Forget poverty! Corruption and misuse of power begin from school!

To Xerox Shakespeare, ‘some are born corrupt, others achieve corruption and some have corruption thrust upon them’


to most people, poverty is the number one cause of corruption and misuse of power, man’s underlying selfish desire to rise above the poverty he was born into and leave others there is blamed most on poverty, a man who rises from rugs to riches wants to devour everything that poverty had denied him, while preventing others from leaving the rugs altogether, he deprives them of the resources that would have helped them out of the rugs. But forget poverty! Corruption and misuse of misuse of power begin from school.
One man said ‘you become a corrupt citizen of this country, from the day your parent starts bribing you in the morning with money to go to school in kindergarten, from that time, a child grows up knowing, that any favour bestowed upon any one must be paid for. Of course a child going to school at that time is a favour to you the parent. And this child grows into an admirable citizen of this country, respectable in all walks, but corrupt from childhood. However this corruption and abuse of power is not natured by the money used to bribe kids to go to school in the morning. It is natured in schools, here gross misuse of power and corruption are ignored by the school authorities some even participate.
For instance the bigger boys in school who should at least channel there enormous energies into looking after the small boys, instead channel there energies in to bullying the young boys, now such a person who takes advantage of someone’s weakness gets a job as a manager, why wouldn’t that person be slapping workers, left right and centre, just because he knows they are desperate to keep there jobs so wont do anything.
Lets take another example of club presidents in schools, when there is a trip out of school, the club president will demote himself to club treasurer, he will decide who he wants to go with, those who desperately want to go will pay a higher fee than the one which was announced that they must pay., when it comes to time for elections with in the clubs, the democratic process is deeply flawed, in one of the elite schools, a club president rejected all the people who had applied for his post, just to make sure his brother replaced him as club president in this case there is corruption, where a club president charges different fees for a trip and misuse of power when he uses his position to make sure his brother replaces him as club president. It’s even worse in primary schools where teachers appoint every one but deceive the kids that they have elected them. How about if that club president became chairman electoral commission
How about prefects in secondary schools, who even have powers to Cain fellow students isn’t that abuse of power and they can Cain them for any reason as long as they think it is a reason , you can even Cain some one if you hate them. Some of these guys are not even elected anyway! in most schools, there is what is called a screening panel, this group of teachers deceives students that they consider discipline and academic performance to stop some students from competing for prefectship but it is here that teachers who have personal grudges with students settle them by removing these students, teachers who are afraid there favorite students might not be elected if it went to the ballot, make sure the opponents never make it to the final list leaving there favorite students unopposed, at the end of the day you have a list of unopposed prefects and three posts go to the vote and you wonder what the world is getting to when even the Head prefect is unopposed, just imagine the president being unopposed in a democratic country!
School administrators who forget they are holding public offices. They treat them like small principalities and themselves as small princes, talking arrogantly to parents, forgetting they are stake holders in these schools. These administrators usually forget the humbling power of a transfer, till it hits them that they have been taken to a school in a rural area.
Now if this is going on in these schools which produce the elites, that lead the country in all sectors, what will the country come to? This unchecked corruption and gross misuse of power, where a president in a club appoints his brother to replace him. and he doesn’t account for the funds used in his term of office, where teachers suffocate the democratic process, where school administrators misuse public offices, this habit embeds itself in people’s way of life and keeps its place there even when they join the army, police, URA, NGOS , politics and the rest as they are ranked in this country.
The breeding place for the corrupt and power abusers is school, democratizing schools will go a long way in ridding this country of corruption, this disease that has eaten up our society and is straining the development process, this burden that strangles our people, but unlike a burden, corruption and abuse of power were just born and will have to die at any one time