By Bola Oyewole
I write this with all sense of responsibility with the hope that corruption in Nigeria will be brought on its knees. I write this to help the Government think more creatively. I write this as my contribution to make Nigeria a better place to live, free from fear and hate for the government of the day both at the state and federal levels. Governments should be respected, neither feared not hated. Increasingly, Nigerians have several reasons to fear, hate and if possible seek violent vengeance against their own government and the people ruling them. When a country reaches such an extreme point, it leads to disloyalty, defiant behaviour, violence, the accumulation of which can lead to upheaval on the long run. Europe passed through bitter wars due to corruption and mismanagement. We need not pass through the same path if only our leaders have a deep sense of history.
Listen, Nigerians, a major crisis can happen in this country. There can be war. We all have the responsibility to prevent war.
MY STORY
I came into Nigeria to do a report on corruption in the public sector being part of my doctoral thesis. Let me tell you how it started.
Each time we discussed corruption Africa in my class, my classmates and even my teacher would point towards Nigeria as an example of where, according to him, ‘nothing works without bribery.’ The first day he used the word, I accused him of the fallacy of over generalisation. He was soon to come out with proofs including clips he collected right from the Murtala Mohammed Airport on his arrival and on departure through the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
The clips, to say the list, were horrible. Officials in uniforms were asking him for money. One even seized his camera asking him to pay $100 to have it back.
On the highways, even with a hired escort, police asked him for money. One searched him thoroughly and demanded for his passport which he briefly seized as ransom for cash.
In government offices, he was asked to pay ‘roja’ by security and even members of the Civil Defence Corps. In one instance where he posed as a philanthropist coming to eliminate malaria in a South West state, a top government official asked for N20m as commission telling him to stop malaria, he needed to grease the palms of ministry of health officials who obtain regular bribe from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture anti-malaria medicine.
In another instance, he met two officials who said they would help him to book an appointment with a Minister. The officials asked for N50m. When he asked to see the Chief of Staff, the officials asked for N60m. In both instances, they requested for dollars in cash and then introduced him to a BDC official. The irony is that he has all these on tape with visual records.
I know there is corruption in Nigeria but never knew the extent of the shame. I felt thoroughly embarrassed as he brought his visual presentation which he had promised. He is Caucasian, brilliant, pro-Africa and a very diligent academic.
He is currently working on a documentary on corruption in Nigeria. He then told me that the worst part of the problem with Nigeria is that decent people are unofficially barred from the political space that he said has been taken over by ‘vampires.’ It was this debate that prompted my choosing to embark on official Corruption in Nigeria as the focal point of my Phd thesis.
Corruption and my experience with Lagos BRT Officials
As part of the chain of corruption in Nigeria, I found out that BRT officials in Lagos pocket no less than N1billion naira every month in an organised crime supported by the police and some top notch politicians.
It involves the use of Police BRT enforcement Unit, armed thugs and some officials of Lagos State Transport Management Authority, LASTMA. I will explain my findings.
As part of my research, my cousin, a Phd student at the Obafemi Awolowo University suggested to me to include corruption in Lagos focusing on BRT officials. At first, I didn’t see the merit until I ventured into what turned out to be far more embarrassing than what my lecturer experienced while in Nigeria.
I set my driver to brush the BRT lane and then retreated swiftly on our way to Ikorodu on a Sunday morning. As soon as that happened, four police men jumped on the road led by Babaje. He is an ebony black person, average height and tall. His men already had their iron tyre buster stretched on the road. The first question they asked was ‘May I know you sir?’ I introduced myself as a student overseas, visiting Nigeria. If you are a big politician or influential figure, I later got to know, you would not be arrested.
Sure, I was a priced prey. Babaje collected the key of my car and then ordered me and my driver to enter. He drove recklessly along the Ikorodu Expressway, ignoring all traffic rules and above all, he drove on the BRT lane to a spot after the Ketu police station. I appealed to his morale, telling him the state of the economy and that I admitted I did what was wrong. I pleaded for leniency.
