Analytical Mind

In the first half of 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan made airwaves when he said ““There is no corruption but mere stealing in Nigeria” That statement sparked outrage among Nigerians and the seismic effects could be felt on social media, especially Twitter. It marked a turning point in how many Nigerians viewed the president’s stand on corruption.

About 3 weeks ago, the president made a similar statement in Lagos where he blamed opposition candidate, Mohammed Buhari, for jailing a certain Nwobodo because he stole some money “that was not enough to buy a Peugeot”. I’m sure many of his enlightened supporters must have gasped when they heard that. Here is someone who claims to tackle corruption if re-elected summarily saying that a certain level of theft was allowable. But then, this post isn’t about the integrity of either presidential candidate. It is about the societal values that uphold such behaviour.

How many times have you heard a bus conductor say “Is it just because of twenty Naira that you’re shouting?” or the filling station attendant tell you to “forget that fifty Naira”? If you go to the market often, you’ll probably encounter such on a weekly basis. The idea being that you’re not entitled to your change simply because it is ‘too small’ and you are ‘too big’ for such. You give someone five hundred Naira to buy four hundred Naira worth of snacks and somehow the person expects that the hundred Naira change belongs to him or her; failure to acknowledge this fact would be tantamount to committing a federal offence punishable by (insert punishment).

A colleague of mine told me how she was defrauded of about two hundred thousand Naira via the hacked email account of another friend. Her bank was immediately notified and she was informed that the fraudster had made a withdrawal in faraway Edo State. They however reassured her that the account had been placed under watch. When the police arrived to investigate the matter, she was told to let the case drop since “the money wasn’t much anyways” and it wouldn’t be worth their efforts. Just imagine, the police who is meant to safeguard the citizens saying that a crime should be left unattended to because its economic value isn’t worth much!

The truth is that as long as we, as a society continue to condone malpractices of any form and excuse criminal acts in the name of “he’s just trying to survive” or “she’s just a child”; as long as we continue to allow the bus conductor feel entitled to the “just ten Naira” change and we continue to feel too big to demand the “fifty Naira” change that is rightfully ours from the trader, we will continue to hear phrases like “How much is fifty million Naira” and “Stealing is not corruption” from our leaders. That’s because the leaders of ‘tomorrow’ always come from the followers of today.

As at the time of writing this piece, the price of the cheapest Peugeot was 2.5 million Naira.

P.S. I’m not against giving tips as long as it is not coerced out of you.

As at the time of writing this piece, the price of the cheapest Peugeot was 2.5 million Naira.