The general and #300,000,000

Everyone in the country today is talking about how unbridled corruption has ruined the nation. But what I think is actually taking place is a celebration of the same vice at every opportunity.

It sounds like an institutional hypocrisy whenever the government makes statements indicating an official disposition to confront the demon of corruption that is ravaging the moral fabrics of the Nigerian society. How do we explain, let alone, justify the phenomenon wherein someone who we all saw in the morning without a dime in his pocket suddenly returns home in the evening a multi-millionaire and the family, the community and the state will not ask him questions about the "miracle" affluence.

Last week, nearly all the mass media in the country reported that a top General was almost swindled the sum of N300m in the supposedly 'cashless Lagos.' Typically, they failed to disclose the name of the serving army officer who is so rich that he was almost defrauded of such a stupendous sum. The next question should have been: how did he come about such money?

Let's assume that the General in question is the real "Oga at the top," it would still be necessary to ask him of the source(s) of so much money. We all know that it is impossible for a serving military officer (be he a Field Marshal) to have amassed so much cash even if he has never spent a dime of his salaries and other legitimate emoluments since enlistment.

In sane societies, the law enforcement agencies would have since been asking how he came about such money. Of course, the taxman would have been knocking at his door seeking to know how much of the lot (loot?) was paid to the society by way of tax. Because this is a miracle economy where anything goes, nobody is going to ask any question in the face of such a glaring mismatch between possible legitimate income and the wealth-in-hand. That explains, for example, why nobody queried the heartless pension fund thieves as they carted away billions of other people's naira: Not their banks, not their churches, not their families, not the taxman or the police.

People loot the nation and then go to their churches to give testimonies of "what God has done" and the congregation in apparent endorsement chorus: "Hallelujah!" Traditional rulers call them for chieftaincy conferment; equally, fraudulent awards-distributing agencies, both official and private, enthusiastically join in the fray to 'recognise' the new rich men in town while the government gives its own final seal to the whole aberration with national awards.

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