Corruption has eaten into our conscience as people are no longer open and honest. It has become difficult to see the difference between public relations (PR) and price for services rendered, free will gift and bribery. People now negotiate the kind of appreciation to be offered to them before hand.  It is even worse with the church people that are supposed to be real Christians, instead they justify what they are doing with bible quotations interpreted wrongly to suit their purpose. 

So we categorize corruption into five solid headings:

1.I M

2.Lack of quest for excellence     

3.Lack of job creation

4.Inappropriate use of the ministries

5.Compromise and the use of contracts for the settlement of political allied and supporters

I M  is an acronym for ‘ima nmadu’. This is a slogan generally accepted as part of our culture and  this can be implied  with some proverbs like ‘onye nwa nne ya no n’eligwe a naghi a ga oku nmuo’ . However, this issue is generally sweet when it favours you, but not palatable at all when you find yourself qualified without knowing anybody or without having connection. The way and manner we handle contracts, employments and appointments in our state is quite appalling and this is why, it’s all about who you know or how much you can pay to have the job, as a result a careful check on our employees reveal that almost 80% of them are square pegs in round holes and so we can’t boast of productivity and more so no quest for perfection.

Lack of quest for excellence is a negative tendency every positive minded person must resist. This is so because, when the contention of an employee is that he/she was employed because of his/her connection ,then comes  lack of quest for excellence and productivity.

In the same manner, when the contention of a contractor is that he is connected with the contract awarder or he paid through his nose to secure the job. Here his priority is to maximise profit and not to impress anybody and by so doing there’s lack of quest for perfection and productivity.

However, when you secure a job on merit, after a tough selection process, your goal here will be to showcase your good hand work so that you can still outwit others next time and bag the job.

Lack of job creation When the sincere priority of the one in power is job creation, he must definitely shun corruption of ‘Ima madu’ or collection of money (kick back) to award contracts. This is so because  the recognition of the little cottage industries around and provision of jobs for them creates liquid cash circulation and enhancement of the economy. 

When a job that can be done locally is given out on contract just to compensate or favour an individual, this act gives rise to cutting corner  by the contractor. And so he goes where he can have it done alone so as to maximise profit and by so doing the jobs created will be for those in the  place, state, or country where the job is being  done.

The ministries are the work force of the state. We have always heard and seen strikes come and go, but we never hear about productivity. This is so because to a very large extent they are barely working, not really doing what they are supposed to do, you know, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.

Come to think of it, the state has government press with so many people employed  and they are all being paid every month, but when government has a programme, the printing works are contracted out, the food they will eat in that same programme will be contracted to a caterer. Meanwhile the state has home economics department of the ministry of agriculture. The possible explanation of this  is ,either that the employees are not capable to deliver the services or  that the  interest of the government is to collect  kick back or to settle a political allied or supporter with those contracts.

When the priority of the government is to use contract to settle their supporter or political allied, then the real priority of the contract awardee   becomes maximisation of profit for an already done job. As such, he may even bag seventy percent 70% of the entire contract money and leave the poor actual contractor to manage with the remaining thirty percent 30%. Usually the contractor has to make ends meet out of the 30% left for him and so  knowing  the compromise between the Awardee and  the government, he goes on to build a substandard job because, nobody will question him over the quality of the job. This is why capital projects in our state have become a recurrent expenditure.