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Development and Governmental Corruption – Materialism and Political Fragmentation in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

William N. Brownsberger
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Extract

Some have tried to explain corruption in the Third World by reference to anachronistic traditions and to the special pressures on officials in developing countries. In this article, I argue that, at least in the case of Nigeria, the roots of corruption go deeper, to a materialism and a political fragmentation that are the products of a moment in development. After a schematic review of the relevant literature, I examine the causes of Nigerian corruption, and conclude with the suggestion that the future of good government depends on an expansion of the private economy.

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Articles
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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 215 - 233
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

page 215 note 1 Friedrich, Carl J., The Pathology of Politics (New York, 1972), p. 161.Google Scholar See also Ocran, T. M., Law in Aid of Development (Accra, 1978), p. 116,Google Scholar and Nye, J. S., ‘Corruption and Political Development: a cost-benefit analysis’, in American Political Science Review (Washington), 56, 1967, p. 417.Google Scholar

page 215 note 2 Scott, James C., ‘The Analysis of Corruption in Developing Nations’, in Comparative Studies Society and History (Ann Arbor), 2, 06 1969,Google Scholar reprinted in Ekpo, Monday U. (ed.), Bureaucratic Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa: toward a search for causes and consequences (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 29–61.Google Scholar In some cases, developing countries have very strict laws: Nigeria's 1975 Corrupt Practices Decree puts a heavy burden on defendants by creating a presumption that favours received by officials were in return for corrupt acts.Supplement to Official Gazette Extraordinary (Lagos), 2 12 1975, A172, Section 4.Google Scholar

page 216 note 1 The Spaniards actually auctioned colonial posts; see Scott, loc. cit. p. 29 in Epko (ed.), op. cit. For other examples of public office as property, see Keller, Morton, ‘Corruption in America: continuity and change’, in Eisenstadt, Abraham S., Before Watergate: problems of corruption in American society (Brooklyn, 1978), p. 9 (sale of office in eighteenth-century Britain);Google ScholarWraith, Ronald and Simpkins, Edgar, Corruption in Developing Countries (London, 1963) (sale of British parliamentary seats by voters);Google Scholar and Smith, Theodore M., ‘Corruption, Tradition and Change’, unpublished, p. 25 (feudal offices in Indonesia). I link these examples together as involving public office where the holder's primary duty is understood to be to himself.Google Scholar

page 216 note 2 See Ocran, op. cit. p. 119, fn. 10 (love of ostentation as cause of corruption, especially common in West Africa). Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 40 (love of ostentation as traditional in African society).

page 216 note 3 E.g.Steffens, Lincoln, The Shame of Cities (New York, 1957 edn., first published in 1904), pp. 43 ff. (corrupt government clique in virtuous city of Minneapolis).Google Scholar

page 216 note 4 Compare Muhar, P. S., ‘Corruption in the Public Service in India’, Presidential Address to the Indian Political Science Association, 26 December 1954, as cited in Friedrich, op. cit. pp. 138 and 150 (bribes as offerings to deity in India), with Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 152 (Quaker style of business dealings – no bargaining, set prices – a religious injunction).Google Scholar

page 216 note 5 E.g. Ward, John William, ‘The Common Weal and the Public Trust, Politics and Morality’, Harvard Institute of Politics, 1981, p. 6 (corruption contrasted with contractarian, rationalist ideology); Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. pp. 159 ff.Google Scholar (rise of science generally as related to waning corruption in Britain); and Braibanti, Ralph, ‘Reflections on Bureaucratic Corruption’, in Public Administration (London), 40, 1962, p. 357 (diffusion of bureaucratic norms as part of solution to corruption).Google Scholar

page 216 note 6 See Lloyd, P. C., Africa in Social Change (Baltimore and Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 246 (unrealistic aspirations of most youths in West Africa);Google Scholar and the novel by Achebe, Chinua, No Longer at Ease (New York edn. 1961), wherein a young civil servant ends up in debt from poor planning and is driven to corruption.Google Scholar

page 217 note 1 Leys, Cohn, ‘What Is the Problem About Corruption?’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 3, 2, 08 1965, p. 215;Google Scholar Smith, op. cit. p. 31 (low salaries as cause of corruption most often identified by Indonesian public officials in survey); and Ocran, op. cit. p. 120.

