Introduction:
By the end of the 20th century, the human race had irremediably crossed the Rubicon into self-destruction. Frightened by this undesirable prospect, some thinkers organized to re-think CORRUPTION, which is a twin brother or sister of every human aberration.
In the 21st century, the issue of corruption must not be restricted to what man’s puny brain can devise from time to time, in order to get by. The center-point of the struggle against corruption must extend to the activities of states, politicians, military intelligence operations, belligerent policies, arms manufacturers and dealers, currency traffickers and dealers in human beings. These constitute a more formidable assignment for all those who are endowed with uncommon abilities and spiritual vision.
In contemporary world society, there are political leaders who have refused to accept modernity but have sustained the anachronistic practices enshrined in a perverted version of the Abrahamic religion. Inevitably, there is a clash of values and virtues, which often lead to wars. The imposition of archaic thought systems on a large number of people in the Orient has tended to draw back the hands of the universal clock.
There is bound to be corruption in every system of societal organization where there is the absence of GOD, the absence of good and the absence of ethical politics. Leaders, who are supposed to advance the cause of their people, have become their problem.
Some world leaders approximate to SWIN BURNE’S qualities of a silly angel (of the Luciferian genre.) We identify some world leaders as having:
1. Enthusiastic puerility of mind.
2. Incurable un-soundness of judgment.
3. Restless excitability of emotion.
4. Helpless inability of intelligence.
5. Consumptive a wakefulness of fancy.
6. Feverish impotence of reason.
7. A dreamily amiable uselessness.
8. A sweetly fantastic imbecility.
It can be said that in every corrupt mind, act or decision, there is:
(a) a propulsion of evil-mindedness,
(b) a vain ambition to make it big and quick,
(c) an amorous trajectory to earthly paradise,
(d) a decadent moral fibre,
(e) a robust criminal intention,
(f) an unrepentant, stiff-neck mien and Luciferian disposition to evil.
Corruption, like evil, destroys the economy. The result is mass poverty and absence of ethical life, which leads to violence and bloodshed.
The United Nations and Corruption:
International institutions, namely, The United Nations Organisation, The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have shown utmost concern for humanity.
While the United Nations Organisation has taken on the onerous task “to maintain international peace and security”1 among other global concerns, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have catered for post-Second World War reconstruction and development.
The United Nations occasionally feels frustrated by the war-mongering activities of its disunited sovereign entities. In the same vein, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund often wonder why, in spite of their efforts at providing financial assistance and at times, advice on development, the snail speed in some states’ progress remain disheartening.
Enquiries into the reasons for the slow pace of development yield evidence that among other factors, corruption at various levels and in many states, constitute immaculate impediments to “social progress and better standards in larger freedom.”2
The United Nations Organisation, which has deployed its efforts, invested its energies and has employed its “international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,”3 has realized that very often, its mobilizations often end in the wilderness as a result of hydra-headed monster, corruption.
The entire world community, which had earlier regarded the problem of corruption as “matters within the exclusive jurisdiction! of states”4 began to accept that there, was need for action to combat corruption. The UN drew inspiration from its fight against apartheid, racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance by belatedly introducing the United Nations Convention on Corruption.
On 29 September 2003, the UN Convention against Trans-national Organised Crime entered into force.
The main aim of the above-named Convention is to check or at least, minimize corrupt practices like offering bribes to any official or person. In the domain of politics, it is an offence to rig an election. Election rigging would mean that political power was obtained fraudulently. Where the facts of rigging an election are established, they constitute a breach of the relevant laws. This would engage the action of law enforcement agencies to impose penalties.
Definition of Corruption:
The difficulties often encountered by the international community in defining some concepts leave open ends for transgressors to escape judgment.
In my opinion, corruption is a societal, malignant tumour. It is a soul-destroying, spirit-humiliating and mind-afflicting malady. It operates in a conspiratorial atmosphere, in which one party (the corruptor) offers or promises to offer some material gift, inducement, bribe or any other act which mounts irresistible pressures on the other party (the corrupted), to do or refrain from performing his official duties or act in defiance of laid down official rules and practices consequent upon the gift, inducement, bribe or pressure. The proximate cause of the favourable acts must be traceable directly or indirectly to the gift, inducement, bribery or pressure. (See Articles 15 and 16 of the UN Convention)
1 . UN Charter (1945) Preamble.
2 . UN Charter, (1945), Preamble.
3 . UN Charter 1945, Preamble.
4 . See Article 2(7) UN Charter.
