Lagos — How does Nigeria tackle the cankerworm called corruption, which has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation? This was the basis for organising this year's Annual Law and Social Development Lecture, with the theme: "Corruption and the Law: A Case of Unequal Justice?" organised by the law firm of human rights activist, Mr. Bamidele Aturu penultimate week in Lagos.

It is no longer news that one of the issues that have garnered considerable attention at both public and private fora in Nigeria today is corruption. Many have argued that the damage this malaise has done to the polity and the generality of the people is immeasurable. The malaise pervades all strata of the society. The three tiers of government and its arms, the private sector is not left out as corruption has led to slow growth and development of the nation.

Because many believe that corruption is the bane of the country, the issue keeps recurring in every academic and informal discourse. Many agree that it has become endemic and eaten very deep into the national psyche, and so precarious and devastating has it become that the nation seems to be at cross roads.

Nothing works well in the country because of the malaise. Yet, there are no signs that this menace will be tackled. The roads are bad. The power situation remains deplorable. The railway lines remain dysfunctional. The airports are lacking the necessary facilities.

Hospitals are nothing but mortuaries and without necessary facilities. There are no jobs. The country's educational institutions are in comatose. Added to these are the case of cholera and other water borne diseases that are still ravaging the country's towns and villages. All these are because monies meant for these facilities end up in private pockets and accounts.

The impunity with which people in power allegedly loot public coffers these days is simply alarming. People no longer express bitterness each time they hear of billions of naira being stolen from public coffers because it has now become a daily fad. Neither do they express surprise when they hear that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) is investigated an individual or organisation over stolen millions or billions of public funds.

In Nigeria, over 70 per cent of the populace is believed to be poor, with 35 per cent living in absolute poverty. Poverty is especially severe in rural areas, where social services and infrastructure are limited or practically non-existent because funds meant for development are either misapplied or out-rightly stolen.

The feeling of many a Nigerian is that the inability of government and its institutions to deal with corrupt public officers usually sends a wrong signal to the public that corruption is not punishable as long as the institutions could be compromised. This feeling has been given much credence by the upsurge in corrupt offences and the increasing number of Nigerians that are being arraigned with no convictions.

It was against the backdrop of this malaise and the need to find solution to it that Bamidele Aturu & Co., the law firm of human rights activist, Mr. Bamidele Aturu penultimate week held its Annual Law and Social Development Lecture tagged: "Corruption and the Law: A Case of Unequal Justice?" in Lagos.

Speaking at the occasion, Aturu said the country was being wantonly pillaged to a state of nothingness by those who manipulated themselves to political and other offices that confer on them the undeserved privilege of controlling the national till. He said that everywhere one turns, the disastrous consequences of the monster of corruption stares one in the face. "Our roads have become impassable; hospitals are not only understaffed with unmotivated workers, they have no drugs to dispense; public schools have virtually been wiped out; the country is in perpetual darkness as the epilepsy of PHCN has finally thrown it into coma.

"This state of comprehensive inefficiency has led some of our concerned compatriots to conclude erroneously that the state has failed or is failing. While one understands the frustrations that feed that conclusion, the truth is that the state seems to be getting stronger. That is the paradox of our situation. Corruption weakens service delivery and strengthens the state, albeit a rogue state. The pauperisation of the population without a corresponding subjective mobilisation by the popular forces notably the labour movement achieves a weakening of the organisation of the people that translates into strength for the rogue state.

"Thus the rogue state does not even require increasing its armoury or recruiting more soldiers once it can debilitate the popular forces through pauperisation. This thesis is contestable. But no one will deny a frustrating quietude in our people in the face of the most obnoxious provocative thieving by the charlatans who rig themselves into political offices across the country. This quietude is more noticeable among the youth.

"The degeneration among the youths can easily be seen in the irresponsible collaboration of its once shining beacon of hope, the students movement, with the very rogues who they should war against for ruining their future. These days one wonders whether the various state houses are extensions of the student union secretariats.

