Nigeria: What The James Ibori Deal Exposes

Others doing the deed

That it will take foreign countries to expose the rot of endemic corruption in Nigeria just shows how the system appears not to have the capacity to reform and divest itself of the problem.

This morning [1] James Onanefe Ibori the ex-governor of Delta State agreed to a plea deal accepting all charges of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud in the United Kingdom.

In Nigeria, despite the mountains of evidence that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had, it was literally impossible to prosecute the man, he gummed up the judicial process, employed militants to resist arrest by the authorities and successfully absconded from justice to Dubai hoping to have escaped from reckoning and accountability.

How the big fish was netted

Meanwhile, in the UK, his wife, sister and solicitor were fighting charges of money laundering for which they were all convicted but it meant James Ibori was fighting legal battles in at least three countries.

At first, he lost the battle in Dubai as a place of refuge and ultimately got extradited to the UK where the revelations today might just be a microcosm of gubernatorial excess in Nigeria, window into corruption and an introduction to how our dear country has been plundered for decades by our leadership who expect no censure or sanction because it has become the rite of passage for anyone near the cash till.

Born a criminal

James Ibori’s criminality goes back a long way and in the UK itself; he was convicted for stealing in 1991, then for being in possession of a stolen credit card in 1992; many of his sort have besmirched the name of Nigeria, disgraced us, creating for many honest Nigerians untold heartache, distress and difficulty in seeking access and opportunity abroad because of their dishonest and shameless activities.

We have had to work twice harder, produce more documents, jump through impossible hoops, aver until we were red in the face because we were deemed untruthful, dishonest, suspect and suspicious because the likes of James Ibori raised the threshold of plausibility even for the least significant issues – it is a travesty that those of his ilk still get celebrated, honoured and respected in Nigeria.

Despite the plea bargain, I am glad that the deal was not a sealed and confidential document; the prosecutor did not mince his words in laying out the depth of opprobrium James Ibori must accept and the inefficacy of the system in Nigeria to police itself.

The lack of checks and balances

James Ibori was to have earned $25,000 per annum as governor over the 8 years he was in the Delta State government house, which will come to $200,000 in total. I doubt the British police were plucking numbers out of the air if they are suggesting he stole $250 million during his tenure. In other words, James Ibori walked away with 1,250 times the money he was legally entitled to.

You have to ask what system we have in place in Nigeria that allows a government official or a politician with responsibility for an executive office to walk away with a multiple of 1,250 of his entitlements and still be untouchable, unimpeachable, feted in high places, having the adulation of the people and unaccountable to any authority.

The bigger Nigerian corruption problem

That is the problem Nigeria faces because the stolen $250 million is no doubt the tip of the iceberg in terms of how Nigerian has been plundered, raped and stolen from by a brigandage of leadership that still rules in our midst. He cannot have done this alone; most of this would have been facilitated by other accomplices and conspirators who have taken their cut and have blended into society as respectable and without blemish.

The numbers are in the news story, but in what really grates and shows that we are nowhere near resolution of the Nigerian corruption problem; the public gallery of the court was not big enough to accommodate the almost 30 supporters of James Ibori, some wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Free Ibori”.

Our fight

In all honestly, it would have been nice to have all those disgraceful, shameless, odious, dishonourable people corralled as promoters of corrupt enterprise in the UK, Nigerians who have been completely blinkered that even if the truth slapped them in the face and literally yanked their ears off, they will rather side with falsehood, shame and the disreputable.

The problem is more widespread beyond those who stole, we have grown to condone it, tolerate it, celebrate it and desire it. In some ways, James Ibori just foolishly got caught; we Nigerians who strive to build a good name for our country just have to work harder to ensure that the likes of James Ibori and their supporters do not become the enduring image of what a Nigerian is, either at home or abroad.

Source

[1] Nigeria ex-Delta state governor James Ibori guilty plea – BBC News

They shall not grow old

Picturing the gruesome

Kenya Burning is the name of a photo exhibition that documents the happy days of the election through to the lynching and mob violence that claimed the lives of over 1,200 people and displaced 300,000.

This tragedy came about because the political class failed their people by conducting a flawed election rigged to produce results that completely dissatisfied the opposition and was evidently corrupt.

As the rulers shuttled between 5* hotels and news conferences trying to win influence for their apparatchiks, the people descended into inter-tribal violence taking Kenya to the brink.

