By Sam Amadi
I have been privileged to speak at a Seadog event twice. I am privileged because I know that the Seadogs (Pirate Confraternity) is a body of very intelligent and competent Nigerians. So, if I am found worthy to address such a collection of brilliant and accomplished minds then I should count myself fortunate. I am also delighted that I am here courtesy of some great friends who have stayed the course of rational thinking and principled action.
My friend, Austin Emadaku (we call him the ‘Cannon of the Revolution’ in our days as activists at the University of Calabar) is illustrious in thinking that another Nigeria is possible and that Nigeria is possible in our time. I have often found myself on the opposite side of the discursive divide with him, especially in the recent matter of the insubordination in the southeast and the harsh pacification by the brutal Nigerian army. But, even as I have disagreed, something angrily and fitfully, with Austin, we never abandoned our common brotherhood of reason as comrades in the rank of the Movement for Progressive Nigeria (MPN). I hope he still believes in the prospect of progressive politics in Nigeria.
A Knotty Causality:
The focus of this lecture is on leadership and corruption in Nigeria. This lends to different interrogatories. First, how does leadership failure, both in terms of its ethics and its incompetence, affect corruption? Is Nigeria’s rampant and invidious corruption a result of its embarrassing leadership failure? Or, is the notorious leadership failure in Nigeria the consequences of Nigeria’s pervasive corruption? I guess, this is the classic chicken and hen palaver. The problem with sorting this knotty causality is that the prevalence of corruption goes simultaneously with the prevalence of leadership failure. There is a symbiosis in this regard. Nigeria’s leadership failure aggravates its corruption problem and its corruption problem aggravates its leadership failure.
There is another intriguing perspective on the corruption-leadership saga. It is in the form of a question: is the Nigerian corruption problem a result of the absence of good leaders? Or is it about the absence of good structure for effective and ethical leadership? Anyone who listens to popular banters about corruption in Nigeria, whether in the beer parlors or on online chat rooms, would conclude that corruption in Nigeria is wholly a problem of scarcity of good men (and occasionally, women) in leadership and not a problem of bad political and socio-economic structures. This idea is elegant and extremely actionable, even if simplistic and, perhaps, illusory. The narrative is that ‘bad men cause corruption’, rather than its alternative that goes something like this: ‘bad institutions cause corruption’. Which of these narratives is closer to the truth of the Nigerian pathology?
This special Nigerian populism has found its way into its latest befuddlement: the debate about restructuring. Whilst many Nigerians are arguing for the restructuring of Nigerian polity in terms of basic constitutional structures, their antagonists opine that what is needed is a restructuring of the mind. One group locates the failure of the Nigerian nation-state and its gravitation towards avoidable violent dissolution on its iniquitous structure. The other thinks it is basically a matter of ethical and epistemic disorientation. Wole Soyinka has tried his hands on refereeing this intellectual street-fight by admitting the importance of restructuring both the landscape and the mindscape. Yes, the restructuring of the mind does not do away with the need to restructure political institutions.
So, this lecture wades through two puddles: the first is the relationship between corruption and leadership failure and the other is the question whether it is good institution or good men that will solve the corruption problem.
In the Beginning: A History of Failures:
In the beginning, there was corruption. Nigeria started its journey with corruption. Many people have tried to locate Nigeria’s recurring problems to its beginning. They point to the way the country was constructed from British greed and insouciance. They allude to the fact that the name ‘Nigeria’ was a fancy verbiage of a mistress, Miss Shaw, whose lover, Lord Lugard, was Nigeria’s founding Governor General. Even the venerable Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi, equally expressed the idea that Nigeria had a faulty beginning when he argued that: “Nigeria is a mere geographical expression”.
In Nigeria’s beginning we see the meshing of corruption and leadership failure in Nigeria’s crisis. But, the way Nigerians discuss corruption, especially under the present mendacious narrative of the new administration, it would seem as if corruption is a latter-day phenomenon, and never part of Nigeria’s history. It would look like some recent misadventure or misfortune may have afflicted the country with the virus of corruption, something as episodic as the recent Ebola pandemic. Of course, to many of the new change activists, this pandemic was the 16 years gross misrule of the PDP, especially the Jonathan administration. But, corruption in Nigeria has a much more storied existence.
