Should We Adopt Positive Corruption in Africa?

The world should remain thankful to Uber for one thing (maybe more) beyond creating the ease for riders to move about at the click of the app, leveraging digital technology.  It should also be grateful for the beautiful conversations that flow during the rider/ driver experience sometimes providing literary minds reflections that translate these experiences to content and creative juices for literary works. Every such interface may become an inspiration for a poem, an Essay or even a novel. Imagine how a conversation with a potential landlady inspired Wole Soyinka’s excellent piece of poetry “Telephone Conversation”. You can envision how much inspiration one can get from meeting a stranger in face-to-face setting and a closed environment. These drivers should be paid for being unintended muses- but that is a story for another day. So I entered this Uber on my way to Heathrow airport driven by an African Brother from Somalia.

The usual questions almost like the police interrogator, but a lot nicer, - ‘’where are you heading to today”, he asked with a smile. To Lagos, Nigeria, I replied. Are you Yoruba or Hausa? Surprised he did not ask if I was Igbo, I was about to respond when he provided more information to show he knows about Nigeria and Nigerians. He launched into the usual stereotypes “Oh the Yorubas love parties and the Hausas, I usually take them to the Mosques. Sometimes, some of my Yoruba customers rent my services to move food from one location as far as East London to North London. They are happy to pay as much as 40 pounds to get this food across to their mother, aunty et. al. I wonder if the price of the food is worth forty pounds, he said almost to himself. I assured him that it was knowing that the price of Nigerian food abroad is certainly not cheap. Sometimes you let them go on and at other times you chip in as I did or get drawn into the conversation. Then the usual next step almost like the ping pong on the tennis court, I asked judging by his looks “are you from Somalia” and he said yes. We reminisced on how a country that should be doing so well and positioned on the horn of Africa has been stricken by war, the insurrection of the AL SHABAB and famines – “even the wildlife disappeared” we both agreed sadly. Not sure why we thought about that. 

The driver and family moved to the UK when he was twelve and he noted that the uncertainties at home caused the dispersal; but quickly added that the current president is doing a great job trying to get rid of the troublemakers and the pervasive plague - corruption. We ended with this most popular piece when African governments are mentioned in any discussion almost as a folklore in the South of Nigeria is incomplete without the adventures of Mbeku or Ijapa the Tortoise.

He chuckled and shared a story – a friend of his from Southern Africa told him that there is a difference between positive corruption and negative corruption. Positive corruption almost like a rare breed of animal is found in the western world and governments. The main persona takes only 10% of the value of project and deploys the rest into what it is meant for through five to ten years like building roads, bridges and necessary infrastructure that improves the quality of livelihood. He pointed out that the recent saga of the Scottish MP who is on a hot seat for charging 11,000 pounds data he used for personal purposes (or his children football watching escapades) to government is an example of positive corruption if it had gone undetected. That is an infinitesimal piece of Taxpayers money. 

The negative corruption is the situation where the persona in this shameful game, takes 100% of the taxpayer’s money and revenue of government for personal aggrandizement, no care for the world and leaving throes of death trap roads comatose infrastructures, impoverished country and youth who prefer to die in the deserts or the sea because their governments have failed them. For him, he will recommend the positive corruption any day than the quagmire most African countries have found themselves. 

I thought about this long after I completed the ride “is it better to have the parasite destroy 10% of the host, allowing for a lower level of morbidity, than the 100% that ravages the host leading to high morbidity and mortality – complete annihilation? Or put simply, should the house thief take a bite from a piece of meat in the pot versus stealing all the meat in the cooking pot? The truth is none is preferred. But the reality is that corruption remains the derailer for most African countries as a low score index for ease of doing business. Of the 10 most corrupt countries, five of them are in Africa and in the ranking of the least corrupt countries – the best African country has a position in the 40 range. 

Corruption is hydra headed. Just in case we begin to get sanctimonious and casting our pellets with glee – not just stealing from the coffers of government is corruption or “quarupption” as we heard in the military days in Nigeria but includes unbridled nepotism and bare boned favoritism. Also, before we point fingers at the Heads of government (yes, I know about the rotten head of fish saying), but there needs to be a purgation and accountability at various levels of the civil service and indeed every aspect of our existence including the private sector. 

Our report card from Transparency International needs to get better. According to the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index report, Nigeria is the 150 least corrupt nation out of 180 countries. Corruption Rank in Nigeria averaged 125.67 from 1996 until 2022, reaching an all time high of 154.00 in 2021 and a record low of 52.00 in 1997. Digitalization of operations and processes as well as reducing human interface may be one way to begin. Perhaps we can then walk to the top. The Tech Committee of the American Business Council Nigeria will be happy to collaborate with the government in this area.