Are we ready to walk the talk on corruption?

When corruption robs people, victims cry and beneficiaries celebrate.

Many people just look on in the mistaken belief that since they have done nothing to attract graft to themselves, it may never attack them and that it is none of their business. 

What the nonchalant onlookers fail to realise is that you do not have to do anything to attract corruption; you only need to have something that corruption wants. 

When corruption robs you, do not just look on; fight back.

And when you see graft robbing someone else, help the victim to fight back.

Never say corruption is none of your business because graft is the mouse trap that today catches your neighbour and tomorrow catches you.

The tale is told of a farmer who set a trap to catch the mouse that was eating his millet in the granary.

The mouse asked the cockerel to help him disengage the trap but he refused, saying mouse problems were not his business. 

The mouse got the same reaction from the goat and the cow, so he slept hungry that night. 

At night the farmer heard a noise in the granary.

He rushed in, thinking that the thieving mouse had been caught.

Instead, he was bitten by the snake that had been trapped and died later that night.

UNIFIED TASK

The farmer’s wife slaughtered the cockerel to feed the mourners who arrived on the first day. 

The following morning she slaughtered the goat and, after the funeral, the cow to feed the mourners. 

So the mouse realised that anybody’s problem is everybody’s problem.

When we fail to fight corruption, we set ourselves up to be killed by its trap. 

To fight graft, how can we send corrupt people to drive out fellow corrupts?

Only men and women of the highest integrity can fight corruption.

When we send the corrupt to investigate other corrupt persons, we are simply asking them to cover up for one another. 

If we are truly committed to fighting corruption, we must get to the root cause of it, which is to legally ban leaders and public officers from doing business with the government while working in the public service.

That we refuse to forbid public officers from doing business while in office suggests that we are not committed to eradicating corruption.

We do not want to deny ourselves the benefits of graft.

Until we stop all civil servants from doing business with the government while in office, there will never be an end to corruption. 

CUT OFF ARM
If we are serious about ending graft, we must break all contact with corrupt persons.

As the Bible says: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

"And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.

"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.” 

Here then is the real test. Do we have the courage to cast away from us those who are dear to us but are corrupt?

Is a society not better off without corrupt people than to have such people and risk having the whole community die because of graft?

Mr Wamwere is a former MP for Subukia. [email protected]