He told me a camera had picked my car plate number and that he was helpless. At the blue gate, he handed me over to a ‘professional thug’ who had red-shot eyes, brutal and savage. In my car was my inlaw who was five months pregnant.
I was actually taking her back to her parents for a shot visit.
On our way, I noticed at least three LASTMA officials signalled him victoriously. The thug wore BRT badge on his suit. He had no time for negotiation. My price was N70,000 not negotiable.
After pleading, he said I could pay N60 and would be allowed to go, but If I chose N70,000, I would pay and then be taken to a Court that may warn or jail me. No matter who you are, if offered these options, you would submit to corruption to pay N50,000, which was the minimum he later offered, and be let go. I opted for the N70,000 official rate to enhance my research.
N720million to corrupt officials in one month
He drove the car inside the building. In few minutes, the car was deflated. I was then kept waiting for three hours. During this time, I asked my driver to go outside and take note of what was happening with a chip camera while I monitored events inside the building. In three hours, I counted 150 individuals that came to the compound to pay money, mostly in cash and also in transfers through a standby POS. When it was my turn, I transferred the N70k. I then asked for the receipt. I was asked to ‘Go and ask Tinubu.’ I then asked what that meant. I was told that because I wanted to protest, I should protest at the highest level. I never got any receipt. Out of many of us charged for the 70k in three hours, none got any receipt.
The thugs prowled around, harassing, insulting and humiliating every prey.
They harassed married women and girls. Car owners, including breast feeding mothers came out and sat on the edges of the road, some young girls were pressed but no where to ease themselves. One particular elderly woman being fetched from the hospital with bandage on her head was bleeding as she sat in the sun. I saw exhausted and worn out women and children, on their knees begging the BRT officials.
There was no lecture on what the BRT lane was all about. No discussion with first offenders. Not explanation on why the BRT lanes were sacrosanct and why drivers should not use them. The focus was not on law or order, but on primitive profit and extortion from road users. When my driver and my cousin came, they had counted another 160 people who all paid minimum of N40k in cash to the agents of Babaje and his cohorts.
From my rough estimate, we saw 300 vehicles in three hours. This should actually mean at least 600 offenders in one day. At average of N40k per person translates to N24m in one day. Many others pay N70k. If you add up N24m in one month, the gross is N720m. We should not forget that this is just at one point. The BRT officials have many other points in Lagos. I interviewed some of the thugs. They told me their commission is 3% while the rest goes round the circle of police, LASTMA and a few State Officials. He said Babaje has no fewer than five porch cars and several buildings in Lagos.
In Europe, fines go into public treasury recycled to provide public needs. In Nigeria, fines are imposed to enrich government officials. The law itself that imposes 70k fine is an irresponsible law designed to nurture corruption. How many Nigerians would wish to pay 70k to Government purse when the option of 50k fine is there? Most of our laws are cruel and inhuman and automatically emboldens graft. Europe is rich because the government recycles wealth in a rotating machine that largely prevents lack drain pipes.
This little narrative experience sums up the paradox of poor leadership, ineffective institutions, corruption in public offices and the moribund form and character of leadership in Nigeria. On our return to Ikorodu, we stopped. Babaje was there again and in the brief pack-aside overview, four vehicles were arrested and taken away by agents of the BRT officials.
This is the country of my birth, this is the pain, anguish, and sorrow and depression Nigerians go through daily in the hands of state institutions designed to protect us but have turned our society into one huge furnace of the living dead.
I will be leaving Nigeria with a great stuff on corruption which will enrich my research, boost the position of my lecturer but at the same time leave me in tears all night as I reflect on this great country that has been placed on the altar to be sacrificed to greed, avarice, wickedness in high and low places amidst the unimaginable cruelty of principalities and powers in my fatherland.
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