THE visitor stood unbelieving. He had imagined a palace of some splendour, but what he saw was a building that looked like a crumbling shack. The stateroom was only a little bigger than a sack. It was barely big enough to swing a cat. The visitor believed he was in a coop and he had to stoop to enter it. He was certain this was a ridiculous way of stooping to conquer. His visit to the ‘palace’ was undoubtedly a blunder.

The year was 1861 and the visitor was Richard Francis Burton, the great English explorer. The town Burton visited, which was a nation-state at the time, is in the South of present-day Nigeria.

Heinrich Barth, the German explorer, travelled in the North in 1851 and was shyly received in a small room by a powerful ruler who effusively thanked the European for giving him a pair of pistols.

Some kings—to call them what they are not. Nigeria is a republic and not a monarchy. And a monarchy does not have a multiplicity of rulers. There is a single throne and two people cannot occupy it at the same time—still live in poky palaces in Nigeria. The fetid well of imagination has dried up and chieftaincy titles can no longer be dreamed up to sell to crooks. The kings’ ‘subjects’ treat them with cold courtesy when they are not doing so with bold and biting irreverence. The kings have pliable principles and shamelessly curry favour with state governors.

The old order has been supplanted and there is a new aristocracy in the country. It is the aristocracy of corruption. Members of this aristocracy are lords of coarse loudness. They all wear a badge of gaudy bigness. They build and sometimes live in castle-like houses. These are mighty but not always magnificent mansions. Unearned wealth is often an enemy of good taste. Corruption conceives grandiosity and folly.

There are many castles of corruption in Nigeria. Abuja, the federal capital that was built from scratch, displacing settlements of hovels and formidable forests, has many imposing buildings. It is a city of architectural excess. It was revealed that some of the buildings were owned by a top military officer who was a leading member of the murderous Abacha regime. President Goodluck Jonathan recently gave the man a medal of merit.

Corruption is rewarded in Nigeria. The trial of a former commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and two lawyers for corruption involving millions of naira was abruptly stopped by the Umaru Yar’Adua government. There was strong evidence, especially the money recovered from the INEC commissioner, to convict the accused.

The trial was stopped to pave the way for the appointment of one of the accused as minister. The former INEC commissioner, who had demanded, received and was forced to return a huge bribe, was made the chairperson of a census tribunal.

President Jonathan recently swore in the new board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The NNDC is said to be a cesspit of blatant corruption. A magazine detailed the alleged corruption of a top official of the commission, but he was not even questioned. The man continues to  jauntily walk the corridors of power.

A chairman of the NDDC was said to have fallen under the spell of a sinister magician and he smilingly parted with hundreds of millions of naira. There were stories of graveyard burning of crisp offerings; naira notes were used to make bonfires. Bizarre things happen in Nigeria.

The chairman, a former ambassador, was removed from his post and charges were preferred against him. He has not returned to court after he was granted bail in 2008.

There was also in-your-face corruption in the Oil Mineral Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), the precursor of the NDDC. One chairman of OMPADEC fled abroad after his unconscionable stealing was discovered. The government made no attempt to have him extradited. He enjoyed transatlantic conjugal visits while the people suffered in the creeks.

The fire of many corruption trials was allowed to go out after the initial blaze of publicity. It seems the trials have been abandoned and there may never be retribution.

But one politician did serve a prison term. He said he was the victim of a conspiracy and wildly celebrated his release. He has been quietly pardoned with the appointment of his wife to an important public post.

Mrs Farida Waziri was relieved of her appointment by President Jonathan about two weeks ago. She was chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a job she was led to believe was hers when the commission was established in 2003. She did not get it because she said she refused to do certain demeaning things. She was given the job in 2008 and she described her appointment as a ‘divine call.’

I believe Mrs Waziri did fairly well, though I wrote a somewhat droll column about her when she spoke in a tone of messianic certainty not long after her appointment. Mrs Waziri is no Boudicca, but even Boudicca, Queen of Britons, was defeated by the Romans after her early successes. The army of corruption that Mrs Waziri faced was as hard-bitten and ruthless as the Roman troops that Boudicca fought against. The Romans, led by Suetonius, cut Boudicca’s troops to pieces and she took poison.

Mrs Waziri has no reason to contemplate suicide. She was denied reinforcements. She initiated legislation and called for special courts to try corruption cases, but she was treated like a cussing crone. Was she really to blame for the plea bargain that set a former governor free? She was not in charge of the EFCC when another former governor was given a ridiculously light sentence which he served in a comfortable teaching hospital room.

It is true that Mrs Cecilia Ibru also served her light sentence in a hospital, in her own case in an upscale private hospital, but she has not gone to the Presidential Villa to pose for photographs with the president. It seems shame is making Cecilia to conceal herself. This may be interpreted as contrition.

Some convicted former governors have been darkening the doors of Aso Rock. Aso Rock is the grandest of all the castles in Nigeria. General Sani Abacha’s felonious fumes almost turned the castle into a medieval ruin. Some other occupants of the Presidential Villa have also been accused of corruption. There have been stories of presidential depredations and debauchery.

Aso Rock has the arsenal to stop the advance of the corps of corruption. But its guns are misfiring and corruption marches on.

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