Nigeria is known for its corruption and hence I choose
to work on it to know more about what makes it more corrupt. Nigeria is ridden
with different types of corruption starting with the rent seeking in form of
bribery, the form of political patronage, nepotism etc.
In my first assignment, I had provided an overview
of corruption in Nigeria with the help of existing evidence and discussed what
social mechanisms are influencing this form of corruption. I had looked at three
case of corruption and the Nigerian Patron client framework.
I had given the case of Former governor, James Ibori who was found
laundering money from public coffers. Interestingly he name was also found in
the Panama Papers. But unlike Britain or Iceland, the people of Nigeria were
indifferent to the scandal. There was not much uproar from them as they claim
that ‘they are used to it.’
Michael Johnston in his Syndromes places Nigeria under
Official Moghuls, which characterizes it as undemocratic with little
liberalization or openness and weak institutions. One cannot deny Nigeria is
different from these but we also need to look at the history to understand the
working of this country.
The social mechanism
In his paper Smith argues that, the patron- clientism
is the basis of Nigerian political economy[1]. People rather
than negotiating through the country’s bureaucracy and expecting the state to
provide services, they are more likely to look for support from someone who is
usually from the same ethnicity or community.
Morris Szeftel, in his paper argues that one needs to
look at corruption as the product of structural forces such as clientism. He
argues that the clientism was bequeathed by the nature of colonial development
and the postcolonial settlement which succeed it[2]. He argues clientism has
been a feature of the society in which excluded communities have been mobilized
politically. But this is hardly democratic as it only helps some privileged
strata in the community and not all.
Anti-corruption measures:
The primary goal of any anti-corruption programme must
be enabling those who suffer from the problem to oppose it in ways that cannot
be ignored. That suggests that rather than setting a reform agenda and then
seeking citizen support, we should choose anti-corruption measures that seem
most likely to strengthen citizens’ ability to advocate and defend their own
best interests.
Szeftel argues that there is a needs to de- couple
clientism from corrupt appropriation of public resources, to ensure that
factions do not have direct access to state resources by virtues of their
capacity to mobilize voters and politicize identity[3].
Some anti- corruption measures I would suggest is that
the people should be given credible official roles and there should be increased
political competition. There should be fairer taxation, and there should be transparency
in dealings with business, the government should be more accountable and
emergence of independent grass roots organizations who fight against corruption
should be encouraged by both the people and the state.
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