Even as practice of corruption has a long history in Nigeria so is the discourse of corruption. Conversations on corruption are daily staples in Nigerian homes, businesses and social spaces. No sooner than two or more Nigerians gather than the conversation veers towards the problem of corruption. Chinua Achebe in his epic commentary on Nigerian politics, The Trouble with Nigeria, observes that “whenever two Nigerians meet their conversation will sooner or later slide into a litany of our national deficiencies”. Surely, corruption will top the list of such deficiencies.
Corruption and efforts to deal with it have defined governance in Nigeria throughout the country’s history. Even during the colonial period, there were allegations of corruption in public governance. One of the most prominent early statements on corruption came from the Emir of Gwandu, who, on February 1952, spoke at the Northern House of Chiefs against rampant bribery and corruption amongst public officers. He urged action against corruption and corrupt officers in the public service. The Northern House of Chiefs adopted a resolution to investigate alleged corrupt practices. The resolution also called for massive public enlightenment against corruption.
A few years later, in July 24, 1956, Justice Strafford Forster-Sulton Panel of Inquiry found the Nigerian foremost nationalist and later first President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, guilty of corrupt practice and breach of code of conduct. Dr. Azikiwe was found guilty of allowing public funds to be invested in his private business. The other major Nigerian nationalist, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was also indicted of official corruption. In June 20, 1962, two years after independence, the Justice G.B. Coker Panel of Inquiry found him guilty of conflict of interest and abuse of power in respect of private business. Consequently, the Western Nigerian government confiscated his shares in the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC). Later in 1967, another panel of inquiry indicted fifteen public officers in the Mid-Western government of corruption.
This snapshot of corruption during colonial period and through the first republic will highlight some interesting features. First, corrupt practices in public office cut across all the regions of the country. No part of Nigeria was exempt from the menace of official corruption, involving mainly the abuse of power, conflict of interest and conversion of public finance and resources for personal or group benefits. Second, these corrupt practices were not a matter of personal anecdotes. These are cases that were officially reported and handled, many of them resulting in legal indictment or conviction.
So, corruption during the colonial and early postcolonial administrations was not hearsay or ‘beer-parlor’ conversation. Corruption was amply reported and documented during those periods. Third, government response to the menace of corruption was mainly a resort to law enforcement. In each of the cases different governments set up administrative tribunals to investigate, determine and punish the alleged corrupt public officials. Although the Emir of Gwandu asked for public enlightenment against corruption in 1952 the overwhelming response of government was law enforcement.
In 1965 the military took over power in Nigeria and inaugurated an era of military dictatorship. The justification for military rule in Nigeria was the need to deal with systemic and pervasive corruption. One of the most remarkable military regimes in Nigeria was the Murtala administration that was short-lived. General Murtala Mohammed gave Nigerians hope of a new beginning after a calamitous civilian regime. That hope was based on a promise to cleanse the Augean table. The government launched a widespread purge of the civil service tracking down public officers believed to be corrupt. When the dust settled, over 11, 000 public officers have lost their jobs in circumstances that undermined professionalism and enthroned nepotism and witch-hunt.
Murtala had promised in his inaugural broadcast that ‘operation purge the nation’ would “rid the nation of political/administrative incompetence, corrupt and morally delinquent civil servants and politicians and bring back respectability and professionalism to the country’s public service’. But at the end the chant of witch hunt and nepotism rented the air. Murtala Mohammed was assassinated early in the administration and could not see through his reform. His second in command, General Olusegun Obasanjo, took command of the administration and transitioned Nigeria to the Second Republic of civilian rule in 1979.
Shehu Shagari became President in 1979 and committed his government to the tradition of fighting corruption. He launched an ethical reorientation as a way of changing public attitude toward corruption and productivity. As part of ethical reorientation, the government enacted the Code of Conduct for public officers. But, more notably, he instituted the Justice Ayo Irikefe Panel to investigate alleged corruption against the preceding military government.
Democratic rule could not last long. In 1983 the military struck again.
General Buhari and other soldiers took back power. In his inaugural broadcast, as new military Head of State, General Buhari attacked corruption and lawlessness of the political class. He launched a ‘War against Corruption’ (WAI). He jailed many politicians and unleashed a reign of terror. The highpoints of his dictatorial tactics against corruption were the use of special military tribunals, in place of regular court, to deal with allegations of corruption and the long prison sentences handed to those convicted by the tribunals. Buhari’s iron rule was cut short by a military coup. His regime was accused of arbitrariness, high-handed and irregularity in the fight of corruption.