Interestingly, the report notes that no politician has visited this exhibition to see the results of their handiwork such that some have suggested the exhibition be moved into their dining room, if only to show that when the people speak and they refuse to hear, the consequences are dire.

Burning witches

The burning however has not stopped because something more gruesome has happened, 11 people between the ages of 80 and 96, eight of whom were women were burnt in a village in the western Kisli district for allegedly being witches.

They were dragged out of their houses and individually burnt, then their houses razed to the ground – apparently that is a valid exorcism.

Apparently, someone had found an exercise book containing the minutes of a “witches” meeting with indications of who would next be bewitched.Let me try a positive spin on this - a meeting of elderly concerned citizen about the state of affairs in their village where certain members of the community have been singled out for either honour or reprimand.

Our old people

Beyond the problems we have in Africa and especially in Kenya which was sadly showcased in Living with Corruption and the situation where live expectancy at birth is now 55.31, one would think reaching these amazing ages would be a sign of survival against all militating odds that fill our screens about Africa.

I was fortunate to have a great grandmother into my early 20s and she was the repository of information that allowed us to trace back our genealogy up to 7 generations considering bad record-keeping in Nigeria.

The hold of superstition

We are losing something special in our African culture if we are so held in bondage to irrational superstitious beliefs to which people react with mob hysteria and end up committing criminal acts in the name of preserving their communal welfare.

I am not discounting the supposed notion of witchcraft or witches; there is probably one under every table, if you care, but what really is the empirical test for determining if a person is a witch or an innocent person who just happens to have grown old?

I really worry that no commonsense prevails when anyone is branded a witch, you are guilty at the declaration and in many societies including before the West became as barely civilised as we are now, and the witch was strapped to a ducking stool and made to admit practising witchcraft.

Who would not confess if your lungs were forced to take in water instead of air, a confession or denial still had the same penalty – death.

The people who had the power to execute judgement wielded undue influence in the community and could abuse this power to rid the community of possible rivals whilst holding the community in terror, fear and obeisance to their whims.

Believing other things

It is dastardly to the extreme that one should read this kind of news in this day and age – one would suppose the mob was also religious possibly Christian and church-going where their belief systems are supposed to give them the confidence not to be bothered with witches having any influence over their lives.

One can only say that church-going does not necessarily confer faith on the person; I have seen in Nigeria where many really think there is an enemy everywhere working against them such that not a positive prayer escapes their lips, they are so bound to their enemies that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They are usually their worst enemies; dishonesty, corrupt behaviour, a lack of ethical principles, a lack of integrity, shirking responsibility, bad decisions, poor judgement, illicit deals, deceit and the propensity to tell white lies could well transmogrify into some hated close relation messing up your life.

The common parlance is “someone is doing you” directly translated from Yoruba, Wake Up!!! You are doing yourself in and stitching yourself up praying the wrong prayers and offering the wrong sacrifices.

I would broaden this scope to include any other organised religious belief system and the way it gets preached in Africa it sometimes seems to replace rampant superstition with virulent fundamentalism, both of which are almost as evil as witchcraft.

For the fallen

By which time another poor hapless innocent person has accused of practising witchcraft as we rid our communities of our old and aged when we should be learning the secrets of life from them.

What shall be said for the fallen? Not the words of Laurence Binyon – They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old – rather it is sounding like – You must not grow old as the young around you might kill you – it is a sad indictment of our humanity and we are all the poorer for it.

The law in Kenya should treat these cases without sentiment as mob violence leading to murder and the leaders of these mobs must be held to account, we cannot allow our superstitious suspicions to run riot and lead to lawlessness, not in this day.

Developing News

Meanwhile in Nigeria a cat was knocked down by a car and this said cat transmogrified into a woman, apparently the woman has confessed to having changed forms but is now in protective custody in a clinic being treated for injuries inflicted on her by a mob about to lynch her having suspected the cat became the woman because she had blood on her.

The police are at a loss as to what charges to place, I would suppose such tall tales are very difficult to align to the law of evidence, it would be like letting the cat out of the bag.

Living wage - a dimension to fighting corruption

Education for a better life

Many parents in developing countries have great aspirations for their children and one they pay the most attention to is education.

There is a belief that putting a child through school is a gateway to having their children attain a better life than that into which they were born.

I want to belief that this assertion still finds true though I wonder if education is as life-changing as it was for the generation of my parents and consequently mine.

