The Bane of Corruption and it's Negative Effect on the Commoners on Prof. M.V. Sylvester 's The Cabals

THE BANE OF CORRUPTION AND IT'S NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THE COMMONERS ON PROF. M.V. SYLVESTER'S THE CABALS

                  By Lene Ododomu

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The Award Winning Writer and erudite  Professor of Literature, Prof. Mnguember Vicky Sylvester was born in Mkar, Gboko, though from Adikpo, Kwande LGA of Benue state. She grew up in Jos Plateau state, then Benue Plateau. She had her primary, secondary schools in Jos and graduated at the university of Jos with a B.A. English. She served her youth service at Radio Oyo Ibadan and after working as a journalist for 3 years, a

masters degree in Literature at Bayero university Kano with researches at the London school of Oriental and African

studies. She returned to Jos for a PhD in African Literature and left for Abuja in 1995 where she has been teaching to date for over 23 years. Apart from academic publications, she has published a novel, collection of short stories which includes The Cabals and Other Short Stories, a book of poetry, drama and biography. She has 14 edited books and journals and a book of readings in her honor.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: In the words of our eminent African novelist and father of modern African literature, Prof. Chinua Achebe: The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmark of true leadership (The Trouble With Nigeria, 1). 

To also review these set of leaders while critically examining The Cabals, a book of short stories-The Cabals and the Naked Dance by Prof. Vicky Sylvester, they are not just those in the high authority but it may also be their servants like secretaries who are assigned to enable people to have an handshake with them but conditioned the people to bribe them before giving them the opportunity, and the award winning writer, Prof. Vicky refers to them as The Cabals, "My mom had long concluded that government was the place where cabals were groomed, from clerks to directors. Watch the eyes of the messenger who took your file to the next room and the clerk who had told you for days the file could not be found till you understood his body language, my mother would say. Then the man who would take the file to the director would surely demand half of your annual earnings if you were trying to get a house allocation and the director who recommended a house for the minister's approval?", (pp 114) of The Cabals and the Naked Dance.

Yes, as ludicrous as it may have appeared to most of us, President Jonathan was  absolutely right when he said corruption is not synonymous with stealing. Stealing, which is covered by the Theft Act, is to just take what does not belong to you whereas corruption requires the cooperation of another party to give you an unfair advantage, for you to make a gain of some kind. Of course, that willing party more often than not is motivated to cooperative because of what he too stands to gain. This could be in the form of a bribe, a kickback or another form of unjustifiable benefit as it is reveals on The Cabals and this is because there is no any other way apart from dancing to the tune of the drum and this affect the commoners who don't know how to dance it. It may all sound like semantics but that is just the way it is.

The award winning writer, Prof. Vicky Sylvester made it possible for us to understand as she highlighted in her book of short stories-The Cabals and the Naked Dance that Nigeria of today has spoiled to the extend that you cannot get the taste of what you want without bribing a government official. But this has becomes a bane in the country and it reveals the negative effects on how it affect the commoners who don't have to get what they want while maybe competing with Senators' children.

To know the root of the problem or how Africans  contacted the disease of corruption, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o helped immensely by telling us the origin of corruption in Africa in his novel and one of our centuries great novels Tribune "Devil on the Cross." Ngugi told us that Africans wanted a freedom from the British who controlled them as a colony. They chase them away in a form of Independence just like this saying "Ghana Must Go",

"She saw first the Darkness, 

carved open at one side to reclveal

a cross, which hung in the air. Then

she saw a crowd of people dressed

in rags walking in the light, propelling

the Devil towards the Cross. The 

Devil was clad in a silk suit, and he

carried a walking stick shaped

like a folded umbrella," (pp 13).

The Africans started jubilating after they successfully crucified the British on the Cross but some of them still went to them and begged to borrow their clothes and then show to their own people to worship them in the same way they were worshipping the British,

"And there and then the people crucified the Devil on the Cross, and they went away singing songs of victory. After three days, there came others dressed in suits and ties, who , keeping close to the wall of darkness, lifted the Devil down from the Cross. And they knelt before him, and they prayed to him in loud voices, beseeching him to give them a portion of his robes of cunning. And their bellies began to swell, and they stood up, and they walked toward Warringa, laughing at her, stroking their large bellies, which had now inherited all the evils of this world", (pp 13-14).

In this, Ngugi made us to understand that they copied the British's mentality and started using it on their own people unfairly and that was when it started that a lady cannot get a job without undergoing a condition by sleeping with the boss, and this gave birth to the theme of disillusionment through neo-colonialism in Africa.  Prof. Vicky is just like The Lord Jesus Christ who came to finish the works of God and by this we are referring to the living Oracle, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o who conceptualized the thesis of knowing the origin of corruption. She reveals in The Cabals of how those mentalities copied from the British negatively affect the commoners (for instance a student will bribe a school before be granted admission but one who doesn't have will stay at for many years) and she used one of her characters to portray this account in the story.

