Perhaps If We Asked Whence Came the Riches

Perhaps If We Asked Whence Came the Riches

Chidera Michaels, Ph.D.

Perhaps expecting altruistic devotion to tasks of governance by the present crop of Nigerian politicians, as most politicians in Western countries of the world do, is akin to expecting young lambs pushed into a pen inhabited by lions to still be whole minutes after. This piece is not about bemoaning our lot in the hands of Nigeria’s thieving politicians. Almost every writer in a newspaper or magazine had written on that topic. Rather what this piece will discuss is the need for Nigerians to reinvent the wheel (as it would seem), by re-growing moral rectitude themselves in order to be able to isolate the thieving politicians – and then weed them out. Nigerians will do this by stopping their present (difficult to understand) adoring recognition-cum-worship of these common thieves mischaracterized as politicians. The exasperatingly adoring attitude of Nigerians toward the thieving politicians is the reason these corrupt politicians’ unquenchable appetite for looting the public treasury has reached the level where Nigeria’s government exists only for the funding of corruption and recurrent expenditures.

Nigerians have no other option if they want to reclaim their country – they must isolate and extinguish thievery-in-government from their body politic. And in order to isolate and crush treasury looting in the name of politics, Nigerians must encourage and enthrone morality in every work of life. The choice is clear – Nigerians either re-grow moral fibers in order to be able to look themselves in the face in the mirror, which will in turn enable them to make pariahs out of these political thieves (and in short order weed them out during elections), or this nation, as Nigerians know it will implode from within in the very near future. The signs are already there: anarchical behaviors are rampant – the 40% to 50% unemployment among the youths (forget the 20% to 30% unemployment bandied by some with self-serving motives), the kidnappings, the Niger Delta unrest, the Boko Haram sprees, the collapsed economy, the dilapidated roads, the unspeakably high crime rate, the governments trusted by no one (not even by those that work in it), you name it. And since it seems that it is only people who are outside Nigeria that are able to see Nigeria clearly in the despicable state in which it is in, more Nigerians in Diaspora are deciding to settle down finally in their countries of abode. But these are the people we need to help turn things around. It is not because they are the messiahs we are waiting for. The hope is that since they’ve lived where politicians behave a little better, they know what is possible. Most Nigerians who live inside Nigeria this writer have spoken to don’t really know what obtains elsewhere other than what they see going on in Nigeria.

Perhaps the most effective deterrence to the thieving politicians’ habits is a resolution by Nigerians to deny them the adoration that they crave, given that the courts and the graft-fighting bodies either do not have the guts to stop these politicians or because the courts’ and the graft-fighting bodies’ own hands are also deeply immersed in the cookie jars to be of any help to the rest of us. The disheartening reality is that unless Nigerians grow moral fibers, and pretty quickly too, by starting to treat these thieving politicians with disdain, the Nigerian state that is on the verge of collapse, will crumble and crush millions of Nigerians on her way down.

For how do Nigerians realistically expect these men and women, most of whom are known criminals in their civilian lives, to be transformed into civic-minded citizens when the keys of the treasury are handed to them? Why do we suppose that they kill, maim, and pillage in order to get into government? Did we expect them to turn into Mandelas when they get sworn into office?

The open secret is that the only viable industry in Nigeria is politics. There is nothing else going on. The disheartening part is that the thieving politicians (in whatever garb they come in – khaki or agbada) made sure that politics is the only thing happening. The other day, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said while she was being screened that recurrent expenditure gulps 74% of government’s yearly expenditure, leaving the paltry remainder to capital projects like roads that the economy needs to start churning over again; like repairing the refineries so we don’t have to import gasoline from other countries; and like ensuring steady supply of electricity to kick-start the decimated economy. But what Dr. Okonjo-Iweala didn’t say (or didn’t need to say) was that the little quota allocated to capital projects in the yearly budget is also divided up and embezzled by these thieving politicians.

