Tagged A Thief In Your Old Age
By
Farouk Martins Aresa
It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and there is nothing more precious than a good name. This is still true in Nigeria in spite of all these old men and women disgracing their family names when they should have been enjoying their retirement in glamorous and humanitarian pursuits. It is even more painful when the names of honest people, judge or police who decide to go after rogues are lumped together with victims to confuse us.
There was a recent case when the police charged the owner of a company for defrauding his own firm and his former employees. The accuser was the former employee whom the owner had fired for embezzling the company’s money. All it takes to destroy a solid reputation is a criminal charge before a judge presented by the police. Can anyone buy Nigerian police to achieve personal vendetta against his boss? Even if you are acquitted after the fact, you have to search for infinite market to get all your reputation back.
As Nigerians are now focused on making an appreciable dent on corruption, some people will be dragged along as victims. The reason due process of the law is so powerful and attractive is to prevent jungle justice where both guilty and innocent victims are lumped together making it impossible to detect ulterior motives. Sometimes, I find it difficult to explain the involvement of some highly respected people in the rat race for money.
My fear is that we are turning the war against corruption into a joke if God fearing men and women are scared to turn into whistle blower, into conscientious informers and into vigorous enforcer of the rule of law for the fear of loosing everything they have. The most precious of which is their good names. It is not everyone that wants to die on the cross for all the sins of Nigeria and we can not expect only those few to clean up the type of mess we have had in the Country up to today.
Someone said the reason he kept working in his old age is that he was too chicken to steal and too weak to spend time in jail; while armed robbers say they will rather die faster in a hail of police bullets than die slowly of hunger. There is a wide spread of sins against humanity, poverty and injustice in the land, no doubt. We see those who are privileged to be in power and how they abuse their positions to steal money with the approval of their close ones based on blind loyalties. Many of us actually believe that government money is nobody’s money and only a fool will not steal when granted the opportunity to serve.
When our young men and women see those who should instill discipline and etiquette in their conscious mind, not leading by example, get involved in thievery, who is going to condemn their smuggling of illegal drugs or their participation in 419 or who is going to be the conscience of the community? Not the granny who became a drug courier.
There used to be certain professions and status in life that paid very little money but still inspire young people like teachers, midwives and artists. Not anymore? There has to be a way of restoring our dignity back to old virtues. Politicians in other countries promised tuition waivers for those who wanted to serve people’s needs in building roads and houses in the villages, rural health, teaching, restoring the lure of agriculture; beyond NYSC. Rather than bestow few of our highest honors on rogues, it may be about time some of these honors were reserved to propagate goodwill for young people who served exceptionally. Nobody has all the solution, our individual contribution is a start.
As the war on corruption lingers on, some cynical Nigerians are deftly looking for ways to blackmail fighters to the point where it has become difficult to distinguish crusaders from crooks. If fighters are accused of asking for bribes, enriching themselves and usurping behaviors that are unbecoming of a saint, Nigerians are right to wonder who is chasing whom. We are now wondering if the election tribunals that are set up to right one of the most corrupt elections in years are getting it right on. Maybe we cheer if the tribunal favors us and jeer if tribunal goes against our expectation.
Many countries have respected retired statesmen and women who are called upon when the country is in trouble and needs nudging and steering to the right path. In our Country, many are men that are divisive, contract chasers of any government in power who prefer status of political godfathers. They can not take a stand without any suspicion of what they have at stake but we still look up to them hoping they’ve had enough. Indeed, some of them lamented they never had the same amount of cash their followers into office did.
Nigeria is a very complex society. Our young people have to learn that they may be like orphans or children with a single parent that may have to reach within to find wisdom and determination to change the Country. Luckily we have young men and women who are up to this task. I see them inside and outside the Country where they have nobody and still pull themselves up by their bootstraps. For each of those outside, there are many more inside that have to seize the mantle from those who steal into their graves.
You are lucky with your parents if they are not known beyond your villages, towns and our Country for some sleazy reasons. Those parents still command our respect, deserve our love and devotion for honestly struggling to provide for us, all they could. Those are the role models in our lives who inspired us and we are never short of that in Nigeria. When we grow up, we want to pay them back in a big way.
Nigeria is going through a rough soul searching period out of which a raw iron ore turns into beautiful steel. But it has to be in our life time, not in the future after the rogues have had their fill promising us heaven and earth. Their ten, 20, 30 or 50 year development plan hardly bear fruits. It has to be sooner than later since full bellies can not tell hungry bellies to take heed.
We can not go by the stock exchange in Nigeria to measure progress since we do not know what substance its growth rely on as the highest returns in the world. If your next door neighbor can eat three times a day without borrowing a can of garri, your close and distance relatives do not catch you at home before you leave for work and you do not leave for work too early before your wife and children wake up to ask you for money, then Nigeria has come to be.