Corruption is the opposite of integrity. It is the practice of engaging in fraudulent or dishonest behavior when holding a position of authority. It is an abuse of power or authority for personal gains. This abuse is why corruption is a crime in many jurisdictions. The most common examples of corrupt activities are the embezzlement of funds and bribery. However, corruption goes beyond these two common occurrences. The act or failure to act for personal gain is also considered corrupt. For example, a president may choose to ignore the corrupt activities of the ministers in his administration due to the fear of losing their support. In such a case, the president is also considered a corrupt leader.
an officer receiving a bribe
After the European colonizers left Africa, corruption became one of the continent’s biggest problems. Corruption is present in every sector of the many African economies. For example, in Kenya, the transport sector is marred by corruption. Police officers mainly patrol Kenyan roads to take bribes for motorist traffic offenses. In the education sector, parents pay large sums of money to high school principals for their children to get admission. In the healthcare sector, doctors and nurses prioritize patients whose relatives can bribe them with large sums of money. Companies that give large sums of money to government officers in the trade sector receive trade licenses and contracts. There is more to this list than you can imagine.
The main question is, why does corruption plague African countries? One explanation is that humans are naturally selfish, a concept argued by Ayn Rand, a Russian-American philosopher, novelist, and playwright, in most of her work. Borrowing from Rand’s argument of natural selfishness, one may assume that Africans are very selfish, which is why their countries have the highest incidences of corruption than any other continent of the world. Chinua Achebe almost supports this argument in his novel, “Arrow of God,” where he writes about a certain man made chief of a particular community by the British colonizers. Days after the man lands the chieftainship, he starts taking bribes from members of his community in the form of cattle. This new chief is using the power he had just received a few days ago to exploit his fellow “poor” community members because they fear the punitive expeditions of the British military. Later, to stress the greed of Africans, Achebe writes about how the British officer in charge of the area is surprised by the intense greed exhibited by the newly appointed African chief. This British officer claims he has never seen such greediness anywhere except in Africa.
However, it is unfair to claim that Africans are greedier than the people of other continents. A deep analysis of Achebe’s “Arrow of God,” other works, and the African colonial history makes it fair to claim that colonialism played a more significant part in creating and encouraging corruption in Africa. This is due to the reasons discussed below.
European missionaries being served by Africans.
When the colonizers arrived in Africa, they forcefully drove populations out of their lands and enslaved them. They created unfair labor practices and segregated themselves from the African communities, which they marginalized. They exploited African labor and controlled African economies, mainly built by free African labor. All these acts show the immense greediness and selfishness of the colonizers. In short, colonization in itself was corruption.
The colonizers exploited their powers to drive “poor” Africans out of their lands and enslave them. These actions led the Africans to believe they could do anything with power and authority, such as displacing and enslaving people. Additionally, the few colonizers, who enjoyed the economic benefits of free African labor, created a feeling within the Africans that personal economic success was all that mattered regardless of how a person achieved it. This is commonly quoted as “the end justifies the means.”
After African countries gained independence, the new African leaders continued the corrupt practices they had learned from the colonizers. In Kenya, the leaders of the new republic allocated themselves the lands that the colonizers held after grabbing them from the Africans. They also continued displacing populations as they took their lands. This is one of the significant reasons why land clashes are common in Kenya today. Moreover, the new African leaders started practicing nepotism by appointing friends in government positions who helped them loot public coffers. This was a repetition of the colonizers’ actions, who only appointed Europeans in government positions to increase their control of the African populations. The new African leaders continued to stifle disgruntled African voices that opposed the poor management of their countries in the same way the colonizers had done before them. Political opponents were murdered and assassinated. Moreover, in the same way, the colonizers were reluctant to grant Africans freedom; today, African leaders are reluctant to hand over power even after suffering defeats in free and fair elections.
Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o vividly elaborate on the effects of colonization on corruption in the African continent in their books, “Arrow of God” and “The River Between.” In the “Arrow of God,” Achebe narrates about an African priest who sends his son to a missionary school to learn the ways of the white man because the future lies in learning “the ways of the white man.” In this case, the ways of the white man are the ability to displace populations, grab land and control people to work for you freely. Similarly, in “The River Between,” Ngugi narrates about an African father who sends his son to a missionary school to learn “the ways of the white man,” which is the future of the African people.
Africans are learning the ways of the white man.
Another good illustration of the colonial effects on corruption is in the novel “No Longer at Ease” by Chinua Achebe. In this novel, Achebe writes about a community that sends one of their sons to study in London. The community hopes that when the man returns, he will get a top government position and bring a larger share of the national cake to the community. The thought of the community wanting a larger share of the national cake illustrates colonization’s effects on the African minds about governance. In the same way, the colonizers were reaping the economic benefits of free labor and colonization. The African people wanted to reap the benefits of “free money” by having their people in the top government positions to allocate them national resources fraudulently.
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