page 217 note 2 Nye, loc. cit; Ocran, op. cit. p. 118; and also McMullan, M., ‘A Theory of Corruption’, in Sociological Review (Keele), 1961, pp. 181 and 196.Google Scholar

page 217 note 3 On tribal demands, see Wraith and Simpkins, op cit. p. 42; also Achebe, op. cit. and McMullan, loc. cit. p. 196.

page 217 note 4 See Scott, , loc. cit. and ‘Corruption, Machine Politics and Political Change’, in American Political Science Review, 63, 1969, p. 1142.Google Scholar Also Braibanti, loc. cit. (depoliticisation of the civil service as important to eliminating corruption); and McMullan, loc. cit. p. 195 (non-availability of private funds for party building in developing countries).

page 217 note 5 Ocran, op. cit. p. 119; and Steffens, op. cit. pp. 19 ff. (railroad and other entrepreneurs corrupting St. Louis city councillors).

page 217 note 6 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven and London, 1968), ch. on ‘Modernization and Corruption’, reprinted in Ekpo, (ed.), op. cit.;Google Scholar and Levine, Victor, Political Corruption: the Ghana case (Stanford, 1975), p. 5.Google Scholar

page 217 note 7 Leys, loc. cit. and Cohen, Ronald, ‘Corruption in Nigeria: a structural approach’, in Ekpo, (ed.), op. cit. (only 300 auditors in the Nigerian Government in 1973).Google Scholar

page 217 note 8 Compare the methods of the various Nigerian ‘Assets Commissions’ with Abscam.

page 217 note 9 Braibanti, loc. cit. p. 369, quotes Bentham (‘Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion and the surest of all guards against improbity.’). See also A. J. Heidenheimer, ‘Political Corruption in America: is it comparable?’, in Eisenstadt et al. op. cit. (rôle of American press in battling corruption).

page 217 note 10 Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. pp. 190 ff.

page 217 note 11 McMullan, loc. cit. p. 194 (‘climate of corruption’ affecting cabinet ministers as well as policemen).

page 218 note 1 As, for example, Indians in East Africa; Nye, loc. cit. p. 420.

page 218 note 2 Scott, ‘The Analysis of Corruption in Developing Nations’, p. 39 – multinationals.

page 218 note 3 Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. pp. 77ff.

page 218 note 4 Scott, ‘The Analysis of Corruption in Developing Nations’, p. 35, makes the distinction between legislation and enforcement and the kinds of pressure operating at the two levels. See also McMullan, loc. cit. p. 196, and Nye, loc. cit. p. 420.

page 218 note 5 This concept is fully developed in Scott's two articles, cited above. See also Nye, loc. cit. pp. 420–1.

page 218 note 6 Scott, ‘Corruption, Machine Politics and Political Change’.

page 219 note 1 While Nigeria is an obvious example of this in the developing world, it is interesting to note that in England the same kind of parochial warfare was also replaced by corrupt administration in the Settlements of 1660 and 1688. Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 60. This phenomenon of corruption replacing violence follows generally from Scott's analyses.

page 219 note 2 Nye, loc. cit.

