By Philip Obin
President Buhari is probably fighting a lone war against corruption in high places, as a large number of those working with or around him are not just corrupt but very corrupt, making things just too difficult for him.
And you do not expect him to employ the fire brigade approach and get consumed, too.
If you truly understand how bad, rotten and corrupt the system has been over the decades, you probably wouldn’t be expecting President Buhari to perform the kind of miracle we all expect him to, as expunging corruption from Nigeria’s system cannot be a day’s job.
As we should know, corruption is a terrible and rugged fighter that will fight with the last drop of its blood, especially when you employ the top-down approach of fighting it. It will always fight back, firing on all cylinders.
Their strategy now is to paint President Buhari ‘corrupt’ too, so we can say “they are all the same,” and then naturally desire to go back to the old order; and they have almost succeeded, with the events playing out recently.
Remember also President Buhari had lamented how corruption is fighting back over and over since he started the fight, but we seem not to pay adequate attention to really understand him.
While assuring that Nigeria is determined to emerge victorious in the war against corruption, Buhari told the world that corrupt Nigerians had built a formidable arsenal of illicit wealth, which they had deployed against the fight on diverse fronts.
Consequently, I enjoin us not to be ignorant of the vices of corruption, even as I urge President Buhari to up his game, and redraft his anti-corruption strategy so that his efforts may not be wasted.
VP Osinbajo once said that if President Buhari lost the war on corruption the consequences would be bad for Nigeria.
“The effect of corruption on Nigeria is, of course, unquantifiable. Aside from soiling Nigeria’s corporate image in the international community, all the social, economic and political structures in the country have been ruined by corruption. Social services and infrastructure are in a shambles. The people are pauperized as the ordinary people are always the victims. While the people wallow in abject poverty and want, members of the political class and their business class associates bask in stupendous stolen wealth.” – The Guardian
In summary, let us be on the lookout for their strategies and see things from a different perspective while contributing our individual quota to the fight against corruption.
.Obin wrote from Calabar, Cross River State