President Ibrahim Babangida succeeded Buhari and systematically destroyed Buhari’s legacy of dictatorship. To warm up to the political elites, the new administration returned properties seized by Buhari to the owners. Babangida worked closely with technocrats and politicians to undertake economic and political development. But it did not bother much about corruption. Such was the regime’s disinterest, or even complicity, in corruption that it was dubbed the most corruption regime in Nigeria. In the words of Ike Okonta, “Babangida corrupted democracy and democratized corruption. The political scientist, Peter Lewis, agrees with Ike Okonto and argues that:
“Corruption has long been epidemic in Nigerian politics, but the levels of malfeasance in the waning years of the Babangida’s regime eclipsed those preceding governments. The regime even facilitated corruption in the private sector. For instance, it was during this regime that various decrees NO 49 of 1991; NO 70 of 1992 and NO 24 of 1993) were promulgated which directed that various properties earlier seized past government officials be returned.”
Babangida could not complete his transition. He ended on a note of corruption when he annulled the presidential election in a purported bid to extend his stay in office. Under pressure from the politicians and civil society leaders, he stepped down from office and handed over to his Chief of Defence Staff, General Abacha. Abacha was more iron-fisted than Buhari and more corrupt than Babangida. He jailed the former Head of Staff, General Obasanjo and his (Abacha’s) deputy, General Oladipo Diya, for attempted coup. He executed Ken Saro Wiwa and other Ogoni environmental justice activists after trial in a military tribunal. On account of numerous human rights violations, the Commonwealth expelled Nigeria from its membership. As Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Coordinating Minister of the Economy, argues, by the time Abacha died in office he was reported to have stolen more than US$4 billion of Nigerian finance, an estimated 34.4% of Nigeria’s 2006 federal budget (Reforming the Unreformable, MIT Press, 2012, 84). We should note as an aside that President Buhari served the Abacha government and continues to argue that Abacha was not corrupt.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar succeeded Abacha and completed another transition to democratic rule in 1999. On May 29, 1999, former Military Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, became Nigeria’s second Civilian President in what is generally referred as ‘Third Republic’. Obsanjo’s finance minister and head of economic team, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala provides a context of Obasanjo’s reform agenda as follows:
“By the time we began the economic reform program, Nigeria had become virtually synonymous with the word “corruption”. Unless we found a way to confront corruption and enhance transparency in our economic and social life in a consistent manner, we would not be able to convince Nigerians or the world that we were serious about reform. We have to move quickly and we have to move far beyond generalities and platitudes” (ibid p. 81).
Obasanjo’s first tenure was not as eventful as his second. In the whole he worked hardest than most Nigerian presidents to establish institutions to fight corruption. His comprehensive economic reform program, National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) embraced anticorruption strategies in the form of ‘value reorientation’ as one of the four core pillars of the reform strategy. Obasanjo’s strategies for fighting corruption included entrenching transparency in fiscal management and budgeting, ensuring competition and due process in public procurement and mandating strict enforcement of ant graft regulations. President Obasanjo enacted regulations to ensure fiscal regulation and probity and established anticorruption agencies to prevent and investigate and prosecute corrupt practices.
Since President Obasanjo subsequent Presidents have continued on the path of fighting corruption mainly through the legal and regulatory regimes that President Obasanjo established as part of his economic reform program. These include the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and the Public Procurement Bureau. President Obasanjo handed power to President Yar’Adua who had a brief stay and was succeeded by President Jonathan. President Jonathan maintained President Obasanjo’s institutional reform approach to fighting corruption and added a couple of initiatives like the Single Treasury Account (TSA) and digital salary payment system.
The Buhari administration continues to work through these institutions and intensified prosecution of former public office holders as a strategy for fighting corruption. The new administration is going against former officials, arresting, detaining and prosecuting them for alleged corrupt practices. We are in the season of the largest number of corruption trials of top former federal officials. Many top officials of the previous government, including the National Security Adviser, Ministers and top military chiefs, are facing trial for looting of public funds (Premium Times, December, 2015). This is the first time in Nigeria that an opposition party is coming to power. So we should expect some sort of vendetta. Some justices of the High Court and the Supreme Court are also facing trial for corruption. Unfortunately, the Presidency has refused to prosecute its Secretary to Government and the Director of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) accused of corruption. The government has refused to even release the report of a presidential committee headed by the Vice President that probed these high officers.
