Winning the war on corruption by Adewale Kupoluyi

 By Adewale Kupoluyi

The nation’s quest for development and a just society may continue to be elusive until the virus called corruption is eliminated from its system. And at the epicentre of this daunting task is the intellectual, who is capable and well equipped as an agent of social engineering, in bringing about the desired change.

This observation was made by a Professor of Sociology

of Law in the Department of Sociology, University of Jos, EtannibiAlemika, the Guest Speaker at the 1st Professor E. O. Akeredolu-Ale Memorial Lecture, held in Abeokuta, Ogun State titled, “Roles of Intellectuals in National Development and Promotion of Human Security”. The lecture was held in honour of late Professor EkundayoAkeredolu-Ale, an author, social commentator, an alumnus of the Nigeria’s Premier University of Ibadan, the London School of Economics (LSE), as well as the former Director, Centre for Social Policy and Research Professor, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER).

I have decided to share the public lecture not only because I was invited to the occasion but due to the fact that I agree with the Guest Speaker on many of the issues raised and the need to seriously consider his suggestions in our quest to winning the war on corruption. ProfesorAlemika, an expert in criminal justice reform, security governance, is a board member of several professional and academic organisations including the CLEEN Foundation (formerly Centre for Law Enforcement Education), the African Civilian Policing Oversight Forum (APCOF), Altus Global Alliance and a member of the American Society of Criminology and Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. He was recently appointed by President MuhammaduBuhari as a member, Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-corruption.

The Guest Speaker, who had described Professor Akeredolu-Ale as his teacher, mentor and friend, noted that he was one of the pioneer sociologists in Nigeria, a man of extra-ordinary intellect, scholarship, devoted to the advancement of national development and with “a reputation for thoroughness, hard work, critical and creative thinking but ‘harsh’ in his uncompromising demand for excellence from himself, students and colleagues”, having served as his (Professor Akeredolu-Ale’s) rapporteur at various meetings and seminars, organised for the conduct of research and dissemination of results.

Professor Alemika observed that there were contrasting views on the attributes of intellectuals. For the idealistic view of intellectuals, they possess various virtues and competencies like rationality, objectivity, neutrality, critical thinking and analysis of phenomena or realities, diagnosis and solution of critical problems affecting humanity, freedom of thought and action, critical engagement and opposition to persons in authority and power including their policies and actions, and revolutionary change agents. These and other attributes of intellectuals equip them to speak the truth to power. He, however, noted with dismay that in reality, an intellectual often fails to exhibit some or many of these attributes.

While comparing and contrasting the intelligentsia with the intellectual, the Don said the former referred to persons in society with high educational attainment and professional skills who occupy high position within the public, private and cultural organisations and are generally involved in governance, policy making and administration, as many writers had been found to use the terms interchangeably. Intellectuals are differentiated from non-intellectuals by their dispositions and activities in the sense that a non-intellectual person, though educated, is passive mentally. Such a person accepts what is taught to him/her uncritically and does not exert himself/herself thinking about different problems over a span of years.

In otherwords, they are not emotionally committed to the intellectual pursuit, do not spend time reading on serious subjects and are incapable of forming an opinion beyond what is obvious to most people maintaining that intellectuals are critical and skeptical but not cynical because critical and skeptical persons often interrogate phenomena, policies and practices before taking position. They hold in abeyance their judgment until after critical inquiry, whereas the cynic rejects ideas and practices without any inquiry into their development, features and purposes. In short, skeptics are guided by reason while cynics are carried away by emotion, he noted.

Professor Alemika admitted that discussion on the roles of intellectuals in society was often characterised by controversies and disagreements because intellectuals were meant to pursue actions that ‘alleviate human suffering’ contrary to the implicit idea that those in power will not be genuinely interested in alleviating the suffering of the powerless. “Unfortunately, in the past three decades, many intellectuals have actively participated in the corruption industry or provide defence for the robbers that plunder the resources of our agencies and associations”, he opined. Therefore, the intellectual – being caught in the web – is expected to be on the side of those suffering! He maintained that intellectuals do not constitute a homogeneous social category in that the roles of the intellectuals are basically contextual and only determined by the political economy in which they find themselves, the class to which they affiliate themselves as well as their consciousness.

On the critical national challenges facing intellectuals, Professor Alemika said Nigeria was negatively affected by economic, political and social problems while the capacity to effectively respond to them was significantly undermined by the contemporary understanding of the orientation and roles of intellectuals in the country. He said the country was still battling with the challenge of the erosion of moral and ethical foundations, ideal values and behaviours, obsessive pursuit of vain glory, excessive materialism and inordinate political ambition that encouraged the manipulation of religious and ethnic sentiments.

“Corruption is the single most critical contemporary threat to development, democracy, and human security in Nigeria. It is responsible for most of the conflicts that are presented in ethnic and religious terms. At the roots of the conflicts is competition for the control of resources that can be misappropriated with impunity. Anticipation of benefit from ill-gotten wealth and control of resources by ethnic and religious entrepreneurs form the basis of support for corrupt and evil rulers in various public and private organisations by persons from their communities. The defence of corrupt rulers in various agencies and associations by their ethno-religious communities inhibits effective enforcement of measures against corruption and impunity”, he stated.

Professor Alemika, while urging Nigerians to de-empasize the inordinate crave for money, said the fall-out of corruption was that development is stunted causing increasing number of citizens to be trapped in poverty, as infrastructure and services are not provided while the existing facilities deteriorate as resources appropriated for the provision and maintenance of such infrastructure and social services were said to have been brazenly looted by a cabal of political and economic criminals that have captured strategic economic, political, socio-cultural and religious positions and resources in the country. On winning the anti-corruption war, the member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-corruption said, “It is the responsibility of the intellectuals to expose these criminals and articulate effective structural, institutional, legal and policy measures against their crimes”.

He described most institutions and organisations in Nigeria as ineffective and weak because they have allegedly been captured by corrupt rulers to serve their personal ends rather than public goods, saying that the executive, judicial and legislative agencies at federal, national and local levels do not serve the purpose for which they were established, adding that nepotism, another form of corruption, was another major factor responsible for the paralysis of government agencies, revealing that when incompetent people are employed or appointed to occupy strategic positions for which they were not qualified, it often leading to the destruction of the personnel, values, rules and processes of the organisations that were hitherto aimed and required for their effectiveness.

The Professor of Sociology of Law regretted that many intellectuals, who were expected to be apostles of transparency, accountability and integrity had betrayed their calling because the security, judiciary and law enforcement agencies which are critical to the enforcement of law and maintenance of security and order are weak because of corruption and inappropriate political control, blaming the government and private corporate organisations as well as the socio-cultural and religious bodies for the rot.

Kupoluyi writes from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), adewalekupoluyi@yahoo.

Ref: http://www.peoplesdailyng.com/winning-the-war-on-corruption/