Getting Nigeria’s elite to commit class suicide is the only real antidote against corruption

Ayo Akinfe

(1) Governor Obaseki has promised to step up his game on Edo State over the next four years but how is he to perform when the spoils of office are so great that everyone in government will be primarily occupied with securing their future while in office?

(2) Everyone wants to make sure they have enough cars to keep them mobile for at least the next 10 years

(3) Everyone wants to have completed their mansion in their village so they have a palatial home to return to

(4) Everyone wants a healthy bank balance so they do not have to go and beg future governments for contracts

(5) Everyone wants an eggs nest so they can afford medical treatment abroad in case they fall ill

(6) Everyone wants to illegally acquire assets like hotels, farms, petrol stations or blocks of flats so they have a major revenue source

(7) Everyone wants a regular source of easy money from where they can get cash to meet all the financial obligations placed on them by all those expecting them to act as “big men.”

(8) Everyone wants to have their protoges in place so their kids are guaranteed future appointments

(9) Everyone awards contracts to members of their family because they know wealth is the only thing that confers respectability on them

(10) In Nigeria, nobody respects a poor achiever, even if he or she is the world’s greatest transformer. Our mindset needs to change if we want to end corruption and the only way to achieve this is for our elite to commit class suicide and make wealth irrelevant. If we start to see ex-governors travel by public transport, attend general hospitals, queue in supermarkets like everyone else and live in ordinary houses, maybe, just maybe, corruption will start to recede. In a way, we kind of need to glamourise poverty as something noble and dignified