There are three important points arising from this historical excursion on corruption in Nigeria. The first is that corruption is as old as political leadership in Nigeria. It courses through different leadership types and different political climates. The second point is that our best and noblest in political ethics and competence have been stained with corruption. If Awolowo and Azikiwe failed the leadership test in matter of corruption who are the beautiful ones immune from the virus? So, our hope that a new army of the beautiful ones will end the corruption scepter may be grossly exaggerated. The third point to note is that previous efforts to extirpate corruption from the body politics through mainly legal prosecution and preachment have failed woeful. As a sample of this failure note that General Buhari sent many to jail in his first coming as military Head of State. Decades after he had to come again to still fight corruption. He failed to kill corruption in 1983 and his seeming second failure in 2017 is being passed off as ‘corruption fighting back’. Do you need more proof that the drug may not be that effective?
A little Realism about Corruption:
We need to be realistic about corruption. First, corruption is a social order in Nigeria. A few months ago the Chatham House released a special report, Collective Action against Corruption in Nigeria: Social Norms Approach to Connecting People and Society. The report made the finding that corruption in Nigeria is a culture, a social norm that thrives because of a communal expectation that the next person will act corruptly. Where corruption is a culture people are almost programmed to act corruptly because they have reasonable expectations that the next person is acting corruptly and that that person also expects them to act corruptly. It is like a version of the ‘prisoner dilemma’, where one has to act strategically, not necessarily ethically, to respond to an expected behavior from the other competitor. Some game theorists call this ‘iterative rationality’.
Corruption in Nigeria as a matter of culture is both systemic and strategic. It is systemic because it links different parts of public institutions and public space into a network of social pathology. It is not isolated. It is a network of behaviors and incentives that are self-reinforcing. Corruption is strategic because it is aimed at achieving some valuable outcomes. As long as those outcomes are still socially valuable and achievable corruption continues to be pervasive. So, there is a sense in which corruption in Nigeria is a collective enterprise. Every day through various acts of survival and self promotion we erect the edifice of corruption. So it is not altogether correct to be looking for the cause of corruption in a few others rather in our collective. In fact, it is self-defeating
Another realism about corruption is the fact that ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. Without being deeply irreverent let me paraphrase and say, “all will likely sin and come short of glory”. In his iconic novel: The Beautiful Ones Are not Yet Born, Ayi Kwe Ama illustrates the culture of corruption in postcolonial Africa. The main character, The Man, refuses a bribe but feels guilty because his wife is angry with him. Ayi Kwa Amah makes the interesting observation that most of those who rail against corruption in Africa, claiming to be saints, are like ‘Chichi Dodo’, the bird that prides itself of its hygiene but eats maggots that feed on human excreta.
Let us call in aid the iconic book by the African novelist, Chinua Achebe: No Longer At Ease. The main character, Obi Okonkwo, represents the finest and brightest, the emergent African postcolonial bourgeoisie trained and nurtured to reverse the unethical leadership of colonial rule. Obi was determined, passionate and competent. But at the end, he succumbed to the pathology of his society and his own hubris and ate the forbidden fruit. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned. As the Umuofia clan pondered how its brightest star walked into a dark cloud someone was wise enough to observe that Obi failed because he did not observe the collective norms that have sustained his society, norms that included how to dip you hands into the soup-pot and avoid being caught.
We can now say that the third realism about corruption in Nigeria is that corruption is not easily defeated. This is almost a truism. If corruption is a culture and the beautiful ones are not yet born then we should brag less about ending corruption. We should show the virus more respect and move away from the exuberance that more preachment and prosecution will weaken corruption’s choke-hold on the nation. In the past our leaders have preached a lot against corruption but never realized that it was corruption that graciously gave them the platform to rail against it.
What ingrates! Yesterday, President Buhari, in his Independence Day broadcast to the nation, restated his resolve to defeat corruption. He failed to remember that he made the same promise in December 1983 but ended up thoroughly defeated by corruption. Corruption abruptly ended Buhari government in 1983 (at least he claimed he was overthrown because he was fighting corruption), and in spite of Buhari’s boast, corruption expanded its span of control. Already, Buhari is losing the war this second time around.
