Gary Skinner Spoke My Mind On How Corruption Has Killed Nigeria

Nigeria has failed not for lack of sustaining resources, but because corruption has become the norm.

By Skinner’s analogy, the development hype Nigeria Railway has experienced under President Buhari with mindless borrowing stinks of corruption.

Watoto founder, Gary Skinner’s viral angry reflection on the huge cost of corruption on nations of the world is so apt that we couldn’t agree less with him.

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Interestingly, it would seem Skinner in some of his scathing attack on key actors of corruption was speaking directly to the Nigerian situation as some of the thoughts were so reflective that there are direct instances to relate them to Nigeria.

Skinner started by harping that, “Corruption is a vile disease that sucks and drains the health out of something good. Corruption in society is an evil, moral infection that keeps community in a state of perpetual sickness.

“It is a moral virus, so potent, it leaves its host ill, lethargic and unable to accomplish all that a well person can. Where corruption thrives, poverty and not prosperity thrives.”

Indeed, the reason Nigeria is stagnated, if not in retrogression, is not because it lacks resources to grow, but because corruption is so endemic here, it has sucked all the life out of all the many good things we have to make life sweet around us.

Skinner on corruption, further said, “Wealth is grabbed into the greedy grubby hands of those who get fat on the toil and labour of good people. Corruption benefits only temporarily those who participate in it. Everyone else is a victim of the theft, dishonesty the deceit and the lies corruption feeds on.

“You need to know that a corrupt person is stealing from you. Corruption is a disgusting shame, it keeps a nation back from true development and from. progress.

“Wise investors steer clear from corrupt environment. They would rather put their resources in a place where the paying field of opportunity is equal for all and not bent towards feeding the financial lust of corrupt, lying, cheating, thieving politicians and government officials.”

In no corrupt crime, has the preceding three paragraphs played out in the Nigerian situation than in Delta state. Worst from the days of Ibori, the PDP political hegemony has been hijack by greedy, thieving jobbers who cling to power at all costs and feast on the commonwealth.

Under thieving, cheating and greedy Governor James Ibori, investors lost so much confidence in Delta that multinationals kept vacating in droves. With Ibori’s cousin, Emmanuel Uduaghan took over, provided the impetus for Shell’s exit from Delta.”

Skinner wondered, “How many wonderful development projects have been lost because the investors didn’t want to do business in a swamp of evil? When those great projects go to other nations or to some other place, we all lose. Corrupt plunders the nation’s wealth.

“Corrupt people compromise on truth, equity, fairness, chosing instead to feed off the short term benefits of crookedness, exploitation and financial perversion. Corruption is not just a personal matter, it is a culture, a way of life not just for individuals, but for companies, communities, governments and nations.”

Indeed, what could be more crooked than Ibori filtering billions of Delta commonwealth away to his private vault through a scam Oghara IPP, Agbarho Child Hospital, among other failed project.

We equally ask, where is Uduaghan’s imaginary Warri Industrial Park, Oleri & Ogwashi-Ukwu Tourism Centers, Delta Without Oil and sundry scam projects that he sunk the state treachery and everything gone with the wind? Less we forget that Uduaghan sunk N11Billion from Delta treasury into an Osubi Airstrip that one private owner, Shell, sold to another private oil firm Shoreline? Corruption has killed Delta.

According to Skinner, “Corrupt nations, hiding behind large companies would seek to invest in other weak nations in order to take over the assets of the nations they’ve invested into. They would provide financial loans to a nation for the much needed infrastructure and they would do it with only assets that they provide.

“They would sign contracts by lining the pockets of rotten government officials who participate in this kind of corruption and then held hostage by their own deceit and greed.”

No sector of Nigerian economy in this scenario Skinner painted playing out than the hyped railway sector under Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.

Under President Mohammadu Buhari, with Amaechi as supervising minister, China is lending Billions of US Dollars to Nigeria in guise of assisting development of our railway. The loans condition is that what is given must be used to buy obsolete rail lines and locomotives from the lender, that is to repatriate the loan back to China.

Amaechi keeps signing and collecting loans and borrowing, and they expect us to clap for them, when only they alone understand the terms of such borrowings that generations unborn may not be able to refund.

We just can’t fault Skinner. “Corruption is not less than a form of theft and national robbery. A corrupt person steals from everyone in a society.”

Zik Gbemre
December 29, 2021