Mike Famiyesin's Blog: “Stealing is Not Corruption”: A Discourse on the L...

Mike Famiyesin's Blog: “Stealing is Not Corruption”: A Discourse on the L...: Raheem Oluwafunminiyi* and  Famiyesin Michael Department of History Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo Correspondence: creativitys...

Mike Famiyesin's Blog: “Stealing is Not Corruption”: A Discourse on the L...

Mike Famiyesin's Blog: “Stealing is Not Corruption”: A Discourse on the L...: Raheem Oluwafunminiyi* and  Famiyesin Michael Department of History Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo Correspondence: creativitys...

“Stealing is Not Corruption”: A Discourse on the Languages of Corruption in Nigeria

Raheem Oluwafunminiyi* and  Famiyesin Michael

Department of History

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo

Correspondence: creativitysells@gmail.com

Abstract

In 2014, during a live Presidential Media Chat broadcast on national television, a former Nigerian President was credited to have stated that “There is no corruption but mere stealing in Nigeria”. The statement was in response to series of questions and criticisms of his administration’s handling of mind-boggling corruption cases under his watch. While swift attempts were made by the presidency and few other government agencies to downplay the hoopla the statement had generated, it did little to assuage citizens’ concerns about the government’s readiness to tackle both systemic and endemic corruption in the country. A growing trend in the last few decades shows that the political class employ the use of ambiguous languages to downplay the corruption discourse in Nigeria. In time past, bribery or kickbacks were the most common forms of corruption in the country. This has, however, taken a more dangerous turn in recent years with acts of brazen embezzlement and mindless pilfering of public funds among political and public office holders making everyday news. Given the following, our paper seeks to interrogate the languages of corruption in Nigeria. We tend to examine how they continue to encourage the brazen acts of corruption and embolden public office holders to appropriate and misappropriate the commonwealth of the masses. Though the citizenry too are not less culpable in advancing some of these languages which inadvertently creates a fertile ground for corruption to fester, the political class, which our paper beams its searchlight on, appear to employ these languages to consciously defend and institutionalise corruption in Nigeria. We argue that the use of these languages have aided in perpetually stifling the anti-corruption war, reduced the ability to successfully prosecute financial and economic crimes and most importantly, further deepened the crisis of underdevelopment in the country.  

Keywords: corruption, languages, Nigeria, political class, stealing

How Tinubu killed Corruption in the Lagos Judiciary -- Yemi Osinbajo

Hear him....

"When I was a lecturer in UNILAG, I visited a retired Judge who stayed in a rented BQ apartment of two rooms. The first room which served as sitting room had no where you can sit on. It was filled with books. The second is bedroom for him and his wife. The children have grown and they don't stay with them. Here is a honest Judge, sincere old man but who had nothing to fall back on. It saddened me.

"Therefore, when I was appointed Attorney General of Lagos, we did a survey among Judicial stakeholders, we asked people to rate the judicial system into categories notoriously corrupt, highly corrupt, fairly corrupt, not corrupt....

"In the result, the respondents said 89% was notoriously corrupt!!!!!!

"We then decide to do three things. Review the wages of Judicial Officers, Improve their welfare and establish a credible recruitment process. We then increased Judges salaries from N67k to......which will ensure they pay their children school fees, paid for expenses comfortably. What we pay became the standard all over the country and even in the Appellate court's....We built house for them which they own forever. It is theirs during service and their property after service. It is theirs forever.

"For any corrupt allegation against any judge, we didn't use State Judiciary Commission to review in order to avoid interference, we sent to NJC straightaway and followed it up until we get results. Through this, we were able to sack many judges and magistrates....

"After some times, we reconducted same survey we did before and the result shows that 0% of Lagos Judges are corrupt.

"We will build a sound structure here too. That's the best way to fight corruption.

YEMI OSINBAJO.