IF ONLY NIGERIA CAN BECOME AS CORRUPT AS SOUTH KOREA...

President Park Geun-Hye is the first female President of South Korea who was elected in 2012 and sworn took office on the 25th of February, 2013. Thus, she also became the eleventh President in the history of that Asian nation.

For two weekends in a row now, protests have continued and indeed heightened with calls for the President to resign following corruption accusation that she shared classified information with a friend and a close confidant who had no security clearance.

Choi Soon-Sil is a close friend of the President's who is accused of leveraging her proximity to the commander-in-chief to coerce donations from large companies like Samsung which she used to fund her foundations.

For the second time now, President  Park has rendered an apology to the sea of protesters thronged in Seoul but all her efforts seem to be pouring water on a rock. Their demand is pretty clear: resign now.

As I write this, the protests seem to be gathering momentum with many individuals, corporate bodies, groups fueling the situation and cashing in on the rare opportunity to further their own personal and selfish ends. That is of course human beings for you.

However, the corruption allegation against President Park is only a trigger and what now has seemed to set off a long-accummulated disenchantment, feeling and perspective with the Park government and style of leadership.

Over the years, a major feeling of frustration and grouse had been in the closet against the President particularly the Sewell ferry sinking in which 300 South Koreans perished. Many people still blame the President for not doing enough to save more people despite the enormous resources at her disposal.

I quite seem to understand this trend of things and cannot help imagining that if I am a South Korean and had lost someone in that ferry sinking, where would I be at the moment? Probably in Seoul's park with the protesters calling for President Park to step down.

Be that as it may, this whole situation seems to have arisen out of a feeling of disenchantment, frustration, betrayal of expectation and lack of fulfillment of electoral campaign promises on the part of those who have been given the mandate to rule on behalf of others.

In Nigeria today, the scenario is a lot worse. Theirs is a democracy where the electorates are answerable to their electorates at any point in time while ours is a democracy where the leaders remember the electorates once when the elections are around the corner.

Clearly the Nigerian scenario depicts a hawk which stalling its prey for a while, dives for it and must quickly escape to a safe haven as soon as possible or risk losing its prey to a sympathetic but angry human nearby.

Ours is a democracy where leaders hardly ever apologise for any form of misrule and even when they do, either the apology in unapologetic and  elitist in nature or someone else is made to carry the load for the irresponsibility of the blunder master.

The level of frustration of the Nigerian masses against the political class is not only deafening but over-rated. Much more than what we have or can ever have in South Korea. Yet, how many people are ready to occupy Eagle's square and demand an account of stewardship from the rulers?

How many Nigerians can defy the weather and the elements day and night, sacrificing their time, comfort and luxury to demand justice, equality, enthronement of rule of law, and an end to self-inflicted poverty, famine and hardship rocking the country at the moment?

The Nigerian country is plagued with a unity in diversity malaise that is so strong and deep-rooted and which always taunts and mocks our so-called oneness.

Yet even a mad man knows that the only achievement we can boast of today as a nation, the only legacy we have as a people, the only certificate that we have acquired and which we continue to cherish, the only cure that we have to the millions of sicknesses plaguing us as a country is corruption.

Unfortunately, the term "corruption" and "corrupt practices" seem to become stronger everyday not because we seek to root it out by our activities but because we glorify it by our collective silence and failure to do something. Wole Soyinka could not have been more correct, "the man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny".

Sometime this year, it was the concept of "budget padding" that became the kitchen statement at virtually every corner of the Nigerian society. Till date, some yet do not understand this concept. A layman way of explaining padding is simply to see it as removing something that does not favour you from a list in order to add the one that does.

In other words, our federal lawmakers had to remove the elements that added nothing to their federal pockets in order to accommodate the items that would put more taxpayers money into their already over-bloated bank accounts.

For several months, the war raged on between the executives and the legislators or legislathieves if you like and after a while it died a natural death. Nigerians were told a compromise had been reached between the two arms of government but were not told how and what compromise it was actually. Could that compromise have anything to do with the padding of the budget?

In connection with this, a federal lawmaker Abudulmumin Jibrin accused top fellow federal law makers of corruption, abuse of office and monumental fraud in the 2016 budget. He was suspended and demoted and later had to flee the country for his dear life.

If Nigeria were South Korea, the allegation would be investigated and should there be any shred of truth to it, the federal lawmakers will answer to the law. But alas, Nigeria is not South Korea so corruption is bound to have its way.

That is the reality of the Nigerian situation, no matter the level of corruption or blunder associated with it, the whirlwind will always settle after blowing and soon enough, everybody gets back to the business as usual spirit.

Of course, this business-as-usual game is the random game in every sphere of Nigerian society. It is a game where the rich gets richer everyday by stealing from the poor, and the poor gets poorer everyday by singing the praises of his oppressor and seeking to eat like Lazarus, from the crumbs that may fall from the rich man 's table.

These days, unfortunately, given the economic recession and unquantifiable hunger, starvation and famine which has come to stay in the country, these rich men strive hard to make sure the crumbs no longer fall off their table. Where then lies the hope of those fed herefrom?

Few weeks ago, the big man of Aso Villa requested the senate to approve a loan to the approximate staggering sum of $30bn.I shuddered the very first time I heard about this because as a student of Engineering and an Engineer by profession, I am very conversant with mathematics, with figures and of course wirh zeroes. But I seriously doubt whether the commander-in-chief is.

How on earth is Nigeria going to repay back a loan with 9 zeroes added to 30. For many years President Olusegun Obasanjo alongside such great economic strategists like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala fought very hard to meet the requirements of the Parish Club in order have them cancel the huge pile of debts which the military regimes and past democratic governments before them had accummulated.

So, why would anyone in his sane mind think again of landing us into the very big mess that took so many years of sincere hardwork and conviction to solve. It is only a mediocre or some one short of that in thinking that would conceive such a thing in his mind let alone making it public.

And by the way why would Nigeria go the extra mile of borrowing such an approximately huge sum of  $30bn when people are returning back proceeds from the loots to the treasury?

Or are the returned loots meant for executing different projects which do not stand to profit the common and average Nigerian man? Added to this is the more sickening and bizarre fact that the C-in-C failed to break down in great details how he wants to use the money should it ever be approved. Since the devil is always in the details, merely giving out a sketch of details is as serious as overlooking them.

This situation is comparable to a manager of a company requesting the shareholders to approve a large sum so that he can execute a particular business strategy about which the shareholders have little information or no knowledge of.

Well, as I thank God the house turned this loan offer down, my guts tell me that they may not yet be done.
However, whatever they have up their sleeves not withstanding, I believe that if only Nigeria can become as corrupt as South Korea, our leaders would be more accountable to the masses.

If only Nigeria can become as corrupt as South Korea, Nigerians will never allow their President to run a government within a government. If only Nigerian can become as corrupt as South Korea, our leaders will be made to realize that public money is sacrosanct and should not be spent any how.

In effect, if only Nigeria can become as corrupt as South Korea, we will never enthrone mediocres and clowns to the highest position of governance and expect them to become the Abraham Lincolns and Franklin D. Roosevelts of our time. That of course is the tragedy of our time as a people and the effect of our collective silence as a nation.