Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist, wrote, in his book: Walden, Or Life in the Woods (1854) that a man is a fool when he pays too much for what he wants, in terms of what it takes out of his very existence. Our own Dr Goodluck Jonathan would tell us that a man can be corrupt without taking a dime; neither should we consider any man a fool who would say that his personal ambition is not worth the blood of any human being. What we find is that human values and perceptions vary widely, and also represent levels of personal maturity or development.
It was noteworthy and instructive to see President Muhammadu Buhari exchanging pleasantries with former President Jonathan during the 59th Ordinary Session of Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in Accra, recently; (ref. The Tide of Monday, August 9, 2021, Page 10). Obviously the concept of corruption has to do more with the state of the mind of an individual, manifesting visibly through personal integrity and empathy. Noble ideals show in the ways that an individual relates with others and also in deeds.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law, was quoted long ago as wondering why Nigerians had not shown aggressive rage over the issue of corruption in the country, through protests. Nigerian masses know better than taking such pig-headed action because such protest would be dealt with in such vicious manner by the coercive agencies of state in a way to serve as a deterrent and warning. Thus, corruption as a retrogression works through the process of psychological conditioning with fear as a tool.
Origin of retrogressive movements in human history took a long process, with Scholasticism and Materialism standing out as recognisable pillars. During the Middle Ages, scholasticism was enthroned as a mass movement, whereby authority of the church fathers held sway, coupled with hollow intellectualism. The more loquacious and aggressive your disputation, the more your opinion stands as truth. The scriptures would be cited and quoted forward and backward as a weapon to silence rational personal conviction. Thus independent thinking and verification of issues became heresies.
Materialism as a worldview began as a global movement also in the Medieval era, spreading the philosophy that “only things that are apparent to the five senses are real, and that all actions, thoughts and beliefs can be explained by the movements and changes of matter”. Materialist philosophy was an effort to narcotise and hold human consciousness within the limits of quantifiable and provable issues. Thus began a regime of sharpening the faculty of perception to be “objective” in the scrutiny and analysis of issues. This system was also followed by the adoption of war of words to win arguments.
Unfortunately, the scholastic and materialist movements culminated in a rigidity and retrogression of human consciousness, wearing the cloak of an intellectual culture. Frankly, the intellectual culture gave rise to a process of large-scale and pervasive corruption whose domain of anchorage is beyond the physical or taking of bribes. Like former President Jonathan would say, a man can be corrupt without taking a dime. Corruption means retrogression or degeneration in awareness.
Stages of the process of retrogression or degeneration are many, quite slow and not easily recognisable. It begins with an increasing denseness, obtuseness and insensitiveness which manifest in a focus of attention on myopic personal interests. Then there is an absence of empathy with a diminution of the feeling of shame, which manifest in actions of ignoble nature, coupled with an aggressive efforts to defend or excuse such acts. Thus, there is an increasing culture of blustering and duplicity, leading to a widespread social anomie.
Then human perception and values become pressed into narrow and obscure limits such that there is a gross diminution of the reality of issues. With glib talks the smart fellow becomes the winner in arguments that involve deep ethical perception and evaluation. So long as issues are not brought or tabled within the framework of quantifiable and measurable indices, then a case can be dismissed as irrelevant and not deserving any further waste of time on. So the retrogressive process goes on and on.
Human institutions come handy as willing accomplices in the continual diminution of the range of human perception to purely material domain. Since there is no art to tell the mind’s construction on the face, rich garments can be worn to cover and conceal skeletons. Neither are there many people willing to take the pains and a free mind to explore and scrutinise issues or dig deeper than the surface to pick out what is real and true. Thus are we continuously deceived by ornaments, glib talks and threats.
With regards to the plundering and looting of Nigeria’s commonwealth by smart and clever persons, it becomes obvious that politics is also an accomplice in the regressive process. How else do we explain a situation where political parties in power provide protection and immunity to treasury looters as a bait to lure such exposed looters to switch camp! Such looters and destroyers of the economy, despite clever cover-ups, blusters and political protection, must reckon with Nemesis whose verdict can never be influenced by anyone.
Like cancerous growth, the ultimate purpose of corruption as a retrogressive process is the elimination of what is weak, derelict and not fit to serve as an instrument of a fresh up-building. The process is not a physically visible affair but strikes at the root of human consciousness and perception. The visible end-result, which is what we become quite obsessed about, is what cannot be eliminated or cured without addressing the root and origin. What we observe currently is the excrescence of a decayed human condition which takes various guises.
The looting or money-related aspect of corruption is not peculiar or exclusive to Nigeria alone because the phenomenon is a global one, manifesting in various countries according to their political economy. It is obvious that everybody is infected by the cancer whose root lies in human consciousness and perception, but not everybody in the same degree. The devouring plague would have its worst effect with those in the upper extreme. The virus manifests worst in policies which undermine the well-being of the masses. Thus you join the devouring system, as you cannot fight it.
Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.