Paying the teacher

Watching the news this morning there was a story of a 13-year old Cambodian girl who had to leave school because she could not pay the teachers considering the country does have a free education programme.

But then, I saw the same issue in Sorious Samura’s Living With Corruption documentary where in Sierra-Leone government employed teachers depended on their pupils to provide the means for them to survive.

Paying a living wage

There is a function of government and employment in government which when missing fosters practices that are innately corrupt.

Governments in poor countries have to lead by paying there staff a living wage, one that meets the needs for housing, food, utilities, health, transport, possible eventualities with a little to put aside.

Where governments, organisations or businesses fail to meet this basic requirement, the shortfall has to be met somewhere –

• it allows the police to set up road blocks indiscriminately that act as illegal toll gates

• teachers instruct their pupils to bring in money and household essentials or risk failure and exclusion

• customs officials over and above the outrageous import duties that impede the smooth flow of goods and services, create distorted markets

• employees file their taxes returns with non-existent children to gain pecuniary advantage

• bureaucrats are not responsive in performing their duties until persuaded by illegal means

The system feeds the system from the top to the bottom, it has become endemic; you begin to wonder how this can be dealt with conclusively.

The abuse of power

Then I remember when I was at the polytechnic, there were two courses no one could dream of passing if they had not bought at expense the tutorials produced by the lecturers.

There was nothing fresh about the tutorials, they were just an opportunity for men in power to fleece their students and get away with it.

These lecturers earned a good living wage because I also had an uncle who was a lecturer in the same polytechnic who served as an emergency resource when I was skint and he definitely had more personal responsibilities than the lecturers on the make.

That is the other dimension to this issue, greedy people in power who exercise with impunity the power to demand favours and reward patronage just because they can.

The matter of corruption is a multi-headed hydra and we need to decapitate each head as we look towards the development of poor countries – let us hope each head taken off doesn’t grow into another menacing snake head.

The Nigerian Lighthouse Anti-Corruption initiative

Another laudable initiative

The Nigerian Lighthouse organised a write-in campaign for Nigerians to suggest how the scourge of corruption can dealt with for the improvement and advancement of Nigeria.

The Nigerian Lighthouse Anti Corruption Day initiative.

I went through the whole list of ideas, suggestions, comments and postulations and decided maybe an analysis of these ideas might be an interesting exercise - I have been quite indulgent in commenting on this material and I would be addressing every kind of issue about campaigns, entries, publications and conclusions.

Organising a campaign

I was invited to participate in this campaign and I immediately crafted a note about my ideas which were duly emailed to the address provided, however, I did not pass the email on as a chain-letter to other friends, I did not think that was proper.

The instructions for contribution were quite clear and easy to understand, I do not think anyone would have missed the very basic instruction which appeared twice - the contribution was supposed to be 50 words or less - I expected the moderators and contributors to follow that guidance but at least 15 out of 37 entries failed that basic test including mine.

I thought the email submission system was a bit cumbersome, why have we adopted a blogging forum for the dissemination of information and then resorted to an asynchronous communication system to gather the inputs?

Because of that, I wrote a long email introducing myself and then quoted my contribution (48 words) within a - Text Begin/End caption - all that finesse was ignored and a lot more information than I intended was published.

Thot against corruption: Facilitate easy access to the means of expression that people can use to air their views.

Following instructions

Beyond that, the first fight against corruption should really be about finding out what is right to do and sticking to that rule, some took more than their fair share and the moderators did not cut them down to size.

I know that in forums like BBC Have your Say and CCN Viewer Comments, the contributions are moderated to get straight to the ideas - I know we Nigerians like to ramble on, we have something to say and like to be heard above everyone else.

If most of the contributions were sets of ideas and instructions, over 40% have already fallen short of the standard required - if a campaign demands being precise, that is what it requires, all others that do not follow that guideline should have been edited or left off.

More so, there are others who would have liked to say a lot more but followed those guidelines only to find that fellow contributors were allowed more space, the rules were then relaxed probably unconsciously which might have caused resentment from others. No sacred cows said one contributor.

I had a lot to say on this topic and I wrote a separate blog to air those views.

Thot against corruption: If rules have to be followed they need to be enforced impartially and those who flout those rules should be advised, corrected or even sanctioned.

We are all against corruption

All contributors were clearly in support of a war or crusade against corruption but the means to that end differed. I think I read that a majority want our anti-corruption agencies to be strengthened to tackle corrupt elements.

