By John Ogunsemore
Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Kingsley Moghalu has said that corruption in Nigeria would become a thing of the past if three approaches were adopted.
Moghalu, a 2019 presidential candidate of Young Progressives Party (YPP), said this in a Facebook post on Monday.
He said, “There are three important ways to fight corruption. The first is creating a national value system that abhors it. This can be done through making Ethics a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools, and promoting anti-corruption in the media. Another way is the example set by leaders, that is, their tolerance levels for acts of corruption in their governments or other institutions.
“Second is accountability. If the price of being found to have engaged in corruption is steep or high (death penalty in China or steep prison sentences without fail), corruption will reduce.
“Third, generally speaking, corruption levels are less in countries where public or civil service pay is higher on average. But this is only if the first two approaches of value systems and accountability are strong.”
Moghalu said he recalled the importance of the third option while serving as a United Nations (UN) official in the ‘90s.
He recounted a member of the Nigerian contingent of the United Nations Police Command in the UN peacekeeping mission in Cambodia (where they were both serving) asked him in conversation in 1992: “After earning this kind of salary and allowances for two years, why would I ask anyone ‘wetin you carry’ when I return home to Nigeria?”
Moghalu said, “I remember this conversation when I think about corruption in Africa and in my own country. The Nigerian policeman on a UN peacekeeping assignment was earning a basic salary of $2,000 a month and a daily subsistence allowance that totalled $4,000, i.e. a combined income of $6,000 a month. I, an entry level career UN officer in the Mission, was earning something just slightly higher.”
He added, “I read a study carried out about 15 years ago in Ghana after the government doubled the salaries of policemen. The scale and ambition of bribe-taking increased! We know, for example, that parliamentarians in Nigeria and Kenya are highly paid. Can we say that has reduced a penchant for corruption?
“These are challenges for governance and public policy in Africa. They are difficult, but they can be addressed.
“Corruption is a global phenomenon, precisely because it is bound up in human nature. But that is why law, order and accountability exist in civilised human society. They check certain innate human tendencies for the sake of societal progress and civilisation.”
