FEATURE ARTICLE

Otunba IlemobadeThursday, October 8, 2015
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SUB-CONTRACTING JURISDICTION:
SPIRITO-RELIGIOUS CONTEMPLATIVE ASSUMPTIONS ON CORRUPTION

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y attention was drawn to a news article in an Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, while on a flight from Rome Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport recently. The subject matter of the article is corruption and how the Guardia di Finanza worked with the ministry of finance and tax authority to curtailed all kinds of fiscal criminal misadventures.

Thanks to my basic knowledge of La Lingua Italiana.

I was impressed and doubtful, my ambivalence stem from the fact that Italy just like most Southern European nations is well known within the European union as a corruption ridden clime, please don't forget that we have the Holy See (vatican city state) and the religiousness that comes with catholicism nestling within the same geographical sphere under discourse.

I was impressed because of the successes achieved by the Guardia di Finanza according to the article but doubtful because of the methodology adopted by the same organisation. But critique of their methodology is not the subject matter of my piece here.

To fight corruption, sometimes we need to adopt unconventional methodology, Aha I saw immediately the nexus, likeness, similarity, between Nigeria and Italy, both religious nations and corrupt. I wonder if we dont have more churches in Nigeria per capita, note Just because a nation has a lot of churches doesn't necessarily mean it has a lot of religious citizens.

Let us assume that we have more churches and religious citizens in Nigeria or citizens with a semblance of religoiusness, therefore we can succinctly say we are a religious nation.

However, I was left with a more serious doubt as to whether our prayers as religious nation are answered by God.

Note: assumption is the foundation of the categorization made here.

Why do we have the misfortune of not having Good, God fearing leadership at all levels. Are we really praying, offering supplications to God or we are just shouting, talking transcedental gibberish; are the pastors, prophets, overseers, really sherpherding for higher human values or they are just marauding Biblecapitalist claiming pseudo-righteousness.

Here are Biblical injunctions against corruption:

''And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right" Exodus 23:8

"Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but who hates bribe will live" Proverb 15:27

"For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, their will be disorder and evey vile practice" james 3:16

What is the role of the Imams, Sheiks, in all this grand corruption that is metastasizing in our body polity, are they also praying and keeping vigil or are they just marauding Qurancapitalist usurping Aljanah.

Here are Quranic injunctions against corruption:

"Verily Allah commands that you should render back the trust to those to whom they are due, and that when you judge with justice" Chapter 4 verse 58

"And do not consume one another wealth unjustly or send it in bribery to the rulers, in order that they might aid you to consume a portion of the wealth of the people in sin, while you know it is unlawful" Chapter 2 verse 188

The crux of my article is corruption and how we are unable to defeat, curtail, this evil with all legalistic means available to us within our criminal justice system that we have resulted into contracting or sub-contracting preliminary investigation and judicial prosecution to a third party country.

I don't want to look for an absolute rational explanation for this overwhelming question anymore because it is illusory to do so, the only option left for me is the spiritio-religious search for an answer, but how am I going to achieve this without being extremely rationalistic I queried.

What I stumble upon is Theological fatalism which is premise on the argument that God is omniscient, and Since God is omniscient, God has infallible foreknowledge. If God has infallible foreknowledge about an engagement then such engagement must invariably happened.

Therefore, according to theological fatalism, free will is not possible, since you have no alternative except to participate in such engagement. If you do not, then God is not omniscient. But if you do, then you don’t have free will, on account of your inability to choose an alternative.

From the foregoing are we to draw inference that God has ordained us to be corrupt as a people and we have no alternative or say in the matter, we are born into a nation of corrupt people therefore we are bound to be corrupt.

I do not agree with the above conclusion and I know many of my readers would not agree to such condescending explanation for grand corruption in our clime, obviously there must be other alternatives to elucidate this dillema.

Moreover, if we take the above statement about fatalistically conditioned Nigeriana as truth, we are then left with a contradiction in the sense that we do know people in our clime who are not corrupt. Is there an exception under theological fatalism?

My second assumption is Metaphysical predeterminism, the next in line to elucidate this brain damaging, migraine causing problem, please note that this is a difficult concept to define therefore I will adopt a simple definition for this article.

Metaphysical predeterminism is the idea that all events are predetermined in advance by some metaphysical forces, being, spirit, in our case God. It is not just a predetermination of all human actions and inactions but the prior and deliberately conscious predetermination of all actions and inactions done as conscious being.

If we accept the foregoing definition then we can confidently say that the issue of corruption is beyond our control as humans, since we are Metaphysically predetermined to behave in that manner. So to be corrupt is in our nature, our motives, and desires, even our goats, chicken, cats, water, etc would be predisposed to corruption, indeed they are corrupt since they co-habit the same geographical space as ours.

I don't think anyone would agree to such ridiculous claim, note the discourse is predicated on various assumptions, our final assumption is what I called Devilish mysticism which is an idea that all actions and inactions that we humans ascribe the word bad and evil, are caused or pre-ordained by Devil causality, we have no control over such events, and those involve in such disagreeable conducts are Devil incarnate.

The implication of this kind of rationalism is that it fits perfectly with what most people think of corruption as being evil and whoever engage in corrupt practices are seen as Evil incarnate, therefore they are Devilishly pre-ordained to act bad since they are intrinsically Evil.

Are Nigerian politicians Evil? Are we under the spell of Devil? Are we a Devilish nation? Please, I need answers to all these difficult questions.

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