page 219 note 3 Ibid. See also Ford, Henry Jones, ‘Municipal Corruption in America: a comment on Lincoln Steffens’, in Political Science Quarterly (New York), XIX, 1904, p. 673: ‘future anthropologists to “rejoice” that “men of affairs in [post-Civil-War America] corrupted government in securing opportunities of enterprise”, because “slackness and decay are more dangerous to a nation than corruption”’, as cited in Heidenheimer, loc. cit.;Google Scholar Friedrich, op. cit. p. 164; and Leff, Nathaniel, ‘Economic Development Through Bureaucratic Corruption’, in American Behavioral Scientist (Princeton), 8, 3, 1964, reprinted in Ekpo, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 325–40.Google Scholar

page 220 note 1 Leff, , loc. cit. and ‘Emergence of Black Market Bureaucracy: administration, development and corruption in the new developing states’, in Public Administration Review (Chicago), 28, 1968, p. 437.Google Scholar

page 220 note 2 Werlin, Herbert H., ‘The Consequences of Corruption: the Ghanaian experience’ in Political Science Quarterly, 88, 1, 03 1973, p. 171, reprinted in Ekpo, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 247–60;Google Scholar and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Final Report to the General Court of the Special Commission Concerning State and County Buildings (1980).

page 220 note 3 See, for example, the inter-boss conflicts of Pennsylvania chronicled by Steffens, op. cit. pp. 101–61.

page 220 note 4 This is emphasised by Leys, loc. cit.

page 220 note 5 According to Caro, Robert, The Power Broker (New York, 1975), Robert Moses corruptly induced support for the creation of the Long Island park system.Google Scholar

page 221 note 1 For example, Nye, loc. cit., posits that under favourable conditions – essentially, those auguring for stability in government and a sense of security among the corrupt élite – high-level corruption is likely to have a net positive impact on capital formation. The argument is that (i) if corruption is at a high level, it will put funds in the hands of those likely to save, and (ii) if they feel secure, they will save by putting the funds into investment within the country. However: (i) even if the corrupt officials are at the top of the government, there is no reason to assume that they will put less of their income into consumption than the bribe payers; and (ii) even if these officials do feel secure, there is no reason to expect that their savings will benefit economic development – they may speculate in land, or they may find that overseas investments offer higher returns. Nye's matrix is suggestive, not probabilistic.

page 221 note 2 Scott uses the terms ‘market’ and ‘parochial’, in ‘The Analysis of Corruption in Developing Nations’, loc. cit.

page 222 note 1 Achebe, Chinua, Things Fall Apart (Greenwich edn. 1959), pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

page 222 note 2 Awolowo, Obafemi, Awo: the autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

page 222 note 3 Ekpo, Monday U., ‘Gift-Giving and Bureaucratic Corruption in Nigeria’, in Ekpo, (ed), op. cit. pp. 161–88.Google Scholar

page 222 note 4 On this arrangement generally, see Munoz, Louis J., ‘Traditional Participation in a Modern Political System – the Case of Western Nigeria’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 18, 3, 09 1980, pp. 443–68, although he does not discuss corruption.Google Scholar

page 222 note 5 Obilade, A. O. of the University of Lagos argues in coversation that polite corruption was prevalent in, and only in, this context.Google Scholar

page 223 note 1 Munoz, loc. cit.

page 223 note 2 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 8.

page 223 note 3 Ibid.

page 223 note 4 Peace, Adrian, ‘Prestige, Power and Legitimacy in a Modern Nigerian Town’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Ottawa), 13, 1–2, 1979, pp. 25–51.Google Scholar See generally, Levine, Victor T., ‘African Patrimonial Régimes in Comparative Perspective’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 18, 4, 12 1980, pp. 657–73.Google Scholar

page 223 note 5 E.g. Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit.

page 223 note 6 E.g. Tignor, Robert L., ‘Colonial Chiefs in Chiefless Societies’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 9, 3, 10 1971, pp. 339–59, reprinted in Ekpo (ed.), op. cit.; Lloyd, op. cit. p. 250; Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 37. See also McMullan, loc. cit. p. 186 (gift-giving as only one of many factors).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 223 note 7 Peace, loc. cit. p. 41.