"It is natural to expect corrupt rulers to corrupt values. Worse than infrastructural decay, is the obliteration of our old values of hard work, honesty and good neighborliness. The get rich quick syndrome is a virus that has afflicted the soul of our country. No institution is excluded. Once you have big cars, big houses, wear gaudy and expensive clothes, everyone celebrates you. No one is interested in the way and manner our nouveau riche accumulate their wealth. Even in some religious bodies only apparently rich people are venerated," he said.

Arguing that corruption was killing the country, the human rights activist stated that the country couldn't survive if we continue in this state of anomie or lack of morals, adding that this was not a doomsday prophecy. "This was not a doomsday prophecy. Corruption is killing our nation. We must kill it first if we must survive. Those accused of stealing who ordinarily ought to either bury their heads in shame or at least keep themselves out of circulation rent crowds to attend their trials in court with full complements of orchestra bands as if they are giving out their children in marriage."

He further advocated for the expeditious disposition of anti-corruption cases. "The law should make this clear. The trials cannot go on indefinitely without people feeling the whole thing is a huge joke. If the Electoral Act can stipulate expeditious hearing of electoral robbery cases, there is no reason why economic robbery should not be dealt with quickly, particularly when we understand that political robbery is but a stepping stone to economic robbery.

"Three months should be the time ceiling for anti-corruption cases. Justice is not only for the accused but much more so for the people whose moneys were stolen. We are sick of seeing people accused of looting their states of billions of Naira and dollars taunt us and the judiciary with frivolous applications to travel outside to attend to their health when it was their rapacious act of stealing that led to unavailability of health services in the first place. Our judges must exercise utmost judicial discretion in treating such frivolous applications," he stressed.

The occasion was not all about lamentations as Aturu also gave some antidotes. He said for government to wipe out corruption in the country, it must abolish the venal system of giving oil blocks to individuals, saying that these individuals rent out the licenses to oil majors and collect huge sums of money that distort the economy and values.

"Why should these characters be bothered about the state of our roads when they can buy private jets from their rents? Why should they be concerned with our comatose PHCN when they can buy as many generators as they fancy and have fuel dumps in their courtyards? Our health services can remain in shambles as long as their fat rents can facilitate easy appointment with their doctors overseas even for common cold. The system is evil. It must be dismantled," he emphasised."

The guest speaker at the occasion, Dr. Sam Amadi advised that both government and the people must look before fighting corruption. Amadi who spoke on the topic: "Corruption and the Law: A case of Unequal Justice", said Daniel Kaufmann was right that to fight corruption do not fight it. "Overlook what appears to be the problem and fix the environmental problems. Fix the electoral system so you can establish real accountability of political office-holders to the citizens. Fix the perverse political system so that political parties can become the carriers of consciousness not an open market of patronage.

"The first strategy to fight corruption is to recognise that corruption, especially public corruption, is politics. The politics of corruption by which strategic interests buy up privileges against the rules of the game or natural justice is grand corruption. And the grand corrupters work by capturing the political process. If corruption is politics then the answer to corruption is politics. The resort by development practitioners and reformers to establish strong institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability should not obscure the fact that politics is the answer".

He said those who are victimised by corruption must be organised and strategised to overcome the transaction cost of getting their voice heard in a way that the bargain that goes in legislative houses and in the executive mansions changes. Except the people organise politically, they cannot impose sanctions against corruption and incentives for behaviours in support of probity.

"Former minister of finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala initiated the practice of publishing monthly allocations to the different tiers of government. The idea was to let the people know so they can demand accountability from the governors and local government chairmen. In spite of this innovation, governors and chairmen continue to embezzle monthly allocations. There are no widespread protests and demonstrations in the states demanding for accountability. What is wrong? Legalism! The false belief that because allocations are published a new consciousness will follow. No! Someone has to organise the people to use these information and turn them into political instruments of accountability."

The guest speaker revealed that the World Bank economists and social scientists, Cherly W Gray and Daniel Kauufman, elaborated the relationship between corruption and development with theoretic and empirical groundings, "First, corruption increases transaction cost and uncertainty in the economy. This in turn reduces the state's ability to provide essential public goods, including the rule of law".

On the relationship between the rule of law and corruption, Amadi concluded thus: "the relationship depends on the politics that produces the law and whose interests and values underwrite the framework of rule of law: the interests of the conspiratorial elites or of the victimised majority, or a mixture of both."