THE CORRUPTION PROPAGANDA: FOR AND AGAINST

At a recent conference of the IMF and the World Bank in Singapore, there seemed to emerge a consensus that Africa is the most corrupt continent in the world. What with the rest of the world drumming it into every African ear that cared to listen that corruption was at the bottom of the continent's poverty and, therefore, the continent's problem. In other words, Africans are holding the continent back by being corrupt. By extension, also, they are thought to be holding the world back in the fight against poverty. This is a global indictment and one that should trouble every African mind.

My first reaction to this indictment was to answer back to the world and say, " what do you mean? Is Africa the only continent where corruption exists? Why do you advertise our own corruption and downplay yours? And, come to think of it, was it not the outside world that introduced and nurtured corruption in Africa? Check out the real situation. All known acts of official corruption in Africa today are perpetrated by those who have received western education and who use the machinery of western-style governments and economic systems unfamiliar to Africans previous to the arrival of Europeans and other peoples of the world on the continent.

The colonial masters came and installed a political and economic system that gives almost absolute control over public resources to a section of society the ruling class. They also introduced the concept of immunity, which has enabled the rulers to carry out acts of corruption with panache. Corruption has thrived in Africa because of the ignorance of the majority. Most Africans who are uneducated do not understand the workings of the modern government and are easily taken for a ride by the minority who have the advantage of western education and who have the additional advantage of being in power. There is a saying among my people that a lie is better told in the English Language. Most acts of corruption found today in Africa were impossible in the traditional African systems and would not have been possible today if Africans had been allowed to evolve their own systems. By overturning the traditional African political and economic systems and replacing them with theirs the colonial masters sowed the seeds of corruption in Africa. Their system brought alienation of the large majority of Africans from their own governments and gave the inside men free hand to use the nation's wealth

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