It Takes Patience to Fight Corruption
Uche Modum MS '79

Before, people might not have realized that something was corruption. They might have regarded it as lobbying, just as the word 'lobbying' is used in developed economies like the United States," observed Uche Modum.

Along with her colleagues on Nigeria's Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC), Modum has been working to change that mindset. Since 2000, the ICPC has been pursuing a three-pronged fight against corruption. It investigates charges of bribery and related practices and, when it finds sufficient evidence, prosecutes the cases in court. It suggests how government agencies can change regulations and procedures to reduce the likelihood that people will offer or accept bribes. It also wages educational campaigns to raise consciousness about corruption and to enlist public support.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo declared war on corruption when he took office in 1999, and the country's legislature created the ICPC in 2000.

"One day, I got notification that I was invited to join," Modum said. "When I understood what this job was about, I said to my husband, 'I don't want to do this.'" The work paid about the same as her position as professor of management information systems at the University of Nigeria's Enugu Campus, and it carried serious risks. Modum's life could be in danger if people under the commission's lens resorted to violence to stop the investigations.

It was a far cry from her usual work, teaching courses on computer science and the application of information technology to business. Modum also served as head of the university's accounting department for six years and as dean of faculty for business administration for two years.

Modum's husband, a professor of foreign languages, encouraged her to accept the job, and in the end she agreed. "It was an opportunity to help improve society, to be a driving force," she said.

As in many other countries, corruption in Nigeria includes petty bribes that lower-level government employees exact to supplement meager salaries. It also includes large-scale payments that foreign companies make to gain contracts and other favors. "Those are the big killers that ruin the economy and impoverish the masses," Modum said.

Modum took a leave of absence from teaching to join the commission for a four-year, renewable term. Her colleagues on the ICPC include professionals from government, law enforcement, the legal profession and academia.

Since it was formed, the commission has prosecuted more than 40 cases, although it has been difficult to bring them to conclusion, Modum said. Its first case, brought against an insurance company executive in 2001, is still in progress. Activity stalled when the defendant's attorneys claimed that under Nigeria's constitution, the ICPC should not have been formed at all. The case dragged on for almost two years, until the Nigerian Supreme Court finally ruled that the commission was indeed constitutional. "Once we got that decision, they went back to the Supreme Court to dispute other things," she said.

Educating the public about a practice so ingrained in daily life is a slow process. Often, it's easier to give a small bribe to smooth the rough spots in life than to protest. To help the cause, "civil society can lower its tolerance level,"refusing to give bribes and reporting corruption when it occurs, Modum said. "If we collectively say no, if we accept that we have to change the system, the battle is halfway done." The ICPC spreads the word through print and electronic media, in workshops and, soon, through a curriculum it has developed for schools.

"To fight this monster requires a lot of patience, "Modum pointed out. "We believe we are laying a good foundation. People are becoming aware of the ills of corruption."

Patience and tenacity have long been part of Modum's character. As a graduate student at Binghamton, she once spent all night in a computer lab trying to figure out why the program she had written, due the next morning, was producing no output, although no error messages appeared. "I took it to my lecturers. I took it to fellow students. No one could find an error," she recalled.

"I was determined not to go to my room until I had solved this," Modum said. Finally, she started searching the program character by character. "It was just a hyphen -- an operator in APL language. As soon as I typed in the hyphen, voila! My output came out." About that time, the sun rose. Modum ran back to her dorm, showered, put on fresh clothes and headed to class to turn in her assignment.

It takes much more than one night to change the habits of a country of 230 million, and Modum said the job is often frustrating. But it's satisfying as well. "It is the satisfaction that, number one, you are recognized as someone who has a clean enough slate to do the work. Two, it gives me personal joy that I'm part of an organization that is trying to clean the system."

-- Merrill Oliver Douglas, MA '82