People however also need to be able to access that justice or redress system there should also be check and balances to prevent these institutions from being used as tools of menace.

I do not think granting a corruption amnesty for stolen sums of money and peddling unwarranted influence would begin address the matters of corruption the system is so ingrained, if people think the corrupt elements would get away with it, whilst a temporary feeling of satisfaction would be earned for the returns, the criminals would think the amnesty equates absolution.

Thot against corruption: Let the full course of the law and justice be followed and executed before considerations for clemency are entertained.

Adequate punishment

Indeed, these corrupt elements in society have given our country a bad name, there probably should be a crime for bringing the name of Nigeria into shame, disgrace and derision - I do not think we need a law along the lines of insulting Nigeria-ness as we have with Turkey. Maybe this is a kind of patriotism.

Some have suggested the forfeiture of assets; I think that should go alongside punitive fines and possible incarceration - the premise of innocent until proven guilty should be upheld but it should not be an occasion to run legal rings round the system.

Some have suggested the death penalty, grave as the matter might be where sub-standard drugs appear in our teaching hospitals, buildings are built with attention to quality and other corrupt activities that might lead to loss of life. I do not think returning to the barbarity of putting people to death in whatever humane means we garner is the best way to entrench democracy.

In fact, the punishment might even make the offenders more hardened, violent and unscrupulous in getting their way.

Thot against corruption: Allow a certain balance of crime and punishment that should be punitive but not terminal or so severe that the quality of justice gets questioned.

Virtues and principles

Many including myself raised the issue of values and virtues as honesty, contentment, fairness and so on.

Whilst there might be a religious basis for being principled, I do not think our religious organisations and leaders have really been the moral beacons of society that we hope they would be.

Rather, they have adapted their message to the way the society thinks, I once wrote about a church where the priest asked some of his congregation to stand up for a blessing equal to a certain amount.

The religious message has also be hijacked by an inordinate quest for wealth - the love of money being the root of all evil.

We should in and of ourselves to principled, honest and fair, our religious affiliation should not be the defining quality for virtues, rather, that should be complementary to what we already are.

In fact, we should immediately be suspect of people who call God as their witness to deeds they have not been able to truthfully and convincingly explain - we should rubbish the claims and refuse to be cajoled by an affiliation to God - too many people try to drag God's name down into the mud to save their skins.

Thot against corruption: People who need God to confirm their honesty need to be probed the more to ascertain exactly what their core values are regardless of religious affiliation. Do not "Church-going" and "God-fearing" us into submission when we need clear answers.

Slow, determined and realisable

Many appreciate that the war against corruption would require a change in the mindset of the people, probably one person at a time.

Education is important, meritocracy has to gain ascendancy, the culture of sycophancy, nepotism and gaining pecuniary advantage needs to become a thing of the past.

There is a string leadership element to this issue, I just wonder if the implementation of these initiatives do not begin to look like the War Against Indiscipline campaign of over 2 decades ago that made the country look like it was going down the slippery slope to socialism.

This education should also start with the children highlighting civic duties, social responsibility and desire to always do what is right, the children also have to see their parents do the right thing or all that education and schooling is lost.

Maybe it is time to really make the Nigerian Pledge means exactly what it says - to be faithful, loyal and honest being the key phrase.

Thot against corruption: Education and understanding social responsibility are key.

Thanks to the Nigerian Lighthouse

There is much more that can be gleaned out of the suggestions proffered, I leave that to others to give a perspective of their reading.

I also want to thank the trustees of the Nigerian Lighthouse for spearheading another community initiative for the betterment of Nigeria - Keep up the really good work.

UN International Anti-Corruption Day - My take

Joining the clamour

I was invited by Omodudu to contribute to the United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day initiative run by the Nigerian Lighthouse for the 9^th of December 2007.

We all have grand ideas of how we can fight corruption but I wonder if we are really addressing the issue as clearly as we can.

My contribution was simple and appears below and it was posted to NigerianLighthouse@gmail.com, this might be a bit altruistic but I do think that is where we have to deal with the matter, a return to the core traditional virtues of principled stances and that would be difficult.

Corruption – Your NO Counts.

Did we have a time when people were principled, honest, content, fair, just and true lovers of humanity? That is where we have to return to, then stop respecting people of dubious means and strengthen our anti-corruption agencies to take them on and win.

