Corruption: The Bane of Development in Nascent Democracy in Nigeria By Esther Raphael Etim

According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, corruption is defined as the act or effect of making someone or something change from moral to immoral. It is also a dishonest, illegal behaviour, especially of people in authority.
Nigeria is one of the countries in Africa with high popularity of wealth and numerous natural resources. Inspite of these achievements, the rate of corruption is escalating. The citizens are indulging in corrupt activities such as fraud, forgery, prostitution, bribery, assassination, violent demonstration, malpractice, robbery, thuggery and many more. It is obvious that majority of these activities are mainly practiced by those in authority, our role models (i.e. the politicians) making this system of government so irresponsible.
However most politicians participate in assassination by murdering famous and admired people either for taking over their position or for other political reasons. If it is for taking over their positions that means that, they had successfully obtained it by hood or by crook, using the position to fight for his interests and leaving the particular society stagnated and nascent.
Similarly, our politicians doctrine some of our jobless citizens in criminality and engage them as things hurry elections. It is the belief of most of the citizens that it is a great sin to be poor in the country, and that they must be wealthy by all means embracing all sorts of evils like frauds embezzlement, kidnapping, which they believe it bring fast money. These acts also serve as the bane of development in nascent democracy.
Another form of corruption as the band of development in nascent democracy in Nigeria is malpractice. There are various forms of malpractice, but I’m elaborating on examination malpractice and it’s adversely effect on the nascent democracy.
During certificate examination in most Secondary Schools, especially the public ones, most examiners use to collect money from the students so that the students may write the examination using their note books, textbooks, key points, GSM, and other source all commonly known as expo or brain supports. In these case, a student may graduate from Secondary School with flying colors but unable to gain admission into higher institution because of his inability to prove or defend his result, thereby increasing the rate of illiteracy and unemployment.
However, the students may participate in one of these corruption activities in order to earn a living thus, increasing the crime rate of the nation and making the democracy.
The corruption activities, although they are temporary beneficial to the participants, have a lot of adverse effects on non-participants and also to the nation. The effect of corruption include: loss of life and property in terms of assassination, kidnapping, robbery, drug addiction, fraud etc, lack of good products due to their deceitful behaviour, high rate of illiteracy and unemployment caused by examination malpractice, laziness, disobedience, indiscipline etc, violence inclination, favoritism, abortion and divorce causal by prostitution. All these affect nascent democracy.
In conclusion, as citizens, we can only achieve a well-developed democracy in Nigeria by eradicating these vices (i.e corruption) and avoid it.
Esther Raphael Etim SS 3 student of Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Four Towns, Uyo