These three realisms results in one truism: to win the war against corruption you should not just preach and prosecute. You must be willing to dismantle the perverse incentive structure and reverse the institutional path-dependency that sustains structure so that society develops a new ‘iterative rationality’ and begins to move in a new direction. If we succeed in dismantling the incentive structure and redirecting the evolution of our institutions towards clean politics, efficient and merit-based production and value-based public service, then we stand a good chance of winning the war against corruption.
What is the place of legal prosecution and punishment in this truism? Those who love to prosecute and imprison will still have a job to do. Even after the victory we will continue to punish deviants and rebels of the new social order. But punishing those who violate the new social compact is not the victory. It is the act required to preserve our victory. So, success in the war against corruption is not measured by body bags. It is measured by how much lost territory we have recovered from the social pathology of corruption. It is measured by the degree to which we have rewired society to encourage and enable efficient, honest and public-spirited transactions. Clearly, success is not assured by incandescent rage and monotonous preachment of political leaders.
Explaining the Current Failure in the Corruption War:
What I have tried to do in the previous paragraphs is to examine the institutional perspective of corruption in Nigeria. Corruption is not only about the lack of will of one man or the momentary slip of a group of politicians. Corruption is a pattern of behavior that is anchored on social rules and expectations. These expectations are enhanced and made credible by the manner in which political and economic institutions operate. So, there is an institutional path-dependence about corruption in Nigeria. That is, corrupt behaviors continue in the direction in which they have been shaped and directed until they are altered sustainably. And the way to alter behavior sustainably is to deprive the problematic behavior of a natural environment to thrive. This is the organic (or biological) approach to making lasting changes in dysfunctional societies.
If there is a man destined and feted to fight corruption it is President Buhari. He wore his incorruptibility like a necklace. He had lost elections to what he, unreasonably perhaps, called electoral corruption. He lived a Spartan life and earned the cult following of the Talakawas. In 2015 his party, the All Peoples Congress (APC) rightly castigated the PDP for not diligently fighting corruption for 16 years. It could be said that the PDP’s greatest achievement was to be defeated by General Buhari, who will come and finish off corruption. President Buhari took over power, gave a good speech about ending pervasive corruption but sat down to begin to work hard to reinforce corruption. Like Obi Okonkwo in No Longer At Ease, President Buhari gave up to the demons of corruption. Obi Okonkwo gave some fight before he was crushed by the heavyweight of collective norm. Buhari gave up without even a fight. Buhari did not rewire the incentive structure of even the hotspot of governance: The Villa. He cloistered himself with a coterie of relatives and buddies whose allegiance to the decadent order is as clear as Buhari’s hatred of his political enemies. Brushing aside the incompetence of not naming his ministers until after 6 months, the President insensately brought back all the political gladiators who helped PDP loot the nation and those whose corruption has provoked the ire of an otherwise credulous nation.
Buhari failed the first test of fighting corruption in a perverse political environment like Nigeria, which is to change the politics. His misadventure in ineptly fighting against Senator Saraki’s emergence as Senate President send a compelling message that the President will make politics the handmaiden of his own strategic interests, much like PDP’s Obsanjo. Even as prominent members of the PDP were arrested and detained for corruption it was clear to all that no one is rupturing the system because the President has appointed other equally corrupt personages to very important positions of authority. President Buhari continued to incinerate his reputation and credibility by refusing to publicly declare his assets, neglecting to constitute the National Procurement Council and walking back on almost everything he promised that would have incentivized clean and accountable governance.
Perhaps, President Buhari should have heeded the advice that Prof Michael Ignatief, former Liberal Party of Canada leader, gave to President Trudeau, after his election as Prime Minister of Canada. Ignatief urged the new Prime Minister to focus on cleaning politics even if he does nothing. But cleaning politics, Ignatief pointed out, may mean he would not be reelected. Nevertheless, the new Prime Minister should embrace that fate. The biggest mistake of the Buhari administration is failing to realize that the real cause of corruption is the structure and directive principles of politics in Nigeria.
