Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s "To fight corruption is dangerous" book review
A new urgency surged through my body and members of PageTurners (A book club I co-manage with members of the club) when the announcement of Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s (NOI) appointment as the World Trade Organisation’s new Director-General flooded the airways, new waves of celebrations flooded Nigeria’s media and social media spaces.
#BeLikeNgoziChallenge trended for a number of days on Twitter, the challenge entailed Nigerians mimicking NOI’s simple way of dressing. While Nigerians have displayed this sense of solidarity for her as she has now taken an international position, she didn’t particularly enjoy their support during her terms as the finance minister of the country, she was at the receiving ends of a lot of insults and slandals. Her journey in the finance is documented in her book “Fighting Corruption is Dangerous - ” The story behind the headlines" These are my thoughts about the book, the views are mine.
She started off the first chapter recounting events that transpired when her 83 year old mother was kidnapped and the ludicrous demands that was the ransom price for her. The events of this kidnap as are more like a chain reaction, they led up to the period of the oil subsidy removal. Her account of her mother’s kidnap really sent empathy down my spine, one would only wonder how far one’s antagonists can go to plot downfalls. With the way this chapter was written, it really had me asking myself questions that placed me in her shoes, I had to reflect on the price I was willing to pay for the fight against a bad Nigeria. I realised how cowardly abduction was as it was a tool often employed when folks have no intelligent solutions to things and they have to force the hands of other people.
One thing that resounded over the course of this book was how deep and systemic corruption, the general consensus is that Nigeria is a very corrupt country, this book goes to great lengths to show the tip of how rooted and organised corruption is in Nigeria. She highlighted that technology and newer innovations must be employed when one wants to fight something deep and systemic. One thing I have realised about humans is that if something stays with us long enough, we would figure ways around it and by then we would have found ways to bypass it. The same can be said about how corruption thrives in systems, most of these systems were once strong systems. I am sure that at inception they boasted of being tamper free of ill behaviours and deals, over time humans found their ways around them and they fabricated ways around them. Our Electronic and mobile phone companies understand this bit about human nature and they keep working at making new designs, they keep working at keeping us entertained. If the average Nigerian sees the need to upgrade their gadgets and appliances into for them to provide better services to them, then we as a people must also embrace new technologies, systems, processes of doing things. The longer we take to upgrade these things, the farther we are behind, a good example of this can be seen in our railway carriages that were recently commisioned (It’s a good work on the end of the government but does anyone still see nations of the world using such outdated models) or how hard it was for NOI to fight corruption because her earlier employment of technology had been frustrated.
“I want to be stubborn like Okonjo Iweala” read my WhatsApp status one night after I had finished a chapter of this book. The truth is the fight against corruption is one that requires resoluteness and in the case of Nigeria where the corruption has been weaved into the fabrics of the society, resoluteness alone wouldn’t do. One actually needs to be stubborn, and this can be seen in NOI stance on a lot of things I won’t mention because I am trying to keep this review spoiler free. Did you know about Yahoo boys and how they scammed people, do you know a country can be scammed too? Yes ! E shock you ? Of course they often had help from people in the government with their own selfish interests or they might just be clueless. Read this book to learn about our beloved country and international scams.
There was a chapter that talked about ethnicity and tribes, one resolve I made after reading it was that I wouldn’t label things on an entire tribe or ethnic group. These lines are cards politicians play to sow discord and keep us apart. Other things she covered in her book was on
• How problematic governors can be (Most of them don’t have the interest of their states at heart)
• The events that led to the removal of the oil subsidy, her plans for it, sabotage, the president bypassing all the time bound plans on ground and removing the subsidy. Also, the role of state governors in all of this.
• How largely misogynistic Nigeria was. It should be noted that the military government in all of its madness and evil ensured a significant number of positions was kept for women, this was to get their involvement in politics over time and rid them of their political apathy. Ever since the military signed this into law, the number of women in politics has only but reduced. For one to have an inclusive government, members of different groups need to be kept on board, this is one way to drive policies that would actually benefit Nigerians.
• How deeply instrumental propagandas are. My friend Theophilus used to say a quote about how we mustn’t resort to the tools the oppressors use; propaganda, I think it’s from Pedagogy of the oppressed, lies is a tool manipulators use. Propagandas dropped faster than rain on NOI but how does she handle them ? She gives a well detailed stance against propaganda, I think it is one every young person can learn from. It doesn’t only apply to fighting against corruption but also in our personal lives.
• How difficult it was to push reforms because of the senate, house of representative and governors
As I try to end this write up on the final chapter, it was titled “Reflections......" and over the course of this chapter, NOI asks questions and gives a number of advice for people who are interested in fighting corruption. She also asked some questions, one of which I raised in the earlier part of this writing, it was the question of what price one was willing to pay in their fight against corruption. She also talked about alliance and partnership, how one who wanted to fight corruption must have friends and colleagues who share this passion with them. Over the course of the book, we see how handy her friends, families, colleagues and networks come through for her. “Show me your friend and I will show you who you are" rings very loud her. A person is truly a function of their friends.
Overall, this book was an enlightening journey for me as new informations that were not accessible to the public have become so. I strongly recommend people who occupy pivotal positions to keep people abreast on how things are going for them in government. This can be done by giving updates on social media or doing it the old fashioned way- writing memoirs. I also wonder if the accounts would conflict with this, NOI system of substantiating facts with evidences is also one that will set her book apart if confliciting accounts were to come up. I don’t like the fact that she protected some people by not disclosing their names, at this point in time, corruption can not afford to be faceless. When people talk about corruption, certain faces should come to their mind not vagueness.
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