Increasingly, the messages Nigerians are getting from their rulers include:
‘Steal or be damned!’
‘When stealing, make sure you do not steal peanuts. Go for the Bank vaults!’
‘If you steal well when offered a little opportunity, you are assured a bigger office to steal more!’
- we are encouraging a generation where fraud will not only be a national pastime, but probably be the national motto and mantra.
Every day, we are confronted with evidence of the institutionalization of crime, corruption and perfidy in our contraption. One day, it is the ‘State pardon’ accorded criminals who have not shown the slightest sign of remorse nor been relieved of the loot they amassed, the next it is the announcement of new rules that allow and celebrate looting of public funds.
Today, we are confronted with the appointment of accomplished ex-convicts, budding starlet-criminals and accomplished looters of public treasury to the Governing Boards of what ought to be Nigeria’s citadels of knowledge, our Universities.
Even my alma mater, the University of Nigeria, is stained and polluted with the appointment of a character who earlier on in his criminal career, had forged the certificate of the University of Toronto, Canada and presented himself as a graduate of the Canadian university in addition to falsifying his age to enable him qualify for (s)election into Nigeria House of Representatives.
How in heavens name can someone like Ibrahim Salisu Buhari have the temerity to seat on the Governing Board of a University – and probably have responsibility towards deciding who gets awarded a degree or not? Was the visitor to the University, who happens to be Nigeria’s President Jonathan thinking when this particular appointment was made? The list for other federal universities is merely spices with a few names of persons with character.
The stench is truly unbearable.
The rot is reflected in the acronyms of national titles of (dis)honor awarded to those who have accomplished themselves in looting the motherland. It is really no wonder why decent men, such as the late sage, Chinua Achebe, repeatedly shunned the several efforts of our kleptocrats in power to boost the profile of the national awards by associating such sham medals with persons of integrity.
Efforts have to be intensified to rid our contraption of filth.
http://saharareporters.com/news-page/president-jonathan%E2%80%99s-list-university-boards-officially-endorses-corruption
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