You have to see our anti-corruption ‘warfare’ as a game, really. Like a WWB football tournament. So every weekend we gather to watch the latest fixture. The real winners are chasing one another on the field of play – cheap entertainment to distract frustrated Nigerians from their woes. Once in a while a player hacks down another and a yellow card issues. Then a goal is scored: someone is convicted or some billions are recovered from Switzerland and a mad cheer explodes in the stadium. Of course we never see the money, we mugus, but we always cheer. Sometimes we hear that recovered loot was, well, relooted by our own players. Doesn’t matter. It’s just a game. Occasionally someone is stretchered off, or gets a red card for a few months in jail. More mad cheers from the right, and boos from the left. These are the prize mugus, though, these supporters’ clubs screaming themselves hoarse in the stadium and on social media. The real winners are the players on the field, billionaires, one and all, the thieves and the catchers-of-thieves alike, who can package themselves ‘legit’ NASS-sized perks. They do their deals in the board rooms and locker rooms and come out every weekend to entertain their mugus. Win or lose, they rake in the big bucks – an oil well or two for each player. Red-carded players will have to ‘vomit’ their last salaries, as gleeful reporters will put it the next day. (It’s an easy job, reporting these games: same headlines since 1986. Unless the rules of the game are changed, it will be the same in 2046.) Compared to past, current and future earnings, the funds ‘vomited’ are a joke. It is like comparing a Premiership salary to a parking ticket, and like it or not, every Nigerian with an ounce of talent will be queuing up for a chance to play Who Wants to be a Billionaire next weekend. There will be standing-room only in the stadium, and across the land, excited fans cheering and booing as usual. As we say in Naija, the game will continue like-that, like-that…
…Until Bribecode comes.
When we compel the National Assembly to enact the Bribecode, their beautiful game will finally end – because players will no longer be red-carded out for a game or two or stretchered off with frozen pure water sachets on their fake injuries. They will be coffined out. With the Bribecode, companies who come to play the corruption game will have to write their corporate wills before they enter the stadium. Because their next conviction will be their last. Lawyers, middlemen, and ‘consultants’ who assist companies in their billion-dollar frauds will no longer pay a hundred thousand naira or spend six months in jail (or five-star hospitals, depending on connections). They will suffer Total Assets Forfeiture. Until that happens, sit back and watch the game of the day. And – whether you are booing or cheering – weep for yourself as well. Because, as we say in Naija, all na wash.
To know more about #Bribecode and what you can do to end the #AntiCorruptionWargames, visit http://www.bribecode.org/signup. If you are leaving the Siddon-Look Party, sign up and share widely. This game is not over, until WE end it.
Team Bribecode