When I watched Sorious Samura’s Living with Corruption earlier today and I have viewed it twice and it still makes compelling viewing – the showing times for Europe, Middle East and Africa appear below:

Central European Time (GMT/UTC +1)

Saturday 08/12/2007 20:00

Sunday 09/12/2007 07:00 20:00

Expediency forces compliance

The problem with corruption and how it permeates the fabric of society is almost intractable, it is easy to see high-level corruption involves people in power and international firms or organisations in cahoots in terms of contracts, money laundering, developmental aid, health and education, but there is another level that was so well reported by Sorious Samura.

It is expediency, people are coerced into submitting to the machinations of corruption because their needs trump the hurdles they have to cross to meet that need.

What is my passport doing in her pocket?

For example, when I was leaving Nigeria almost 2 decades ago, the immigration official – a pregnant lady – at the exit point took my passport and as she leafed through the pages asked what I had brought for her – I told her I was completely skint and she pocketed my passport.

What is my passport doing in her pocket? I was going to make that a topic of blogging against corruption and it might well become one soon.

There is no reason or procedure that allows for my passport to go into anyone’s pocket but mine, I also had a situation to hand, I had a flight to catch and was being confronted with a serious abuse of power and a corrupt official.

It took the quiet words of my travelling partner to placate the woman and there probably was an exchange of money before my passport was released. I was incensed but helpless because I could not control that situation, it is doubtful there was anyone in authority I could relate that matter to without having more problems.

It would have been nice to walk away from that situation but this is the problem, we have a need that trumps the hurdles, that expediency means we have to yield to the corrupt elements in our society to get on or suffer loss of time, more money and possibly liberty too.

Low-level corruption

In the programme, Living with corruption we saw where the man needed a job to feed his family that he had to part with two-thirds of his pay to the gateman and the foreman before he could be assured of a job.

The baby in the family was ill, that placed great pressure on the means within the family, and money that should have gone to providing for food was taken by the receptionist and janitor of the clinic before they could gain access to see the doctor for treatment.

The boy was sent back from school because he could not pay the tip required by the teacher – this was not the school fees – it was to meet some need of the teacher who also must have had problems getting paid because officials down the line have misappropriated the salaries and require bribes to release the funds.

Pupils being threatened with failure not because of poor academic ability but because they have not paid a bribe; mediocre pupils who in cases of teens pay up buying leaked examination papers placing a greater pressure on those who are naturally gifted but cannot compete with corrupt kids who already know the answers before the examination.

If education is as important as many now see it is, rather than upset the applecart the parents pay up for their children not to be left on the wayside of a future that we all hope is promising.

Public transport drivers have to ply a certain route that is infested with policeman leeches who even after having their pay doubled had settled into the impunity of charging a flat fee bribe; the driver had to pay or will get imprisoned and end up paying double that.

Some drivers work the whole day but no one cares that some days they end up with nothing to take home to feed their families – impunity breeds impunity and there is no recourse for fairness and justice because this corrupt chain flows up the line to the top.

Corruption fighting back

A friend narrated a tale where he had to invigilate his fellow students during which time one of them tried to reach for his books to check the answers. When my friend refused, he was accused of being wicked, unreasonable and probably a few other unprintable names.

That is one of the problems we have with fighting corruption, a snippet of Nuhu Ribadu shown as a trailer to fighting corruption contained an enlightening statement – “When you fight corruption, corruption fights back”.

May I say it fights back like a wounded lion – like when Sorious challenged a Kenyan minister for taking away the people’s land; the minister accused Sorious of having an agenda.

In Nigeria, the situation is sometimes quite benign, everyone finds a refuge in religion and God – once people call upon the name of God and swear by any revered religious tome they can find many accusers backing off. Interestingly, not many can stand on their honesty, principles or integrity, they need backing because, they, in and of themselves have no such virtue.

Others would use their ill-gotten means to menace their accusers with unscrupulous lawyers and slanted judicial systems – it explains why anti-corruption agencies get bogged down in Kenya, Sierra-Leone and Nigeria.

Starting the fight

The issue here is – where does the little man go to report the unjust, the unfair, the corrupt and the tyrant?

If there is no power that can indict, arrest, sanction and punish the corrupt there is no way the war on corruption can begin to gain traction.

Where there is such a power, the little man also has to be able to gain access to that authority and be able to seek redress that does not get caught up in red-tape.

Dealing with expediency issues are a bit difficult when looking at the examples above, if a child is to be fed or treated in hospital one cannot risk a principled stance and forfeit the life of the child.

