CURRENT SOCIAL-POLITICAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
Every political issue is tied to who gets what, when and how. The idea that the “national cake” is
meant to be shared rather than baked, by the various ethnic groups that constitute Nigerian
federation provides a fertile ground for the kleptomaniac individuals who are obsessed to
syphoning the public fund. Corrupt practices, in all its manifestations, areas old as a human race
(Lipset & Lenz,). Brinkerhoff cited in Ogundiya, sees corruption as subsuming a wide variety of
illegal, illicit, irregular, and unprincipled activities and behaviours. From this perspective,
corruption is importantly a moral, political and legal issue. According to Peters cited in
Ogundiya 2009, Political corruption can be classified into three criteria: the legal public opinion
and public interest. From legal perspective, political corruption is connected to any behaviour
that violates some formal standard or rule of behaviour set down by a political system for its
public officials. The political system is said to be corrupt when the weight of public opinion
perceives it so. The last one, corruption is taken to be a violation of the public interest.
Corruption connotes the abuse of public resources, or the use of illegitimate forms of political
power and influence, by the public or private parties. Therefore, corruption is inextricably tied to
politics. Corruption is evident when governmental power is abused for illegitimate private,
group, or sectional advantages. This is the trading of influence and authority by political leaders
and may extend to granting favours, irregularities in campaign financing and electoral fraud. It is
an effort to secure wealth for private benefit at public expense (Lipset and Lenz, 2000). It is an
illegal act by an office holder in relation to his official duties; done under the guise of law and
trading in influence (Damania & Bulte, 2003). The United States Legal Incorporated (2015)
defines political corruption as the abuse of political power by the government leaders to extract
and accumulate for private enrichment and to use political influence as means in maintaining
their hold on power. Political corruption takes place at the highest level of leadership position.
Moreover, it is natural to think about elections while talking about political corruption.
Vote rigging and ballot snatching bring unqualified leaders to a position making them steer away
from good governance. Political corruption is the diversion of scarce resources from poor and
disadvantaged people to benefit their cronies (Transparency International, 2015). Political
Corruption occurs when a public official attempts to gain something by abusing power. Bratsis
(2014) states that political corruption involves the private regarding the policy making g process,
be it a matter of bribery or any other inducement. It is the pathological presences of self-interest
within the political sphere. It can also be viewed as the absence of transparency in government
business processes.
However, different techniques of corruption have been identified among Nigerian leaders
as bribery with its Nigerian variants, kickbacks; nepotism; misappropriation of funds; the use of
contrived security threats to the state or the allocation for personal enrichment of public officers
charged with the maintenance of public order; the exploitation of privileged relationship with
key public sector managers for the purpose of acquiring competitive business assets; auto-
corruption; extortion; and employment patronage (Johnson, 2013). However, it should be noted
that those who engage in corrupt practices always devise new techniques and are always abreast
of the anti-corruption agencies in their strategies.
There is the absence of genuine citizenship sentiment at the national level. Hence the
struggle and agitation for political representation by various ethnic groups are meant to secure
access to the common-wealth. Therefore, the idea of federal character principle entrenched in
section 14 sub-sections 3 and 4 of the 1999 constitution and the idea of rotational or zoning
arrangements besides ensuring a sense of national belonging and the promotion of national unity
has embedded corrupt practices (Ogundiya, 2009). Zoning formula and federal character
principle are elitist in form and content. The privileged elite has successfully disillusioned the
psyche of the masses with the virus of ethnicity; virtually anything in Nigeria can be ethnicized
(Ogundiya, 2009). Apart from the nature and character of the Nigerian state and the problem of
ethnicity that provided a fertile ground for corruption to thrive, there is poor political will to
implement anticorruption laws. This is because eradicating corruption in the eyes of politicians
and their Milito-bureaucratic counterpart is tantamount to committing political suicide
(Ogundiya, 2009).
Moreover, there are different forms of political corruption. The first form includes both
accumulation and extraction where government officials use and abuse their hold on power to
extract from private sectors, from government revenues and from the economy at large.
Examples include extraction, embezzlement, rentseeking, plunder and even Kleptocracy (rule by
thieves) (Wikipedia, 2016). The second form of political corruption is one in which extracted
resources are used for power preservation and power extension purposes. This usually takes the
form of favouritism and patronage politics. It includes a most favourite and politically motivated
distribution of financial and material inducements, benefits, advantages and spoils (Wikipedia,
2016).
Other forms of political corruption are: rigging of election, vote buying, vote selling,
political assassination, contract killing, cancellation of votes, ballot stuffing, manipulation of
electoral registers, outright bribery of electoral officers and security agents, inflation of electoral
votes and the employment of political offices for personal advantage at the expense of public
interest (Ajogbeje, 2016).
Orji (2011) identified avarice, greed and get rich quick syndrome as major causes of
political corruption in Nigeria. He concluded that corruption affects the well being of individuals
and retards the progress of the state. He stated that acts of corruption by political leaders include
embezzlement of public funds, rigging of elections, kidnapping of political opponents, thuggery
and politically motivated killings. In his own view, Eze (2002) stated that poverty is another
major cause of corruption in Nigeria and that ineffective leadership as well as the shaky moral
foundation in upbringing had actually given license to corruption in Nigeria.
Another major cause of political corruption is the emergence of political “kingmakers”
and gladiators commonly known as the political godfathers. According to Human Right Watch
(2007): Godfatherism is both a symptom and a cause of the violence and corruption that together
permeate the political process in Nigeria. Public officials who owe their position to the efforts of
a political godfather incur a debt that they are expected to repay without end throughout their
tenure in office. Godfathers are only relevant because politicians are able to deploy violence and
corruption with impunity to compete for office in contests that often effectively, and sometimes
actually, exclude Nigeria’s voters’ altogether. But they are making it even more difficult to win
elected office without resorting to the illegal tactics they represent.
According to Imukkuede (2004), godfatherism occurs when an individual (godfather)
uses his overwhelming influence or tremendous resources to sponsor into public office a
candidate which then allows the godfather not only to control the government but the incumbent
as well. Igwe (2002) referred to godfatherism as patronage politics involving the personalization
of power and subordination of the freedom and rights of the individuals in favour of personality
cults, while the ultimate casualty is a democracy. The godfather remotely controls the resources
attached to the office directly by demanding for cash payment and indirectly by nominating
holders of sensitive and key positions and award of contracts
EDUCATION
Corruption in education is the pervasion of the expected standard of behaviour by those
in authority in the educational system for their own personal gain to the detriments of others and
the system in its pursuit of quality manpower and national development. Corruption in the
system has made it easy for some scholars to describe schools are no longer institutions of
learning but instead as money exchange department to help students pass examination and gain
admission into higher institutions. Onwuka, (2009) stated that corruption in the political life of
a nation is a tragedy while corruption in the educational sector is a double tragedy. Because
the educational sectors has tremendous capacity to set in motion an uncontrollable
reproductive process of corruption in the larger society and thereby mare the development
structures.
