PHOTO: Rev. Lewis G. McCay
GANTA, Liberia- The keynote speaker at the Liberian National Bar Association convention Rev. J. Lewis G. Mccay Lutheran Church in Liberia (LCL) in Ganta, Nimba County over the weekend launched a strong attack on corrupt officials and people in Liberia, as Reporter Garmah Never Lomo reports.
Rev. McCay said that corrupt people or officials opened their mouths wide in churches praying God give us our daily bread, but are in the constant habit of taking bread from others mouth their corrupt behavior at their respective entities.
The Lutheran Church cleric described corruption as an immoral behavior, an abuse and a destruction of God’s grace.
Rev. McCay spoke on a Theme: Corruption: A threat to Peace and Rule of Law.
The audience at the just-ended Bar convention
The Pastor of the Lutheran Church in Liberia in added corrupt people are the one whose voices can be loud in various churches when they are suppressing their workers and even taking away from them the little they are making.
Details of Rev. McCay’s message are below.
Corruption my next point.
According to Etyand, (2014), asserts, that political corruption is the abuse of entrusted power by political leaders for private gain, with the objective of seizure of state power. (Etyang, 2014). May we never forget that when people ascend to state or any institutional power through election, they do not only become
custodians of political power bequeathed to them by the electorates through popular adult suffrage but they also become the custodians of the general will. Etyang, (2014, p. 72) Therefore know the candadites well because when elected, they become the costodians of you will. If you elect the wrong person, you have yourself to blame.
Brown, (2014) asserts that political corruption takes place at the highest levels of political authority, where the politicians and political decision-makers, who are entitled to formulate, establish and implement the laws in the name of the people, are themselves [infected with Morally acquired Immuno Defficiency
Syndrome (MAIDS) consequential to their mentally unprotected social, economic and political intercourse with people of moral bankrupcy. As a result of MAIDS, the health of the nation’s soul (Emotion, intellect and will) suffers or institution loses its policy formulation and legislation are tailored to benefit politicians and legislators.
That is political corruption nursed by greed, which manipulates political institutions, rules of procedure, and distorts the institutions of government. Talking about greed, (Mahatma Gandhi) argues “The world has enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for everyone’s greed”.
Political corruption
Political corruption is the illegal, unethical and unauthorized exploitation of one’s political or official position for personal advantage.
When people are appointed into constitutional offices in total disregard of constitutional provisions, that is political corruption.
When political aspirants, financially or otherwise, induce voters to vote for them, that is an act of political corruption. When a high court or a lower court judge perverts the wheels of justice in favour of a litigant who offers a bribe, that is political corruption.
According to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, among the deformities of the democratic system, political corruption is one of the most serious because it betrays at one and the same time both moral principles and the norms of social justice. It compromises the correct functioning of the State, having a negative influence on the relationship between those who govern and the governed.
It causes a growing distrust with respect to public institutions, bringing about a progressive disaffection in the citizens with regard to politics and its representatives, with a resulting weakening of institutions.
Electoral corruption
Political corruption is the commercialization of the electoral process and it includes the purchase of votes with money, promises of office or special factors, coercion, intimidation, and interference with freedom of election.
Votes are bought, people are killed or maimed in the name of election, losers end up as the winners in elections, and votes turn up in areas where votes were not cast).
Electoral corruption involves sales of legislative votes, administrative, or judicial decisions, or governmental appointments.
Disguised payment in the form of gifts, legal fees, employment, favours to relatives, social influence, or any relationship that sacrifices the public interest and welfare, with or without the implied payment of money. It threatens the rule of law.
Rule of law.
The rule of law was established by the Magana Carta over 806 years ago on 15 June 1215 when King John granted the Magna Cartar “in the meadow called Runnymede”. That fateful year became the “year zero” in the story of the struggle for freedom from tyranny. (Dan Jones, 2015, p. 17). When the Rule of Law is threatened, we need to return to its history. As a vast expanse of the glory and struggle of a people, including personalities, events and dates, history is critical to informing us of how far we have come, our successes and failures, avoiding past mistakes and charting a new way forward.
Most importan legacy of the “Rule of Law?”
In a representative democracy, the people have all the power; the idea that the people have all the power and it protects their rights from individuals in high positions who think that the law does not apply to them. In short everyone, including the leaders, must obey the law. That is the most important leagcy of the Magana Cartar, (Dan Jones, 2015, p.17).
In a democratic society, the governemnt is the agent of the state through which the people exercise their power-the people have all the power. The rule of law protects citizen’s rights from individuals in high positions who think that the law does not apply to them and commit all manners of autrocities.
God’s Case Against His Children: saiah 1:1-18
God’s people became so sinful that God described them as worse than the ox who knows its master. Even a donkey knows where its owner feeds it, but God’s people do not know Him and do not understand.”
God’s people were loaded down with guilt, a group of children doing evil, children who are full of evil. From the sole of their feet to the top of the head, the whole head is hurt; it had no healthy spot. God’s people were covered with wounds, hurts.
God’s case against Israel included murder, economic and political corruption all of which contributed to delayed justice and therefore, justice denial. Justice delyaed is a threat to the rule of law. It fills the hearts of people with wicked scheme.
When the [judicial] sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts [feelings, will and intellect] of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong, (Ecclessiatics 8:11-NIV) This does not only treaten peace but it breaks down law and order.
The time has come for Liberians to begin to live a guilt-oriented life rather than a blame oriented life.
PEACE
In Hebrew peace is shalom. In Islam, it is Salam. We should not equate peace with absence of war but with “Salam” and shalom.” It is what every human individual should experience to its fulness with the “mind and plan of God”.
