Charles O

Why Are Nigerian Public Officials Such Kleptomaniacs? Part III

Posted June 30, 2007 · Charles O

I had another occasion to discuss the state of Nigerian affairs with the retired Nigerian Army General I spoke about previously, on the same subject of that conversation (general political malfeasance). We continued our conversation from where we stopped, previously…

The More You Look, the Less You See

The European’s earliest trading contacts with the peoples of the area that now forms the Nigerian geo-political space was marked by wholesale fraud. The white man exchanged such exotic artifacts as mirrors and gunpowder for the resources and raw materials of that part of the African continent, directing those resources to his homeland. Needless to say, the values of the mirrors and matches traded for the rubber and cocoa, were hardly equivalent… the Africans were squarely defrauded in those transactions. Another dimension, an example: the colonizing European was said to have set the prices at which he bought the raw material (Cocoa) from the African, as well as the price at which he sold the consumer product (Bournvita) to the African!

Di e yi wo ta le na?

As trade between Europe and Africa (on the African soil) bloomed, there was an increasing demand for indigenous translators to facilitate transactions and the “signing” of treaties between the colonizers and local chieftains. These earliest translators were to form the earliest civil service corps; the first crop of civil servants…

“Well Done, Brother… You’ve Stolen Well”

As it were to turn out, the relationships among the colonizing European’s government, the “elite” civil service corps, and the local peoples, were very warped, indeed. The people saw the colonial administration as a leeching succubus… an unwanted, external government foisted on them; a thieving entity, siphoning resources from the homeland to a distant one without payment or reciprocation.

A civil servant who stole from the colonial administration was hailed a hero, who, through sheer stealth, had righted an infinitesimal fraction of the colossal colonial wrong. A civil servant who came home with a ream of paper here or a packet of pencils there, would really have been taking back what the white devil had wrongfully taken in the first place.

Once A Thief, Forever A Thief?

Unfortunately, even since the new breed of colonizers—in the form of an oligarchic hegemony—took over the affairs of the “nation” at independence, the civil servant’s predisposition to—and predilection for—stealing from the public coffers has all but abated.

Epilogue

If we were to accept the central argument of this entry as having at least some truth and validity, what can—nay, must—we do to reverse that civil servant/public official “predisposition” to kleptomania?

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Comments

Mr. Oyibo,

I agree with your analysis of the kleptocracy (rather than democracy) that is known as the Nigerian government. It’s very pathetic actually.

Either way, I think there’s a very deep historical factor to why public officials are kleptomaniacs.  You may have read Peter Ekeh’s publication on “the two publics” in African societies.  Basically, he presents the idea of having both a communal public (as in community) and a civic public (as in civil society).  In Western societies, broadly speaking, these two have been treated as complements.  So people respect both publics, and act similarly in either context.  Meanwhile, African societies tend to treat them as polar opposites.  People take resources from the civic public (such as the state) and pour it into their communal public (such as ethnic organizations, kin groups, etc).  But why is it so?

Well, there are many different facets we can look at.  I’ll just talk about one here. 

During the post-colonial era, the idea of national wealth was seen as something that should be controlled by the “elite”.  Essentially, these were Western educated Africans to whom the Europeans handed over Africa when they realized that “liberation” was inevitable.  Examples are Nkrumah, Nyerere, Museveni and a host of others.  What did these guys do?  They personalized the state.  These “big men” and their counterparts developed systems of personal rule, where those who were in their interest groups benefited from state funds.  I think this was probably the beginning of the whole “I am with the boss & I can do what I want” syndrome.  From there, we can then see how actions of those inside the ruling clan could go unchecked, corrupting the civic public. 

Meanwhile, if that same individual who behaves arbitrarily while in office should dare go back to his village and disrespect a village elder, he/she would be torn to pieces.  So these same people would go to their communal life and act with respect for the rule of law… I guess it’s the unspoken community law. 

It becomes an reality, then, that someone who is a great community member would be a terrible public official.

I know I’ve made a leap here, but I figured your readers would follow.  I didn’t want to turn this into a research paper.  Just my 2 kobo.

Cheers.

Added by Seni Sulyman on Jul 02 at 07:56 AM

Seni-

You raise some very, very interesting points… this notion of two publics and the interplay between them. I have come across some of Prof. Ekeh’s work, but not this particular one.

The idea makes a lot of sense; I suspect our attempts at resolving Nigeria’s problems might yet begin with the (re-)alignment of those two publics…

Tell, what’s the Ekeh publication called?

Added by Charles Oyibo on Jul 03 at 04:31 AM

I want you to tell how Nigerian local government looks like during the post colonial era

Added by ONUOHA IGWE PETER on May 31 at 05:30 PM

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