Lagos — Nigeria descended lower on the corruption index this year and this attracted a lot of attention by government watchers but last year progress was made which did not attract much comments.

Let's recall that the corruption index championed by Germany based Transparency International (TI) brought out its first ranking in 2001 and then Nigeria was the lowest on the rung.

Improvements were witnessed as years went bye and the corruption fight of former President Olusegun Obasanjo with the publicity that went with it contributed to this. He contributed to the founding of TI and must have had this in mind when he set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Before the founding of this group, there were no parameters recognised worldwide for measuring corruption as the vocal West led by the United States focused more on Human Rights abuses. Then, the quality of leadership of any nation was measured on the level of its Human Right standard.

It may interest the reader to know that if corruption perception index were compiled in 1970, some countries that take a swipe on Nigeria now would have been at the lower side and conversely, Nigeria would have been given clean bill of health.

The startling and seemingly iconoclastic argument I am about to make here is that corruption is not the single cause of underdevelopment here because many countries that were corruption havens in the years past have cruised ahead in development index.

Now, where slouches the problem of underdevelopment? It lies in attitude, lack of patriotism and intellectual laziness.

Does that mean that we have to let corruption grow? No, corruption slows down development even when some leaders are committed to have the country grow. But the vital point is that we cannot forsake all other things that have to do with institution building and development of democracy and focus only on corruption.

Those who appear petrified by Nigeria's ranking go about it as if every other aspect of governance should be shut down while we focus on combating graft. For some persons, the country as a collective entity has committed a very heinous crime by staying down or sliding on the corruption index and should be jailed for life if there is anything like that.

I have had opportunity to travel to some countries and seen development works going on and the two I want to mention here are Benin Republic and India. Benin Republic is not a wealthy nation but every part you go, there are construction works going on. Just like the description made of her perception of Lagos State by the United States' Ambassador to Nigeria Ms Robin Sanders last week at a foreign policy address where she saw the state as a big construction site, I saw the same in the tiny West African country. I inquired from Local officials if corruption has been eliminated in the country, they told me that it still exists but the zeal to fight it is as high as the zeal to develop infrastructures and the economic advancement.

In India, I also drove along long highways by night from a state to another and even at that hour, works were going on and the villages were witnessing such. Even old tourist sites are getting continual facelift and on coming home I went to an Indian diplomat's office to ask him if corruption has been eliminated in his country. He smiled and told me bluntly that corruption within the government institutions was still high but they have a love for their country. That makes them to work for its development and of course they are also fighting corruption fiercely.

With this, I wish to rest my argument by using the words of former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Andrew Young. He identified the problem with the country to the fact that Nigerians hate Nigerians.

"Nobody likes what we are. It's same thing with United States of America, Europe, Asia and Nigeria. Let's celebrate Nigeria, not what is wrong with Nigeria, but let's celebrate Nigeria" the former envoy said at a forum recently. It also reminds me of Ambassador Sanders who last week urged those at an occasion in Lagos to sing along when the National Anthem was being played. People did not sing along at the beginning but joined later when she encouraged them to do so.

If we work hard bearing in mind that so many countries given near clean bill of health were corrupt at a point in time, then we would have to realize that our problem is with our lack of poise to work. As a reporter, I have been near many government quarters and all I see are governors, council chairmen, legislators etc who see themselves as lucky persons who have been blessed by God to win some sort of governmental jackpot rather than leaders ready to serve. In such cases, other citizens are considered as unlucky and only good to grumble and beg without results.

But I realized that if every person within this country has the love of the country and the zeal to make it succeed, we can concentrate on building infrastructures even as we build institutions. The institutions would take care of corruption in the long run and interestingly, those who think they have run away from their corrupt activities today would be caught by strong institutions tomorrow.