Arguments To Prove Why Stealing Is Not Corruption

Why Stealing is not Corruption

What is stealing?

To take something without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.

What is corruption – dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.

Whenever and wherever ‘corruption’ is mentioned in Nigeria, what dominates and often overwhelms the thinking of many citizens is the theft of public funds by those at the helm of the nation’s affairs. Some consciously and subconsciously think corruption only involves politicians who are mostly accused of stealing public funds while in office; others think it’s the only corruption that really matters. We need to have a critically broader and in-depth look at the larger Nigerian society, perhaps we may find out that, there is much more to corruption than just stealing of public funds.

Chairman of Nigerian Anti-Corruption Agency, ICPC, said in a statement there is a difference between stealing and corruption and it is wrong to classify theft as corruption. He said that we should refer back to what we were taught about stealing and corruption in school

“Stealing is erroneously reported as corruption. We must go back to what we were taught at school to show that there are educated people in Nigeria. We must address issues as we were taught in school to do”.

While our attention have been fixated on theft of public funds by politicians and their agents, our secondary schools across the country are gradually turning into exam malpractice centers; our universities are turning into prostitution hallmarks; quackery has eaten deep into almost every profession; our police force has turned into a crime-perpetrating and encouraging agency; our cyberspace is been hijacked by fraudsters; our entertainment industry is being milked dry by pirates; our researches are have been overwhelmed by plagiarism and lack of content; our civil service is an embodiment of nepotism; our political parties are turned into financial parties; our judiciary is fast becoming the last misery of the common man and the last hope of the highest bidder; our telecommunications networks are becoming agents of customer exploitation; our private sector is turning into a sector that help politicians disguise their corruption; our contractors becoming partners in crime with those in power; our media becoming agents of paid propaganda; etc. The list is endless. All the stated is the true definition of corruption and it has eaten deep into every nook and cranny of our social, economic and political life.