Nigeria, Ghana and their characteristics, by Clem Oluwole
Nigeria and Ghana have a lot in common. They shared the same colonial history. Ghana was the first to free itself from foreign domination in 1957. Nigeria followed suit three years later. A little over two years after Independence, the two nations were caught between the lethal jaws of corruption, the invidious crime that impoverishes the masses.
In the early 80s, two anti-corruption Czars sprang up to confront the hydra-headed monster. While Ghana produced Ft. Lt. Jerry Rawlings, Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari sprang up from Nigeria. They were both products of military coup d’états. The first attempt by Rawlings was on June 4, 1979, against the regime of Col. Ignatius Acheampong and his Supreme Military Council branded by the coupists as patently corrupt. Rawlings was tried for attempted coup and was awaiting a date with death but was freed by the coupists to lead the new government.
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The hot-headed Flight Lieutenant Rawlings consolidated his grip on power by eliminating five former heads of government in one fell swoop, despite strident appeals for clemency by the international community. Among the world leaders wooed to intervene in the impending high-profile, public execution was the late British Queen Elizabeth II, who was expected to wield some influence on Rawlings because his mother was a native of Scotland. He ignored everyone and hurried the Big Five to their early graves.
Rawlings himself survived several coup attempts as corruption fought back during his military rulership that spanned about seven or so years.
In Nigeria, our own radical soldier, Major-Gen. Buhari, struck on December 31, 1983, barely three months into the second term of President Shehu Shagari. The civilian regime midwifed by Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo was terminated. No one was killed but virtually everyone in that government and at the state level was arrested and brought before the Special Military Tribunals set up by the junta. Many were sentenced to up to 300 years in prison as if they were descendants of Methuselah who lived close to 1,000 years. At that time, the average life expectancy in this country was hovering around 50 or below.
Gen. Buhari gave the same excuses advanced by Flight Lieutenant Rawlings: corruption and mis-governance. It was the same excuse given by the officers that truncated our democracy in 1966: bribery and corruption. But while the monster of corruption and maladministration has been tamed in Ghana using the blood of the Big Five to flush the evil into the Atlantic Ocean, the situation in Nigeria has leapt from bad to worse. Today, people steal in billions, taking into cognisance what it would take to hire SANS to extricate themselves from trouble. Then, they would be home and dry to enjoy their loot for the rest of their thieving lives.
The quarrel Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu had with the crime was the 10 per cent bribery. But close to six decades after, the monster has ballooned to 100 per cent in many cases where corruption surfaces. Major Nzeogwu and his fellow travelers must be feeling apologetic to the people they murdered during the unfortunate putsch. They just wasted their blood for nothing; it could not flush the Augean Stables of corruption.
Outside corruption, one other thing the two countries have in common is their passion for football. From the 50s to the 70s, there used to be a battle for supremacy with Ghana emerging as the more superior powerhouse. Until the early 80s when an unprecedented economic meltdown drove its fortunes under, the country was referred to as Brazil of Africa. This was because of its dominance in the game. Ghana is not known for any other sports outside soccer. No Ghanaian is making waves internationally in other sports like athletics, wrestling, volleyball, judo, table/lawn tennis, etc. You have not forgotten (have you?) that it was Ghana that ended our journey to the 2022 World Cup Finals Tournament held in Qatar. The Ghanaians have always wanted to be Jack of one sport (soccer), master of it at all levels!
So passionate are Ghanaians about football that in 1996 when Nigeria’s Dream Team I won the gold medal at the Olympic Games, Ghana decided to be more Catholic than the Pope. They did not only join other African countries in rejoicing with Nigeria but also declared a public holiday to celebrate the historic conquest. Nigeria, the winner of the gold medal, did not.
But unlike in the early 80s when Nigeria and Ghana were comparing notes on the battle against corruption, the former overtook the latter especially since the return of democratic governance. It seems democracy has become the bellows that oxygenate the monster. This is not to say that the crime did not thrive during the military eras.
While thieving Nigerian politicians, well-schooled in the art of larceny by evil servants (I meant civil servants), are busy stealing in billions in naira or in millions in dollars, their Ghanaian counterparts are either dreaming of making at least one million dollars, no more and no less, while in office. I guess the level of gluttony is measured by the quantum of wealth available to each country. Nigeria is stupendously richer than Ghana which has also joined the league of oil-producing nations.
Ghana’s aversion to larceny again came to the fore a few years ago. In November 2013, that country’s Deputy Communications Minister, Victoria Hammah, was sacked after she was recorded allegedly saying she would stay in politics until she had made $1m.
“If you have money, then you can control people,” she was recorded as saying on tape which was widely circulated on the social media. Lady Victoria was said to be an ally of President John Mahama and she played a key role in his election the previous year. That closeness must have induced the larcenous dream.
Some political analysts had warned that the sacked minister was too young and inexperienced to serve in government.
According to media reports, she was quoted to have said there was a lot of pressure on her to steal public money because people thought that as a minister, she was rich.
“Corrupt politicians are the reflection of a corrupt society!” said Lady Victoria.
The tape caught her as saying, “I will not quit politics until I make one million dollars.”
Indeed, we all have dreams. Some dreams come to pass. Some do not. Some come back to mock us. Lady Vicky’s dream was killed in its inchoate state by a government that had a zero tolerance for corruption. In Nigeria, dreaming about making millions or billions happens on daily basis. Such dreams usually come to pass through larceny and such dreamers get away with it.
Early this week, another Ghanaian female minister named Cecilia Abena Dapaah, this time, was able to actualise her dream of becoming a millionaire. She stole a million dollars along with large sums of Pound Sterling, euros and local currency. But unknown to her, domestic servants working in her house also shared the same dream with her. They re-looted the treasure!
Lady Cecilia, the country’s ex-Sanitation Minister, was forced to resign when an alarm was sounded that her domestic servants carted away the cash she allegedly stole from government. She is to be charged with alleged act of corruption. The re-looters too are expected to face trial after investigations into the theft have been completed.
Let me end this piece with a timeless quotation credited to Rawlings: “Corrupt elements are worse than armed robbers. While armed robbers steal from individuals, corrupt elements rob an entire nation!”
Post Script: Ghana is far ahead of Nigeria in terms of taming the monster of corruption despite the ubiquitous presence of the two anti-graft agencies, the EFCC and the ICPC. Someone with a diabolical sense of humour once described the two main agencies as the hands that clap while corruption pillage our collective patrimony.
Clem Oluwole is the Managing Editor of Blueprint Newspapers in Abuja.
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