God’s plan has never been to harm people but to prosper and give them an expected end. Corruption attempts to or interfers with God’s plan for all humanity created in God’s image and likeness. God endowed the world with resources to meet the needs of all-to reflect clerarer and clearer His image in all. A nation that prides itself as being founded on Godly principles, but in which corruption is a way of life defeats that assertion that it was founded on
Godly principles. It waters down its believe in hell but also distorts understanding of God’s Divine grace. God forbid that Grace should be a liscence for corruption. Corruption threatens peace and undermines the rule of law. It is not a theory. It is a reality that must not be taken for granted. It undercuts state authority and its institutions. It leaves a weak state with potentially more space for insurgents to operate. My esteemed legal luminaries, and people of Liberia, leaders do not only feel the cost of corruption but , they also pay in the currency of losing the trust of their citizens. according to (Transparency International Deutschland e.V. February 2014)
When leaders lose the trust of their citizens, voters begin to manifest internalized new normal electoral voting lifestyle which I call, the Law of Deceptive Reciprocity.
Since politicians do not deliver on their campaign promises, voters receive funds from political parties and candidates with a knowledge of the end of paying back deception for deception. Though this politics of deception for deception puts some cash in the pockets of ordianary poor citizens, it is tempoary solution to poverty that eventually deprives the poor and vulnerable of essential services; it also leaves them to fear for the safety of their individual families and suffer daily extortion, putting a wedge between them and the institutions and politicians meant to serve them, leaving ordinary people disempowered, unable to seek justice in courts or hold politicians to account. It also sows seeds of conflict by dissolving any ties of loyalty between people and a state seemingly captured by private interests.
Corruption eats the wealth of people, and hinders investment and weakens the rule of law, leading to the unlawful enrichment of individuals, thereby causing tensions in the society and providing fertile ground for organized crime. (Elizabeth Nduku and Herbert Makinda, 2014, pp.281-282). Etyang, (2014) argues that when the judiciary falls prey to protecting the elite in power, it serves a political purpose of an inferior servant and is no longer an equal partner. (Etyang 2014, p. 77); it becomes a servant of corruption and obviously, a threat to peace and the rule of law.
In his book, Corruption And Human Rights Moral and Theological Perspectives, Mbugua, (2014) categorizes corruption into grand and petty, where Grand corruption refers to the corruption of heads of states, Ministers, and top officials and usually involves large amounts of assets; whereas “petty corruption” refers to junior officials, customs clerks, and traffic police, and generally involves relatively small amounts of assets, (Mbugua, 2014, p. 218).
I emphasize that whether grand or petty, corruption has a root in jahiliiyah/divine ignorance the number one poison of the mind which destroys destiny. No one knows this any better than the prophet, Hosea in chapter 4:6, when he asserts “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” of God. The ignorace I speak of as a number on mental poison is not ignorance of the facts or ideas; it is not ignorance of illiteracy or the inability to count; it is not ignorance of the rules of grammar, or international affairs, or psychoanalysis, or modern art. Curle, (1995) identifies this ignorance as ignorance of our nature but also dangerous because it leads to false perception, which in turn leads to behaviour causing suffering to ourselves and others. The essence of our ignorance he says is the belief that we, and everyone else are all separate and self-existent beings. In so doing, we believe that we are able to organize the external to promote and sustain what is internal-our happiness, (Adam Curle, 1995, p. 15).
We are the sum product of every influence that has played upon us since and even before our birth-genetic, and psychological, social and academic, cultural and physical, family and communal, spiritual and material. We may find it difficult to accept but please permit me to inform you that “there is no permanent I or you”.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his Birmingham Jail wrote: “In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny; whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…”
Corruption is nothing but gross insensitivity to the wholistic needs of fellow human beings,
Making corruption an act of ignorance, the most dangerious poison of the mind , which destroys destiny. Gross insensitivity to the holistic needs of fellow human beings, creates a society of unequal access to security and justice, increases inequality and divides societies, rendering whole sections of society marginalised, isolated, nposing a threat to peace and and rule of law. When inequality and injustice become the norm of life, people become more likely inclined towards lending support for change by violent means, threatening stability and peace in a country.
Corruption as a threat to peace and rule of law is rooted in jahilliyah/divine ignorance. It sin that manifests a nantion and its people’s diminished reverence for God, particularly the doctrine of heaven and hell. (Joachim, 2014, P. 353). Conclusion:
Corruption is an intentional action of breaking, destroying or disturbing what is key and central to life. It can be physical where it destroys or spoils anything especially by disintegration, or by decomposition, with its attendant unwholesomeness and loathsomeness. Morally, it is a moral deterioration or decay, perversion or destruction of integrity, in the discharge of public duties by bribery or favour, and the perversion of anything from an original state of purity, making somebody change from moral to immoral behaviour.
Corruption is rooted in jahilliyah or divine ignorance; it is a threat to peace, and rule of law because it eats the wealth of people, and hinders investment and weakens the rule of law, leading to the unlawful enrichment of individuals, thereby causing tensions in the society and providing fertile ground for organized crime.
It is introducing a new moral law in our electoral cultural. I call this new moral law the Law Deceptive Reciprocity. Since politicians do not deliver on their campaign promises, voters receive funds from political parties and candidates with a knowledge of the end of paying back Deception for Deception; hence the Politics of Deceptive Reciprocity.
The rule of law is the signle most, strong pillar a democratic nation stands on. When it falls on account of corruption, lack of access to justice, the Judiciary will have itself to blame. When the judiciary falls prey to protecting the elite in power, it serves a political purpose of an inferior servant and is no longer an equal partner. (Etyang 2014, p. 77); it becomes a servant of corruption and obviously, a threat to peace and the rule of law. Typologically, lawyers play the role of the Holy Spirit before th Chief Justice who represnts God in His judgement seat.