Frank Buchman once wrote: I thought of those six men back in Philadelphia who I felt had wronged me. They probably had, but I'd got so mixed up in the wrong that I was the seventh wrong man.
Frank Buchman once wrote: I thought of those six men back in Philadelphia who I felt had wronged me. They probably had, but I'd got so mixed up in the wrong that I was the seventh wrong man.
The first time I read Buchman, it must have been in my primary school and coming across it the second time, putting some of the things he’s written in proper perspective left me thinking whether he had Nigeria in mind. The reality in Nigeria today reflects a society that has lived so long in denial of its own guilt, of its hand in the wrong that had been done and is still being done, sure it is a victim but also as a permanent part of the mess. To the Nigerian masses caught in the middle of crippling hardships induced by corrupt leadership survival becomes an instinctive tool. Instinct is a spontaneous reaction, a preprogrammed piece of thought the sort that comes to mind when faced with an overwhelming situation and there is nothing else to think. The Nigeria many grew up longing for is nowhere near the monster that stares back at us. Isn’t Nigeria more like Soyinka’s poem Abiku, like an angry vengeful Hindu god Shiva out to consume and destroy? Do we not speak of Nigeria like it is an empty shell, like some distant farmyard, like a flightless bird that torments the corners of a market but is it any of these things? Is Nigeria not every one of us that has ever had a sip off its saggy breasts, had a drop of its blood run through their generations, anyone who has drunk its wines, ate its fruits, slept with its curvy daughters, of those that have reaped where they did not toil. Yes of all the people white, black, red, yellow who have had a drop of oil off its soil fatten their lives, of ghost workers and ghost pensioners, coup plotters and assassins, losers and winners, of the best and the worst, the thief and the victim. Nigeria is a people rather than some lifeless picture hanging off a wall staring back at you with a hollow expression on its frozen face. Someone once made a crude joke about Nigeria as a larger picture of late Ibadan bloodhound Adedibu but on a grander scale. While Nigerians thought the discovery of oil in the country in the late 50s would change things in the country for the better 54 years later there is no sign of even the most basic of structures to stimulate the kind of social progression that was imagined but in its place towers a depressing social regression a potent witness to years of horrific wastefulness institutionalized by impotent retarded leadership. This sniveling, snoring giant often comes off as a powerful jigsaw with all the important parts missing.
The picture Nigeria evokes is frightening: Indulgent leadership suffering from malignant Aso rock syndrome, an over sized political class that cuts a raw sublime symbol of kleptomania, corrupt feudal elites, greedy middle class, long suffering deprived citizens forced to live in denial of reality, detached uninterested populace that blames others for everything including their own failings, a society obsessed with wealth, rigid ancient culture that detests genuine progress, a deceptive religious class that exploits an ignorant majority, and a dictatorial family structure that refuses to upgrade to the present.
There is not a shred of doubt the huge social and economic mess in Nigeria is a result of decades of reckless, wasteful leadership yet what we do not seem to realize is how culpable we all are in sustaining the mess. There is this feeling that is hard to suppress about Nigeria being some kind of market where everybody is just bent of stealing from the guy next door. Just try to imagine living in a street where everybody is a thief. You go out hold up a grocery shop in your street, get the loot back to the house. You go out again to stake out someone else. You leave your house unaware the guy living a few yards down the road has been staking you out too. He walks to your house finds his way in and then cleans up everything inside. While he was at yours the woman from the end of the street goes to his block and dismantles everything in sight. While she was at his, the pensioner who lives close by signals his group to kidnap one of the woman’s sons. The ransom demand turns out to be higher than what she’s made from the other guy’s house. And the old man turns round to discover someone has robbed him of his wallet with all the cash from his last pension in it. It is just a fruitless circle and we are all involved
A friend of mine once returned to Nigeria to get married in a civil ceremony. He had followed through the marriage requirements to the letter. He paid the fees he was asked to pay at the court registry. He met all that was expected of him as a good citizen only for him to discover half of the money he paid did reflect in the official receipt issued to him. When he asked the lady at the marriage registry, she told him ‘The Registrar knows about it’. Finding it difficult to believe, he insisted on seeing the registrar to find out why part of the money had not made it to the receipt. The marriage registrar told him that all the top guys at the registry had a cut in whatever extra that is added. He was still protesting about the receipts and right in front of him senior officers poured into the registrar’s office to demand for their own cut. While he was yet to justify why a civil servant paid to do a job would want to inflate services offered to the public for private gain the marriage registry issued him a list of expensive drinks, snacks, toiletries and other items he must provide before he would be allowed to get married at the registry. He was told the list must be met and items painstakingly checked against the list before the ceremony could proceed. When he enquired if the list was official, the registrar said it wasn’t but it was ‘the right’ of the workers at the registry. The fact this sort of fraud goes on in the judicial arm of Imo state government leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
This mentality of a market where everybody is a thief is not confined to any single activity in Nigeria, nor to a place or state or to any particular profession. Everybody and everything is involved. From Lagos to Langtang, Mubi to Mangu, Anyamgba to Awka, Onitsha to Okitipupa, Sapele to Suleja the story is the same. It is just present in about everything and everybody is involved. Do we talk of the local shop owner who charges more rent than the shopkeeper could ever make in profits, the university worker who expects to be gratified before transcripts could be processed: tasks he has been employed and paid to do, a lecturer who demands sex and cash before a student is awarded grades that individual rightly merits, the student who passes an exam through hired hands, what about a boss in an office that keeps harassing a junior female worker for sex before a promotion or other matters of interest gets the attention deserved, the local council that charges market women exorbitant fees daily to trade on the streets but sends out its thugs to smash their wares long after they had paid up or a head of a government department who sits on a matter of great benefit to the public just because there is no immediate personal gain. Do I need to talk about the police and the legendary checkpoint toll, the brutal murder of rival lovers, of innocent civilians who stand up to their rights or anybody they perceive as a threat real or imagined. What about the trader who measures out grain with a cup, bowl or tin that has been adjusted to cheat the unsuspecting customer yet goes on to charge the full price? What of hospitals built to save lives many of which would rather get cash payment first before attending to a patient no matter how critical their condition require medical attention. Should it not be save life first and ask for payment later? Is the civil service, the police, judiciary, universities, hospitals, markets, shop owners, businesses, churches and mosques in any way better than the crooks inside Aso rock and state government houses?
A female student of Imo state university once narrated to her friends how a married lecturer in the drama department had begged her inside his office to let him fondle and suck on her breasts. Even though she talked him out of it she had laughed it off with her friends. The fact Nigerians rarely react to corrupt exploitation whether by elected representatives, family, friends, strangers or public institutions creates the wrong impression that crime pays. Corruption in Nigeria as it stands has been transformed to a national business it is no longer the exclusive profession of politicians and a few business people. Everyone is getting in on the act. Everyone is everyone’s prey these days not even Abuja politicians with all their shiny SUVs and a coterie of armed thugs in uniform are safe from the market of thieves. They rob the people in Abuja and they get robbed in their constituencies, if the people can’t get them in Abuja then someone else closer to them becomes a prey. The rules of the game have changed. The rot is expanding. The spot we thought was a sore has become a malignant tumor.
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