As for why the corruption, all the obvious reasons: a) the
country's made up
of a zillion different historically hostile tribes arbitrarily thrown together as a
country by the Brits; b) life is short, there are few official safety nets (e.g., unemployment insurance, pensions), so there are few moral qualms about taking care
of your own, no matter what; c) there's not yet any sort
of history
of democracy,
of regulation
of profiteering — this is a very young, very capitalist
country; d) the
outside world and all its wealth provides tremendous incentives for corruption — the amount and indiscriminate nature
of foreign aid, the fact that the amount
of money that would eventually be paid for, say, a rhino horn dagger will trickle down to paying the poacher enough money to cover his kids» school fees for years; e) the fact that the west encourages the illicitly
wealthy in the developing world to hide their loot in western institutions (e.g., Swiss banks).