And that consistent signaling and aligning incentives and expectations are how to reset the structure and directive principles of politics, not hounding opponents in prison and constant preachment. In his 2017 Independence Speech President Buhari promised to be tougher on corruption. But if he continues to sustain the operative mode of politics and governance in Nigeria he could as well as turn the entire territory of Nigeria into a prison. But, defeat is assured. If anyone needs proof of this faith accompli consider that the Secretary to Government that is ruthlessly fighting corruption like Jonah is lost in the belly of the Shark of corruption. This is a harsh rebuke against lack of awareness and plenty of hubris.
It is Politics, Stupid:
Now let me pick the threads I left in the early part of this commentary on corruption and leadership failure in Nigeria. That is to examine whether it is corruption that leads to leadership failure in Nigeria, or vice versa; and whether solving both problems requires a structural or human resources solution. First, we need to make it very clear that there is really no difference between the corruption problem and the leadership failure in Nigeria. The historical excursion proves that these two are misbegotten twins of the colonial legacy. Colonialism entrenched a wrong ethics and structure of leadership in Nigeria as it did in most of Africa.
The leading African anthropologist, Mahmood Mamdani, in his classic on democracy and development in Africa, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, argues that Africa’s faltering democracy is tied to the coattail of colonial decentralized dictatorship. Just as the early postcolonial Nigerian government was extremely corrupt so it was also incompetent in engineering transformation. The structural incentives that ensured that such government could not produce world class infrastructure also ensured that it could not run clean government.
The interdependence of institutions and their structural incentives to development outcome is not a new insight in world political economy. The Nobel Laureate, Douglas North, made his fame for the insight about how institutions determine the growth or failure of the economy. He defined institutions as ‘humanly devised constraints’ that enable or constrain behavior. So the design of our institutions is a major reason our governance is both incompetent and corrupt. Think about this. We have designed a system that rewards rents seeking rather than productivity in the political economy. Every month states will come to Abuja to harvest monthly revenue allocations on fraudulent basis of local government council without making any contribution to growing the national revenue.
Every now and then the government allocates oil blocks to some of its privileged citizens for doing nothing than being who they are. Why would a country that expects productivity conduct period national bazaars to award its collective wealth to a few citizens who just have connection to power? Mai Deribe is reputed to own the largest oil block in Nigeria. He is not from the Niger Delta so he did not inherit it from his forefathers. He is not a geologist so he did not explore it himself. He is a favored son of the oligarchy and benefits from the mindless sharing. How about TY Danjuma? He retired as a Lt. General but boasts of so much wealth. He is reputed to have sold a small portion of his oil block and made over $500miilion.
A country that engages in this fraud of awarding oil blocks to a few of its well-connected citizens has moved from a corrupt state to a criminal state. Now, let us look at our electoral politics. Political power is bought and sold. Both the political elites and ordinary people are delighted participants in the open market of elections. We elect thieves and expect good governance. Candidates borrow billions from the bank to run for governorship elections and we expect that somehow, they would be penitent and selfless to use public finance to build the needed infrastructure instead of settling political investors and keeping hefty amount to fight the next election. We are simply deluded to believe that we can eat our cake and have it. In fact, we are paying for the cake and not eating it.
Politics is the handmaiden of economics and every other thing in the social space. We have to fix politics. Fixing politics is not, as Senate David Mark yesterday argued, that we need altitudinal change to make Nigeria great. Fixing politics is not about our halfhearted rituals of amending electoral laws. It is more about changing the incentive structure and enhancing the enabling and constraining structures of politics. For one, reduce the cost of politics (not costs of governance) such that there is no basis for huge financing).
Again, promote open, transparent and fully democratic election of candidates at the grassroots. Further, provide no visible privilege for public office such that it does not promise luxury or wealth. And finally, be consistent with the message of zero tolerance for corruption. No mixed messaging, even the mixed message of body language. The man who will create a new incentive structure to fight must learn how to bridle his tongue and manage his body language. For in this sort of war a faulty body language is a potent weapon. Body language helps to incentive to an old or new behavior. And corruption is more of a learned behavior than of a disposition.
Being Text of Lecture Delivered by Dr. Sam Amadi at the Sixth Annual Law Day Lecture of the National Association of Seadogs at the Rainbow Deck Anchor Point, Esievo Lane, Effurun, Warri Delta State on October 2, 2017.
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