We need some social scientists to address these matters and hopefully intimate us with the psychology needed to help the little man whose only hope of escaping poverty is having all that rightfully belongs to him given to him and not pilfered off by every vested-interest-corrupt petty tyrant that lines the way to his home such that he ends up with nothing.

Can we win against corruption? We probably can, but it would not be easy at all.

Sorious Samura - Living with Corruption

Living with exposing the truth

Sorious Samura makes compelling viewing, he takes reality television to the extreme – rather than being the observer-reporter he becomes participant-reporter, his report then becomes an experience that draws the viewer into the heart of the matter.

Sorious has become a crusader of sorts shining the bright light of scrutiny on all sorts of questionable activities around the world, looking at the underbelly of society and bringing information we never get to hear or see through establish channels of information dissemination. He tells the African story as an African in Africa with an African perspective - sometimes, it is the Africa you do not want to see, but it is an Africa that is real an out there.

His style is not “Michael Moore”, it goes deeper and further but what should result is that we be filled with indignant rage to find ways to correct the injustices we see around us.

Living with stark realities

Sometime ago, I watch Living With Hunger and saw how people scraped and scrapped to exist, they ate plants that gave them a rash you began to see how the body almost needs anything to keep alive – the pictures endured, it was disturbing.

The Living with Collection also includes Living with Refugees and Living with Illegals both of which I saw on CNN, I never saw Living with AIDS my imagination had gone ahead of me to save my sensibilities from that depiction.

This morning I woke up to the much advertised Living with Corruption on CNN International, it had already been shown on Channel 4 in the UK as a Dispatches: Society programme under the title How to get ahead in Africa in October.

Living with corruption

In Kenya and Sierra Leone which one might say are microcosms of the greater Africa he shown how people in the “under-class” are squeezed to the pips by petty officials who line up to extort from those who have literally nothing to even get by.

Looking for day labour, he found work but two-thirds of his pay had already been taken by bribes to the gateman who lets the workers in and the supervisor who dishes out work.

Building a shack in the slums, “chancers” took their cut under threats of reporting to the authorities who were themselves corrupt, by the time he got his empty shack up, he had parted with literally a month’s salary.

You don’t know Kenya

The impunity of it all was exemplified in senior officials that got away with presidential pardons or a minister who when confronted with accusations that he had appropriated land that does not belong to him first fought back with accusing Sorious of having an agenda then said Sorious did not know Kenya.

An AIDS orphanage in dire need of aid was unable to access funds because the angelic proprietor of the organisation could not fork out the 10,000 Schillings required by corrupt officials to register her community based initiative – Sorious, parting with the same sum was able to register his bogus initiative and complete the process in two days in what should take two months. – It was heart-rending.

It was saddening to see how we hear of all the aid going into Africa but none seems to get to the people who are the symbols of what makes organisations and people give aid. Anti-corruption drives simply get bogged down in the political process and get hijacked by special interests as tools of oppressing others.

Usually, it is the middleman without any godfathers that gets caught and they are never the ones who have siphoned moneys off to foreign accounts. The heads of government and ministers who have done too well with the resources of their countries also need the collusion of Western financial institutions to launder their ill-gotten gains.

Scented soap for teacher

His return to Sierra-Leone also showed how children are already schooled in corruption, teachers demanding scented soap, toilet-roll and money to mark the papers of their pupils – the headmaster had to go through hurdles to get paid, these hurdles were tips, here and there to people who are paid to ensure these jobs of administration are done.

I remember times in polytechnic when I had to pay for tutorials and handouts we were told the questions appearing in the examinations would be derived only from the paid-for material rather than the proper curriculum – you could be assured of failure if you did not subscribe to that corrupt enterprise.

There were times as a consultant in Nigeria, there were grabbing hands all around the place, those who felt each time a payment was made they must have a cut – I was able to use my slight detachment from the society because of my accent to state that they had to make those arrangements in their internal systems and it must never appear in my direct transactions, the bank teller even thought he deserved part of my pay when I cashed my cheques at the bank.

The big message of Living with Corruption was simple – To make poverty history, you have to make corruption history – if there is a political will to do that and a society responsive to the abolition of graft is another matter altogether.

You can find all these films and documentaries at the Insight TV Store.

A snippet from Ethiopia - Living with Hunger - YouTube link

Sorious Samura on the Living with series (YouTube Link) a 24-minute frank talk