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“Oppression is expensive” is one of the quotes I was compelled
to note down during Jesse Jackson’s address at the recent Kuramo Conference on
Law and Development in Lagos.

I used to consider oppression as what I experienced living under
the Abacha regime in 1993 to 1998. Since 1999, we have been a country under
democratic governance and the overt political oppression has been replaced with
a subtle and perhaps more disruptive one.

This oppression denies us opportunity, development, prosperity,
and growth and it presents us with an almost unbeatable mortal challenge. This
oppression is All-Pervasive Corruption (APC).

I would love to know if corrupt officials of both public and
private organisations are enjoying their lives in the society they have either
created or which their actions perpetuate.

Do they enjoy living in those parts of the country where hills
of rubbish and refuse decorate the locale and threaten to render paths and
roadsides impassable because the funds for the vehicles and workers to clear
the waste have been diverted into their pockets?

Do they happily spend increasing amounts of money on basic food
items because our agricultural system’s udder is milked of its bounty long before
it gets to either the producers or the market?

Are they nonchalant about the hours spent travelling because the
funds or access to funding made available to provide transport infrastructure
on land, rail, water, and air fail to reach the appropriate parties on time or
in adequate amounts?

When they promote or appoint incompetent individuals to be the
custodians of our welfare, are they unaware that even their own welfare will be
affected by the non availability of essential social amenities? Or do they believe
that life will never surprise them and they can survive without effective
systems of governance and recourse to justice when things go wrong?

Corruption is expensive

The condition of our state schools is so poor that even domestic
staff enroll their children in privately-owned schools that are not much
better, in terms of the quality of education, than their public counterparts.

The standard of our hospitals and availability of genuine
medications is so erratic that our officials are forced to pay top dollar for
their health care at the few acknowledged hospitals and laboratories at home.
Or else they pay for medical attention abroad. Their ill-gotten gains are
wholly used up by this enormous expense and they are forced to start
accumulating anew.

Yes, I can understand how we got to where we are. After even
cursory study of our history over the past 100 years, with self-rule for 50 of
them, the birth and the logic behind the corrupt practices that have smoothed
the way for personal development and personal enrichment at the expense of
communal and national development jumps out at us.

We had no concept of national belonging, no vision that
encapsulated a desired future for our many parts, and no control or influence
over the bodies set above us as caretakers. It has been every wo/man for
him/herself.

No honour among thieves

Oppression does not discriminate amongst its children and its
victims. We find ourselves in a place where you, a cheater, will be cheated
even by your ‘countryman’.

While you are able to squeeze gratification from those whom you
have been employed to serve, you in turn are forced to tip or pay over gazetted
rate for services or goods you need.

You, the raiders of our national treasury, have not created
special lanes for yourselves like the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) ones in the
US or the public transport lanes in the UK. You are forced to drive your N20m
vehicles along with the rest of us over the tortuous pot-holed and gully-ridden
roads that even jeeps find themselves nose-deep in. You are forced to equally
venture into the unknown depths of the still dark, impenetrable pools of water
that suddenly confront you in the middle passage.

Ironically, just like us, you also raise your hands, heads, and
hearts up to the sky praying to God to assist you in successfully fleecing the
already cash-strapped and struggling public. You struggle not to go on leave so
that you can stay on top of the various schemes and scams you are
orchestrating.

So, we are all in it together. Your bullet-proofed jeep and my
car both suffer knocks and bumps. The poor man struggles to save money. You
struggle to find somewhere to save your loot without exposing you to
money-laundering or being cheated by your friends, family ,and associates whom
you entrust it to.

So, who is happier? The person in honest struggle, or the person
perpetually alert against detection and shame? Just as crime does not pay – not
in the end; corruption and the oppression that perpetuate it also do not pay.
It simply costs us more in quality of life.

Oppression is expensive and yet, it is the poor and developing
nations who choose it most often. It is a choice that we make to pay the extra
cost, rather than bear the pain.

House on Sand

Mr. Jackson also quoted from the Bible, advising us not to
“build a house on sand.” Let us be like the wise man who built his house on
rock. Let us economise, spend less, and become a wealthy nation.

Your role is to stop accepting less than the fair price for personal
gratification. Stop demanding for more than you should get. Stop giving more
than you should pay. Let’s start.