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Joshua
Olusegun Bolarinwa - Junior Research Fellow
Joshua
Olusegun Bolarinwa is an Assistant Research Fellow and a graduate of
the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife and the University of
Ibadan, where he earned B.A History and Economics, M.Sc. Peace and
Conflict Studies, respectively. His research interest is in
Security, Defence and Strategic Studies; Peace and Conflict
Resolution, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peace Building, Refugee
Studies, IDPs and Migration Studies etc. He is a member of Society
for Peace Studies and Practice, Nigerian Institute of Management and
the Nigerian Red Cross Society among others. He has attended
several National and International Conferences. Bolarinwa has
published in the area of Conflict and Disaster Management, Gender,
Peace Keeping and Human Trafficking etc.
Contact:
segunbolarinwa@yahoo.com;
jbolarinwa@niianet.org
The current
research project of Bolarinwa is
Corruption and the Challenges of Development in Africa:
The scourge of corruption has continued to engage global attention
on account of the dangers that it poses to the global community.
Corruption is a global phenomenon which does not respect the
development status of a country or institutional ensemble of
governance. In other words, it is found in both the developed
economies as well as in the so-called developing societies of the
Third World where corruption including brazen massive theft of
public funds has deprived the states of the needed funds for
anti-poverty and other national development programmes. However,
while corruption is globally ubiquitous, it is different across
systems in terms of its manifestations, magnitude and character.
Today across the world, in spite of increasing public outrage and
renewed political resolve by countries of the world to combat
corruption, this ‘monster’ has not abated while its costs continue
to ravage global activities. This singular fact has made issues of
governance and the economic development profile of countries
important factors in the competition for and access to resources of
the world, which is today driven by globalization.
For the Nigerian State, corruption has remained one of the
serious challenges of governance and national development
confronting her since the attainment of independence over four
decades ago, precisely 49 years ago. Corruption has not only
weakened the moral fiber of the Nigerian society, it has created
legitimacy crisis for successive administrations in the country.
Thus, the political history of Nigeria is that of the progressive
development of the culture of corruption. Corruption has not only
wreaked incalculable damage on the conduct of government business in
Nigeria, it has also undermined developmental efforts.
Corruption is a value system of human creativity affecting every
stratum of modern living; it is responsible for crime, illiteracy,
poverty, poor conditions of utilities, social services and
infrastructure. Hence, it undermines the quality of governance and
constitutes a big challenge to national development. It is
considered as the heterogeneous and dishonest behaviour exhibited to
illegally acquire wealth both in private and the public sector. In
Nigeria, corruption is pervasive and is found and practiced by the
rich and the poor, the high and the low. This makes Nigeria to be
rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
To this extent, the paper seeks to critically examine the
relationship between corruption and economic well-being of a nation.
It will investigate the level of damage corruption has had on
Nigeria’s national development and suggest a way out. |
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