The Corruption Tango (Part 3 The Temptation of Black Gold)
Part 3 of The Corruption Tango (see previously)
III. The Temptation of Black Gold
Meanwhile, this century has seen a number of elections in Nigeria
Our West African brethren, branded poster child for chaos and disorder
And the conventional wisdom from, say, The Economist was hardly honorable
Sample headline: Nigeria's elections - Big men, big fraud and big trouble
Home of the hustle, the country is continually in the headlines
Tales of shenanigans galore and the entrenched climate of the 419
You'll read things like "rotten at the core", fodder for scoundrels
But doesn't that also describe the options backdating scandal?
Western media hardly covers the good news in the darkest continent
Would that they would apply the same scrutiny to shell games on their end
I actually think it's miraculous for such a large country to keep moving
And even take more than baby steps after decades of misrule and killing
Everyone wants things to move fast,
corruption is surely a tax on the common man
But every complex ecosystem has parasites,
that shouldn't be hard to understand
So there will always be the temptation of black gold
It's human nature, a golden target will never get old
Then there are stories like "Saudi prince received arms cash"
That focus on the recipient, the venal prince with the stash
And not on the British multinational arms company
That so happily disbursed those fistfuls of golden money
Observers are worried, how doth the little crocodile?
It seems as if many prefer to affect denial
There seems to be something rather structural at hand
For perverse incentives, seem to be part of the plan
It doesn't seem to matter that the shadow looms of the regulator
The threat of enforcement actions and severe sanctions hardly matter
High profile companies are unbothered
by the specter of the compliance officer
Ignored, and written off, with a touch of sleaze
and the workings of the human factor
Or, more formally, the temptations are an inherent part of the process
In this light, bribery is viewed as part of the cost of doing business
There are two sides to this social disease, it just goes to show
That it takes two to do the corruption tango
Black Gold, a playlist
A soundtrack for this note(spotify version)
- I am the black gold of the sun by Rotary Connection
- Black gold by Gene Harris and the Three Sounds
- Black gold by Flying Lotus
- Black gold by Esperanza Spalding
- I am the black gold of the sun by Nuyorican Soul
- Filthy McNasty by Horace Silver
See also: The Corruption Tango: A Playlist
The Corruption Tango
A dance in four movements. I nominate this internal displacement for The Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.
Next: Part 4 The World's Lawyer
File under: corruption, culture, observation, perception, humour, USA, rogues, oil, Black Gold, gremlins, parasites, interplay, capitalism, poetry, economics, regulation, Fallen Angels, Africa, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli
Writing log. Concept: July 7, 2005; March 10, 2021
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