Please don't shoot…Here’s my two cents/N7.30Kobos…worth.

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crises”

I am not one for economic debates as I tend to always take the irrational and illogical stance by going all sentimental and forgetting facts, stats and data but I would never fail to contribute my two cents worth to the best of my knowledge. If the need arises I would never express my opinion without welcoming feedbacks and an opportunity to learn. Without further ado, I would dive into one of the reasons why we are here, sourcing for information. Sourcing for information for self-fulfillment, to fix problems, enhance creativity consequently innovation amongst many other reasons. Whatever be your reason, sourcing for information is a justified act except when used against the furthering of the human species or bringing harm to it (which I can see some smarty pants countering but I digress).

Fixing of our problems has been a particular reason for the surge in sourcing of information coupled with the fact that we are in the information age where there is easier access to information when compared to the past. Therefore, I can draw an inference from such maiden trend that there is an active and rising involvement of the populace in the act of governance. Such can be said about Nigeria, with the passing election. A distinguishing occurrence of the election was the peaceful handing over by the incumbent administration to the present administration. It was opined that it was an act worthy of praise and even a ‘noble peace prize’ to drive home the point but I would counter this by saying it could have been out of an act of fear, fear of the mass and active involvement of the Nigerian populace this time around. But alas we would never know.

I have stumbled on a lot of brilliant ideas, coursing through the web in my search for information as to why what is what in Nigeria and respective solutions such as Industrialisation, diversification and all the other ‘-tions’. I would like to further this notion and chain of events by stating that none of this would be possible in the presence of corruption. To this extent, I understand what Buhari aims to do. However on that account, I fear that that is all he will be remembered for if n the event his war on corruption turns out successful which I highly doubt for so many reasons but most importantly Culture, the Nigerian Culture but that is a discussion for another day.

As it has been pointed out with so much ease such that even the average economic/total illiterate would swear Buhari is an economic illiterate disregarding the existence of their clubhouse, it cannot be said that he has failed to identify the first and foremost problem we face before we start embarking on the ‘-tions’ as proposed. Now the friction with this agenda of his arises when looking at the approach being employed and what is missing. Such accusations have been made that the fight against corruption have been more of personal vendettas to settle old feuds (Dasukigate). If this cannot be disputed, and also the reason why we should join the fight for corruption is lost on us, I can, therefore, assume an undefined and unclear approach has been employed to combat corruption and not from the root but at the topmost level.

I have proffered two solutions to this;

1. An awareness campaign: I am not one for PR stunts but this would come in handy in providing a clear and defined approach as to how Buhari's administration aims to fight corruption by educating the people on why we should fight and kick out corruption (You would be surprised as to how many don't know the evils of corruption, how they are affected individually and why they should stand in support of the current administration). This campaign should take a strictly not-for-profit approach employing only the private sector but still providing the incentive to whoever decides to take it up in the private sector to create and establish some form of brand awareness. Something has to give right? Newspapers, TV Shows, they should even have company’s buy into it, taking a page out of the fair trade playbook. This will create an unconscious awareness for the people and the need to kick out corruption. This campaign should also cover extensively moves being made by Buhari’s administration to secure foreign aid and intervention. We need to be educated on so many things but firstly we need to be educated on what makes corruption so bad convincing us on why we should kick it out of our culture by all means.
2. At what level should we combat Corruption?
   I admire Buhari's approach to fighting corruption from the topmost level but I can say with my understanding of Nigerians, that corruption grows and operates like hydra, the nine-headed beast. Cut one of its heads off and two grows in its place. The only way to stop this would involve burning the headless tendons at its neck immediately after decapitation (sorry about the graphic description but I love my greek mythology). The same applies to fighting corruption in Nigeria, burning the headless tendons of corruption to ensure they do not grow involves tackling corruption from the root level. This can only be achieved through proper education of the young ones. I am not concluding that Buhari is getting it totally wrong here but I am expressing that alongside fighting corruption at the top level, they should burn the headless tendons, for every attack on corruption would only spawn two more angry heads. Education need I say is the bedrock of any society willing to be taken serious and saying that this sector has been neglected is putting it nicely.

To conclude this piece, I would point out that amongst other issues of importance this administration must consider is the sustainability of whatever approach or strategy they choose to follow because it is high time we go shopping for a pair of new glasses and stop being myopic in identifying our problems and solutions!