page 223 note 8 Compare Things Fall Apart with No Longer at Ease, pp. 90–94.

page 224 note 1 See Smith, M. G., ‘Historical and Cultural Conditions of Political Corruption Among the Hausa’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6, 1964, p. 164, reprinted in Ekpo (ed), op. cit. pp. 211–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 224 note 2 E.g. Leys, loc. cit.; Ward, op. cit. p. 7 (primary loyalty of new arrivals in America to their family, etcetera, as factor in corruption); and Ocran, op. cit. p. 122 (‘overpowering allegiance to primordial groups’).

page 224 note 3 Awolowo, op. cit. pp. 33ff. Awolowo was deprived of his father's hard-earned wealth by the succession law of the area (siblings before offspring), and in the years that followed, his relatives, though financially able, never paid for him to be educated, instead seeking to use his labour in one way or another.

page 224 note 4 Cf. LeVine, Political Corruption, pp. 58–9, where a Ghanaian ex-official confided in a scholar that among those he had regularly done business with, 21 were members of his extended family, while 22 were non-family major clients, such as contractors. Obviously these numbers are only suggestive.

page 224 note 5 Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 35.

page 225 note 1 Africa Now (London), 11 1982, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 225 note 2 Fortune (Chicago), 07 1979, p. 147.Google Scholar

page 225 note 3 Africa (London), 04 1979, p. 25.Google Scholar

page 225 note 4 Quoted by Owusu, Maxwell, Uses and Abuses of Political Power: a case study of continuity and change in the politics of Ghana (Chicago and London, 1970), p. 332.Google Scholar

page 226 note 1 Organisation of African Unity, What Kind of Africa by the Year 2000? Final Report of the Monrovia Symposium (Addis Ababa, 1980).Google Scholar

page 226 note 2 E.g. LeVine, op. cit. p. 87; Smyshe, Hugh H. and Smythe, Mabel M., The New Nigerian Elite (Stanford, 1960), pp. 131–3.Google Scholar

page 226 note 3 McMullan, loc. cit. p. 194.

page 226 note 4 Lloyd, op. cit. p. 250.

page 226 note 5 Conversation with A. O. Obilade, University of Lagos.

page 226 note 6 There is ample literature on the weakness of African administrative practices: see particularly, Adu, A. L., The Civil Service in New African States (New York, edn. 1965), p. 12, who argues that around independence the civil services in all British territories were overwhelmed by the simultaneous obligations to indigenise, and to take on the tasks of creative national government (as opposed to basic police administration).Google Scholar Similar arguments are advanced by Lungu, Gatian and Oni, John, ‘Administrative Weakness in Contemporary Africa’, in Africa Quarterly (New Delhi), 18, 4, 1979, p. 3; and Cohen, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 227 note 1 The World Bank, World Development Report, 1980 (Washington, D.C., 1980), Annex Table 20.Google Scholar

page 227 note 2 Awolowo, op. cit. pp. 12 and 37. Of his country boyhood views of the District Administrative Officer, he recalls: ‘What a mighty man I thought he was, so specially favoured by God to have a white skin and occupy such a position of exalted superiority.’ After Awolowo had visited a nearby town, and seen white men walking around on their own legs as opposed to being carried by hammock, they became more human for him.

page 227 note 3 Ibid. pp. 49–51.

page 227 note 4 Achebe, No Longer at Ease, p. 78.

page 227 note 5 Smythe and Smythe, op. cit. pp. 132–3.

page 227 note 6 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 92. See also Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 45 (debt as antecedent of corruption).

page 227 note 7 E.g. Ocran, op. cit. and Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit.

page 228 note 1 Lloyd, op. cit. p. 250, regards unrealistic aspirations more broadly as the ‘inevitable concomitant of rapid economic development’. See also No Longer at Ease, p. 21, for Obi's explanation (before his own downfall) of corruption in the civil service as the product of men of inferior education trying to advance themselves.

