Not fighting corruption: From rhetoric to silence in Sri Lanka

Introduction: A borrowed warning

- By Dr. Jayalath Bandara Adikarige

When former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi OkonjoIweala published Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines, she offered not a slogan but a record of political struggle. [1] At the launch of her book in 2018, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame paused after hearing her account of reform and retaliation. He advised her:

"You should write another book. Not fighting corruption is even more dangerous." [1]

Kagame was not offering a rhetorical flourish.

His warning emerged from a state torn apart and rebuilt: corruption destroys, but refusing to confront corruption is fatal. Institutions do not collapse because politicians make mistakes; they collapse when those charged with defending the public interest choose silence.

Kagame's remark was more than an endorsement. It came from a Head of State who confronted impunity directly: corruption breeds a second-order danger - the metastasis of unchecked power which corrodes the social contract on which state legitimacy rests.

This insight is neither obscure nor novel. Transparency International notes corruption "erodes trust, fuels inequality, and undermines democracy." The IMF warns it "corrodes the social contract and weakens state credibility." UNODC states corruption "undermines public institutions and threatens social stability."

These are operational conclusions, not academic slogans.

Years later, Sri Lanka heard a similar sentiment at the 80th UN General Assembly. The President presented the failure to fight corruption as a uniquely Sri Lankan insight - celebrated domestically as if conceived in Colombo rather than articulated six years earlier in Kigali. The lack of acknowledgement matters not because of etiquette but because it signals a deeper problem: borrowing the moral vocabulary of reform while refusing to practise reform itself. Anti-corruption becomes performance when treated as branding rather than obligation.