PROFESSOR Thomas was then one of Nigeria ’s best  neurosurgeons, one of Nigeria ’s best university administrators and a well-disciplined disciplinarian who never had a house of his own as a former provost of the College of Medicine Idi-Araba and a former Vice Chancellor, VC, of the University of Ibadan. I know of some former VCs  who have estates and streets of their own.

The new civil service which was forced on Nigeria became a rudderless ship that had no direction or organisation. Top civil servants were hired, promoted and fired by subsequent military heads of state or their ministers. Nothing became permanent in the civil service as the permanent structures that distinguished it were all dismembered with military orders and instructions. And so it became mandatory for civil servants to save for their future as there was no more job security and payment for pensioners was no longer coming “as and when due”. Pensioners started collapsing on long pension verification queues and those who survived went home without their pensions.

Today’s permanent secretaries are lucky guys. They can afford to keep an incredible N2 billion cash under their mattresses, withdraw N300 million from the bank on a daily basis, afford to own two big housing estates in many state capitals across the country, afford to send all their six or more children to Harvard University; afford to travel abroad monthly for medical check-ups with all members of their family and like a former female bank managing director, own about 30 houses in the state of Florida (alone) in America.

Corruption is thriving in Nigeria due to a transparent lack of ethical standards and moral values not only in the public sector but also in the private sector and even in our private family lives. The Nigerian 1999 Constitution was crafted with a military mindset to protect al those things destroyed by the military from 1966-2007 when civilians properly took over governance.

Those who are appointed to enforce our laws are also very corrupt. Examples of these are judges and other senior government officials who introduced plea-bargaining to provide soft-landing for politicians who loot our treasury. Plea-bargaining is the product of fierce bargaining between judges and politicians but brokered by the intervening third party.

Transparency International is a very familiar body to Nigeria. In their Corruption   Perception Index, CPI, in 2001 Nigeria ranked 90 out of 91 corrupt nations with Bangladesh as most corrupt nation taking the 91st position. In 2003, Nigerian got 132nd position, again next to Bangladesh which took its traditional most corrupt position at number 133.

The effects of corruption in Nigeria are myriad. As a result of unrestrained illegal access to government treasury, government expendable resources are limited in all sectors of the economy, including health, education, youth empowerment and job creation.

The National Bureau of Statistics revealed in Abuja on February 13, 2012 that as at 2004, 54.7% Nigerians were living below the poverty line but this has increased to 60.9% as at 2010. That is as at 2010, 99.284 million Nigerians were living below the poverty line. What a pity. The Bureau also emphasized that income inequality has increased between 2004 and 2010 and that this inequality will widen between 2011 and 2012 following current trends. The Bureau also said more public funds have been embezzled from 1999 to date than all the years since 1914 put together.

It takes an uncommon political will, God’s protection and goodluck to fight corruption in Nigeria because of the several die-hard cabals who are ready to waste lives to maintain the status quo.

President Goodluck Jonathan must muster this political will to break this corruption jinx which has blackmailed this country and held us to ransom.

President Goodluck Jonathan must know that the war against corruption is a war that he must fight because all his good intentions for this country will fizzle to zero if the canker worm that eats the fabric of this nation is not rooted out.

The father of one of our former speakers of the House of Representatives, last year, said that if his son was jailed for corruption charges, Nigeria will go up in flames, and since then the case against the former Speaker has been in abeyance.

Such cheap blackmail must not thrive in a civilized society like ours. We must not allow a gang of thieves and buccaneers to hold us to ransom.

President Jonathan is well positioned to fight this battle as his antecedents bear positive testimony to this fact. While I concede that fighting the vampire called corruption in Nigeria is not an easy task, I know that in the long run we shall triumph if all Nigerians join hands in this war on entrenched and  enduring corruption.

Mr. BEN NANGHAN, a public affairs analyst,  wrote from Lagos.