page 228 note 2 One could point, for example, to the elaborate hierarchies of the Ibo chiefs, with their associated dress codes. See Basden, George T., The Ibos of Nigeria (Philadelphia, 1921), ch. 24. See also Wraith and Simpkins, op. cit. p. 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 228 note 3 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 70.

page 229 note 1 Smythe and Smythe, op. cit. p. 120.

page 229 note 2 Ekwensi, Cyprian, Lokotown and Other Stories (Ibadan, 1966). See also the plot line of No Longer at Ease – Obi's fall into corruption follows debt, but perhaps more importantly, the failure of a traditionally forbidden romance, ostracism by his kinsmen, and general bitterness and inner confusion.Google Scholar

page 229 note 3 World Development Report, 1980. Nigerians are moving in search of high-paying jobs. See generally, Riddell, Barry, ‘The Migration to the Cities of West Africa: some policy considerations’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 16, 2, 06 1978, pp. 241–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 230 note 1 Lloyd, op. cit. pp. 313ff. I have argued above that the government élite was extremely conscious of its class. This is consistent – only mass identification changes the character of politics. Élites manipulate non-class notions in their political leadership of the masses. Cf. Frank, Lawrence P., ‘Ideological Competition in Nigeria: urban populism versus élite nationalism’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 17, 3, 09 1979, pp. 433–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 230 note 2 Harris, Richard, ‘Nigeria, Crisis and Compromise’, in Africa Report (Washington, D.C.), 03 1965, p. 25.Google Scholar

page 230 note 3 Conversation with Obilade, University of Lagos.

page 230 note 4 Lloyd, op. cit. p. 312.

page 231 note 1 Nigerian G.N.P. per capita lies at about the median for free-world countries, but 32 per cent of this is new oil wealth (1977), and Nigerian health, diet, and education indicators all are below the average for the 38 lowest G.N.P. countries. See World Development Report, 1980 and World Tables, 1980. However, in 1965, the salary scale for Nigerian civil servants began at £336, 50 per cent above the average wage for coal miners, and ran to over £1,000 in most job categories, £2,000 in some. See Government, Nigerian, Staff List (Lagos, 1965),Google Scholar and Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1966 Yearbook (Lagos). From 1974 to 1975, the Gowon Government handed out huge raises to civil servants, in order to secure their continued political support.Google Scholar See Joseph, Richard A., ‘Affluence and Underdevelopment: the Nigerian experience’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 16, 2, 06 1978, pp. 221–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 232 note 1 World Bank, World Tables, 1980 (Washington, D.C., 1980).Google Scholar

page 232 note 2 World Development Report, 1980.

page 232 note 3 Joseph, loc. cit.

page 232 note 4 Iroh, Eddie, ‘Age of the New Breeds’, in Africa, 97, 09 1979, p. 42.Google Scholar

page 232 note 5 U.S. Department of State, Background Notes — Nigeria (Washington, D.C.), 08 1982.Google Scholar

page 232 note 6 World Tables, 1980; 14-fold increase from 1973 to 1977.

page 232 note 7 Frank, loc. cit.

page 232 note 8 ‘Style and Strategy in the Presidential Campaign’, in Africa, 91, 03 1979, p. 16;Google Scholar ‘From Competition to Compromise’, in ibid. 97, September 1979; Pan, Peter, ‘Special Interview’, in Africa Now, 11 1982, p. 50;Google Scholar and Africa Confidential (London), 18 07 1979.Google Scholar

page 233 note 1 Africa, 128, April 1982.

page 233 note 2 Africa Confidential, 20 October 1982.

page 233 note 3 See generally the tenor of remarks quoted on p. 225, above. Also interviews with Shagari in Africa Now, November 1982, p. 55, and with five presidential candidates in 1979, ‘47 million Voters÷5 = 1 President’, in Africa, 92, 04 1979, pp. 12 and 24–5.Google Scholar