5. Introduction
5.2 Corruption and Public Sectorin Colonial Africa
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constantly broken” (Mukandala, 2000:2). The coming of the Europeans to Africa brought into the African public sector rules to be followed and with it awareness of corruption and complex institutions that encourage corruption.
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feared that the British people would tamper with their sovereignty and also their commercial interest, tried to resist British incursions and were dethroned and banished because of their disloyalty (Oriji, 1988:467). On the other hand, chiefs who were seen as friendly were given a free hand to rule their localities. For instance, a chief like Alafin Ladugbolu of Oyo was even granted a special dispensation to depose powerful chiefs like the Bale of Ibadan and Ogbomosho. His territorial jurisdiction was also expanded (Oriji, 1988:469-470). The chiefs during the colonial period were appointed Native Authorities and were involved in carrying out judicial, legislative and executive functions, but were supervised by British officers (Oriji, 1988:468).
However, these administrative roles nevertheless began to change, as the government of colonial rule was coming to an end, as Tordoff describes:
“government became much more specialised in function and, first in British Africa and then in French Africa, the rudiments of a ministerial system were introduced”
(Tordoff, 1984: 123). The chiefs were now seen as bureaucrats, who “became accountable to those who appointed them and not to the ruling council and other traditional organs that exercised checks and balances on their authority” (Oriji, 1988:469).
It can be stated that the coming of the Europeans to Africa actually affected the African traditional system of government and also African cultural practices and values. Thus, as a result of colonialism, Africans started “to lead a new mode of life once his continent became colonised, since the cultural values, taste and, in general, the world-view of the colonizers, the white people, gradually influenced and transformed his own” (Okolo, 1994:23). The coming of the Europeans‟ to Africa, with their new life, new culture, and new legal system, introduced the African people into the modern way of life.
Again, the introduction of the European culture, which was different from Africa‟s already existing culture, brought a totally new kind of culture to Africa. The consequence was the meeting together of two different values to operate in the
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public sector in Africa (Ekeh, 1975). It is under such a system that the colonial public sector operated. However, since the new legal system was now in place, it meant that those in the public sector had to try to implement the new law. The civil servants were meant to forget the old law in the pre-colonial system of government.
How can the implementation of these two different values be easy for civil servants who had for a long period of time been used to their own value system even in their public service? This is because it might be seen to be unethical if the civil servant adopted the two different values in the public sector. Would the civil servants make use of the traditional cultural values because they were acceptable to the people they were representing or would he or she make use of the new law because it was the new government order? The conflict of values in the colonial public sector must have been a serious and confusing issue for a civil servant. This is because for a civil servant to help family members or friends against the code of conduct in the public sector would be seen as unethical and suggests corruption. In pre-colonial Africa, the rendering of such help to family or friends before others would not have been seen as unethical practice.
There are some areas where unethical behaviour featured during the colonial era.
The chiefs, who were the leaders of their various communities, were previously accountable to the people they were serving (Oriji, 1988: 469),but with the introduction of colonial rule, the chiefs, instead of holding power in trust for the people, now held power in trust for the colonial government. Some of the chiefs were appointed by the colonial authorities as a result of their acceptance of the new colonial rule with their legal law. The refusal of some chiefs to accept colonial rule led to their dethronement in their various communities. This, of course, led to the appointment of individuals with questionable character as warrant chiefs by the colonial government. With this kind of appointment, some of the individuals who disobeyed the government order were not punished, as they settled their cases with the warrant chiefs, probably through bribery (Oriji, 1988: 468).
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The colonial administration also introduced taxation in the areas they colonised.
The colonial government came to Africa with their imposition of a flat rate tax known as hut-tax. The money made from the hut tax was used in running the colonial administration. The citizens saw problems with such taxation as they were not benefitting fully from it, as the money collected was not fully accounted for. It was the unethical practices by the colonial chiefs, as a result of the taxation, that led to the Aba women riot of 1928, which left thirty-two women dead and thirty-one wounded (Uchendu, 1965: 47). This shows that some of the civil servants in the public sector during the colonial administration were after their private gains. There were other instances that were connected to corruption in the colonial public sector.
The above evidence shows that corruption was present during colonial Africa.
Nevertheless, we are not by this condemning or writing off as evil and immoral everything did by the colonial masters in Africa. For instance, the civil service that was set up by the colonial government was one of the best things done to African continent. Concurring with this, Amadi maintains that the civil service is actually one of the Europeans‟ greatest legacies to Africa. According to him, the civil service was almost immune from corruption in its early days. Also, many of the British civil servants were excellent administrators, who were in charge of key posts in the public sector and saw to it that corruption was reduced to the barest minimum (Amadi, 1992: 88). This indicates that there was not much corruption in those areas of the colonial public sector, in those areas administered by the Europeans. These Europeans strictly applied what Ake meant when he avered: To avoid many of the unethical practices in the public sector, roles, activities, and relationships are to be strictly governed by rules, which are rigidly adhered to (Ake, 2000: 493).