How possible will it be for a commoner to get fair justice in the court of law if he or she doesn't have the connection or money to afford the bribe? It has happened just recently in Osun state that Senator Ademola J. Adeleke won the just concluded Osun state governorship election but because the APC are the ones in power the cabals in the Temple of Justice perverted the judgement to favour the APC. Where a cabal thrives, mistrust spreads like a cancer. Their presence places political spokespersons in very difficult situations and can seriously hamper their performance, effectiveness and public perceptions. This situation confers sinister implication to every action or events. Another  example is the overturning of Imo State’s gubernatorial election result by the Supreme Court of Nigeria. A panel of seven judges made that decision, but while the nation waits to hear the reasoning behind the disruptive decision, the stories in town are that a cabal is at work, pushing an agenda that is a prelude to something more ominous. This is one reason why no one needs a cabal in the corridors of power. Another instance is, a guilty man man is a right man before the police so far he can bribe and demand them to pervert justice in his favour and the one who was right from the beginning will suffer the pain because of not feeding the gods. A good example could be cited from the story, "It happened once when she took a tenant to the police. The tenant gave someone money and mom was destined on a bench for disturbance of peace till the next morning when a friend, the commissioner of police showed up", (pp 116). Through this example we could tell that what made the victim to retain  her right after been claimed by another who was the culprit was because she had the connection but a commoner who does not have that connection cannot be freed from that pain.

SYNOPSIS OF THE STORY: The Cabals is a short story written by the award winning writer, Prof. Vicky Sylvester who has known as prowess in her writing. The story is a raw experience of the writer and it was taken from the theme of disillusionment in the contemporary Nigeria whereby it basically talks about the problem which is majorly on corruption. Corruption is found in every sector of the Nigerian economy to the hypocrisy of religious leaders, political aspect etc according to the story. 

However, the story started with how the family of the narrator who seems to be the principal character faced the challenge of light issues in their compound and this also became a general problem that involves the whole country. According to the story, there was a case of alleged N200 billion fraud that involves the people in the electricity supply and a committee was set up to investigate it. The story then reveals that Nigeria is the head of electricity supply to some countries whereby it supplies countries like Ghana and Benin but these countries have steady light but the country that does the supply is facing a short of electricity supply and this happens almost everyday,

"Did I not hear we supply the same Benin and Ghana electricity? Why do they have steady distribution?" (pp 124).

But the story in that account reveals that those countries that have steady electricity don't have corrupt people who hijacked the money meant to maintain the light.

Also, the story dwells on every economical aspect of Nigeria. It first reveals the experience of the principal character who saw her mother bribing an immigration officer to get a first class flight ticket and this means that you cannot get what you want without feeding the gods. The story also portrays the Nigeria political system whereby a political leader aims to occupy political office and embezzle public funds.

CHARACTERS: They are the imaginary people a writer create in his work. The characters in the story, The Cabals are well handled and the most interesting part is that the writer uniquely used a particular character to enable us know the fact that there are people who can get what they want because they have the connection and also there are people who don't have to get what they want because they can't afford demand of the cabals and they suffer the pain. This could be known by examining the mother of the principal character.

THE STYLE: In literature, style is the particular way, pattern or design in which a work is written and this includes the following elements:

i )  language or diction

ii) tone

III) structure

However, like EFCC trying to detect the source of income of a politician but failed to detect anything, we tried all we could to bring out fault on the use of language but the more we read and the more we are subdued with interest of the use of language. Therefore, the language is simple and accessible to the audience. The writer used the high style which is simple to comprend. The predominant attitude of the writer towards the subject and the audience is understandable. The story started by introducing the tone of dismay over the lack of electricity supply and many others by the principal character who said her mom wanted to iron a cloth but couldn't get light expect she on gen or take the cloth to laundry man.Then the end  of the story raised an action by involving great people like Wale Omotoso, Kene Okigbo, Mustapha Zungur, Ben Hager, Wogu Saro Wiwa and Simon Ijayi who are fearless to express their anger in writing to seek for justice. Also, the structure of the story is logically developed because both the paragraphing and sentence structure are skillfully done and intriguing to read by any reader.

THE POINT OF VIEW: The narrative technique or point of view used in the story is  first person narrative and the writer  built a rapport with readers by sharing a personal story directly with them . It is personal because everything in the story talks about the raw experience of the writer. Bringing the reader in close like this makes a story and storyteller credible.

THE SETTING: The setting is Nigeria and the way it is built is understandable.