Neda Imasuen, the Senator representing Edo South Senatorial District and Chair of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct, and Public Petitions, has recently become embroiled in a public scandal following revelations that he was disbarred from practicing as an attorney in the state of New York in 2010. This information came to light amid the Natashagate patriarchal drama in the Senate in his capacity as Chair of the Ethics Committee, Neda recommended a suspension of several months for Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, among other penalties, following her accusations of sexual harassment and abuse of power against the Senate President.
Beyond the blatant display of patriarchal injustice in the Senate with Natasha’s suspension, Neda’s appointment as Chair of the Ethics Committee—despite his history of alleged professional misconduct leading to disbarment—is yet another example of the impunity with which the ruling class engages in corruption and malfeasance. Opting to chair an ethics committee while having a record that is far from ethical should give anyone pause—except if you are a corrupt politician who knows you can get away with it. There appear to be little to no limits to the contempt politicians like Neda have for the working people, disregarding the very social norms they enforce whenever it suits their individual and collective interests as a class.
Public office corruption is endemic in Nigeria. The legacy of British colonialism created a local ruling class whose sections bitterly compete for access to state power to amass wealth, in a neocolonial system based on extraction of natural resources and rampant corruption. Direct access to state power thus becomes essential for self-enrichment, leading to both legal and extralegal means of looting public funds. The intense competition among factions of the local elite for control over the relatively meagre neocolonial spoils has resulted in persistent social instability—from successive military coups to the weak liberal democratic system imposed in 1999.
As a result, most power brokers and politicians running for office have been anything but the patriotic leaders idealised in a liberal democracy. They have lied, cheated, stoked ethnic and religious tensions, and manipulated election results to seize power. Once in the office, they have stolen staggering sums of money, leaving the country impoverished and underdeveloped while the working class suffers.
Embezzlement
Public office corruption in Nigeria takes many forms, with direct embezzlement being one of the most common. Funds intended for public use are directly diverted for personal gain by those entrusted with them. The mechanisms of theft range from crude transfers to personal accounts to diverse sophisticated accounting tricks.
Contract and Procurement Fraud
Corrupt politicians, civil servants, and contractors engage in fraudulent and illegal activities in the awarding, management, and execution of contracts. These include rigging the bidding process to favour specific companies, demanding bribes and kickbacks, awarding contracts to themselves, friends, or family members, inflating costs through false invoicing and over-billing (often in collusion with government officials), and using substandard or fraudulent materials. They steal public funds under the guise of executing infrastructure projects or other investments.
Bribery and Kickbacks
Bribery is perhaps the most pervasive form of public office corruption in Nigeria, occurring at all levels of government. The act of giving, soliciting, and receiving money or other valuables to influence decision-making is deeply embedded in the system. However, the motivations behind bribery differ across class lines, as do the scale and consequences of this dimension of corruption.
Junior civil servants, particularly those in public-facing sectors such as education and healthcare, engage in petty bribery, often as a survival strategy due to poverty wages. Lecturers may take bribes to pass students, administrators may delay processing documents unless they are tipped, and workers in healthcare, electricity, and law enforcement often expect informal payments for services. (I myself had to pay extra to receive my transcript and certificate on time.)
The social consequences of this corruption are severe. Public trust in institutions has eroded, and the most vulnerable members of society are further marginalised from accessing essential services. However, it is crucial to recognize that it is the ruling class—not the working class—that is ultimately responsible for this dysfunction, having failed to invest in workers’ welfare and the expansion of public institutions. When workers are left struggling on poverty wages, many resort to using their positions for personal gain to survive.
Meanwhile, the bosses engage in corruption on a far greater scale, with far graver social consequences. They have direct access to vast public funds, pay themselves exorbitant salaries and allowances, and, driven by the neocolonial capitalist system of accumulation and thuggery, loot immense amounts of social wealth.
Abuse of Power: Misconduct and Malfeasance
Corrupt public officials use their status to extort, exploit, and intimidate, particularly targeting the poor and working class. In Nigeria, police and military brutality is a daily reality for ordinary people. Law enforcement officers harass transport workers, profile young men, and act as hired thugs for the wealthy. The army too is used for political suppression and personal security for the bosses, while also extorting logistics operators by demanding payments at checkpoints—costs that are inevitably passed on to consumers.
Even amongst the bosses, power struggles lead to abuse. Politicians and the professional middle class exploit their subordinates, abuse women, and mistreat domestic staff. This system fosters a culture where taking advantage of others is normalised.
The case of Neda Imasuen exemplifies this culture of malfeasance and disregard for public ethics. His conduct in the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan case, which points to an inclination to defend the Senate President, at all odds, highlights the depths of corruption within Nigeria’s political system.
Abuse of power is particularly rampant at the highest levels of government. We have witnessed this firsthand, such as when Senate President Godswill Akpabio blatantly disregarded the overwhelming ‘nay’ votes against one of the articles of Natasha’s suspension and penalties. Similarly, the Speaker of the House overruled a request for a headcount to confirm the presence of two-thirds majority required by law to vote on approving the President’s state of emergency declaration in Rivers State, instead opting to approve it through a voice vote.
These are just a few examples of the ruling class’s arbitrarily discarding or selectively enforcing procedural rules based on their own interests. It is clear that these rules exist only to serve the hegemonic faction of the ruling class at any given time.
The Way Forward
For working-class people, the key takeaway is that corruption is a symptom of Nigeria’s neocolonial economic system. It is not, as racist tropes suggest, a reflection of some inherent moral failing among Africans. Such narratives serve only to place Western societies on a false pedestal while obscuring the true nature of the capitalist system that perpetuates corruption and exploitation worldwide.
Only a socialist revolution, led by the working class, can dismantle the capitalist structure and build a society based on social abundance, community, and collective care—one that prioritises the well-being of the people over the selfish accumulation of wealth that drives exploitation and corruption.
by Emmanuel EDOMWONYI
