Ethics as an Antidote: Challenging the Decimation of a Continent

12 Pages Posted: 20 Nov 2017

See all articles by Nanji Rimdan Umoh

Nanji Rimdan Umoh

University of Jos - Department of Political Science

Date Written: October 30, 2017

Abstract

Corruption has attained an unmatched recognition as an undeniable culprit in the failure of national developmental goals and strategies in the least developed countries (LDCs). This truth is made more palpable by the realities of infrastructural and institutional decay that characterize the socio-economic and political landscapes of the region and hamper the effectiveness of its numerous anti-corruption strategies. The emphasis of the majority of these strategies has been on curbing the financial impropriety, misappropriation and embezzlement of funds that are blamed for the non-performance of sectors of the national economies and the policy and social service delivery failures of the governments of these developing nations. This paper adopts a distinct entry point that reflects a digression from the age-long perspectives of accountability and the plugging of loopholes through institutional mechanisms as strategies for curtailing the scourge of corruption. The paper is also a deviation from the perspectives of personal aggrandizement, the amassment of stupendous wealth, the benefits accruable from corrupt practices and the everwidening gap between the rich and the poor with which it is characterized. It rather seeks to provide a nexus between government action or inaction and human security by illuminating the dark sides of corruption. It relies on a qualitative methodology and descriptive analysis to provide a holistic appreciation of the implications of corruption and the nuances embedded where it is allowed to thrive. In the process, it sheds more light on the intricacies of corruption from the perspective of its far-reaching, dire consequences of a loss of human capital that is reflected in an increase in the death rate among the populations of the affected countries. Its role in the escalation of vices like ethno-religious crises, acts of terror and other population decimators is assessed as resulting from its metamorphosis into a man-made disaster with several permutations that present it as a formidable threat to human and material sustainability in the African continent. From this standpoint, it proposes a redirection of the anti-corruption strategies to embrace an individualized approach that is less impersonal and underpinned by the postulations of the ethical theory of consequentialism and the principles of ethics in checkmating the elusive nature of corruption in Africa. Focus is on the reorientation of the African polity, policy makers and implementers inclusive, and a reorganization of the state institutions, through processes that appeal to equity, fairness, good conscience and an incorporation of the inherent moral culture of the African societies in this fight against corruption.

Keywords: Anti-Corruption Strategies, Ethics, Human Capital, Institutional Decay, National Development

Suggested Citation

Umoh, Nanji Rimdan, Ethics as an Antidote: Challenging the Decimation of a Continent (October 30, 2017). OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 10, No. 10, pp. 29-40, 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3072701

Nanji Rimdan Umoh (Contact Author)

University of Jos - Department of Political Science ( email )

PMB 2084
Department of Public Law
Jos, North Central Zone 930003
Nigeria

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