for public expenditure.
5. Inherent Flaws in the Structure of the Nigerian Economy: Due to the federal government browbeat fiscal centralization policy, loopholes are often created to effect misappropriation of funds.
6. Absence of Functional Governmental System: Supervising agencies and periodic auditing of government accounts are usually circumvented and falsified.
7. Over concentration of resources: The over centralization of resources at the centre and the culture of unregulated informal economy are also among the causes of corruption in Nigeria.
It has also been discovered that institutional factors are the root causes of all corruption in Nigeria. For instance, economic corruption has been traced to poverty and pressure on the office holder, human failure or weakness. Greed and the syndrome of get-rich-quick due to the fear of the unknown, anxiety and the insecurity of work are also possible causes of corruption. This is so because of the perception that government is not interested in the welfare of public office holders after retirement and so the available solution is to engage in corrupt practices in order to provide for the rainy day and put a shelter over their head.