To its credit, the Nigerian media and Nigerians in Diaspora have been screaming about these thieving politicians for a while now. But their screams have been falling on deaf ears. Screaming and shouting themselves hoarse that the thieving politicians are robbing us blind does not work; it has not worked thus far. Maybe, instead of the Nigerian media criticizing the politicians on one hand and cuddling them on the other hand, the media should first stop praising these common thieves with their glowing lies about them, and also stop giving the thieving politicians those awards and recognitions. The Nigerian media should instead start educating Nigerians on how to stop deferring to and conferring chieftaincy titles on the thieving politicians as these thieves profligately splash their ill-gotten wealth about. Nigerians need to be taught how to deal with these politicians – to treat them as the thieves that they are. I do not advocate that the politicians should be killed or that their property should be subjected to arson. Rather, I advocate that we ignore them; that we ignore their existence. We may no longer effectively ostracize them as were done in the time of old because they may be able to get around ostracism these days with the aid of modern conveniences. But we can hold them in disdain and ignore them.

I can hear you saying, “Is that all; just ignore them?” Yes, that is more than enough. Just ignoring them would send them to the nuthouses or to their early graves. These thieving politicians are like cancer. They need the adoration of the crowd (like cancer needs healthy cells) to flourish. Give them a year or two, and most of them will shrivel up and die and the rest will either suffer stroke or have heart attacks and be confined to their wheelchairs. And their ill-gotten billions will rot with them.

I remember growing up in the “East” in the 70’s. In those hazy days, the elders in a town near ours had reason to excommunicate two very rich gentlemen from their town. I can’t remember what the reasons were. But in the sixth month of their excommunication, one of the excommunicated men dropped dead. The doctors later said he had had a “massive stroke.” The other guy went cuckoo about a year and half later. He never recovered from his mental sickness until his death about a decade later. They both died before they reached fifty. But that was when Nigerians still thought of moral turpitude as something to be despised. The inescapable truth is that Nigerians need qualms back in their hearts if Nigeria is to survive another fifteen to twenty years as a nation. Should Nigerians get some modicum of morality back in their lives, they will be forced to see themselves (and see the thieving politicians) in proper light. And since light and darkness does not co-exist, a natural chasm will develop between the two groups. Thieving politicians will naturally wither away and a new crop of politicians with moral fibers will take their place.

What I am advocating entails drastic reorientation of a nation. I admit that this is not easy to achieve. But look at the alternative – certain death of our country. Something to remember is that nations don’t just die and go into oblivion. Because the nation died does not mean that its people disappeared off the face of the earth. First, such nations become embroiled in mostly genocidal wars, and the people (mostly the poor ones) are massacred. When this happens, the thieving politicians are the first to fly away to safety in countries where such countries’ own politicians are not anything like them. And when they get there, these thieving politicians will not be ashamed to “enjoy the dividends of democracy” (as Nigerians like to say) in these other countries.

Afghanistan is a good example of where a nation failed. Million died in their inter-tribal wars. The Russians came and more millions died. A cabal (the Taliban) came in and unleashed a reign of terror on the people. Al Qaeda, looking for a chaotic place to settle, took up residence there and began to train death merchants. Then the “9-11” events happened in New York and Washington D.C., and the American army went up to Afghanistan and cleaned house. At this moment, America is planning to leave Afghanistan. When that happens, Afghanistan will slip back into anarchy – that is almost a certainty. But the chief thing to remember in all these is that it’s the ordinary people that suffer, not the thieving politicians. Remember, the thieving politicians don’t have to stay when anarchy descends upon us. They can afford to fly away to other countries where politicians do not steal as they do in Nigeria.

But Nigeria does not have to go the way of Afghanistan. Nigeria can go the way of Ghana. Ghana was chaotic and descending fast into anarchy as Nigeria is now. Jerry Rawlings cleaned house and gave Ghanaians reason to grow back moral fibers. They did grow back moral fibers to some extent over there, and now their country has largely returned to sanity. Perhaps Nigerians need a Jerry Rawlings to clean house in order to give them reason to grow back their own moral fibers. But then maybe blood does not have to flow in Nigeria before people re-grow moral fibers.

What Jerry Rawlings did with the edge of the sword, he could have done with decisive and targeted incarceration. What Nigeria needs is a leader who will decide to do the right thing and either truly prosecute all past corrupt politicians and imprison them or forcefully dispossess them of all their property, ill-gotten or not. The uncomfortable truth is that these thieving politicians thrive in Nigeria because Nigerians, to an astonishingly large extent, are corrupt people themselves. That is the fact. But I also know that Nigerians cannot be happy with the state of their affairs. They need someone to give them a reason to re-grow their moral fibers like Jerry Rawlings gave the Ghanaians. But while Nigerians wait for their own Jerry Rawlings, they can start this moral revolution one by one. Nigerians don’t have any other choice. They either reacquire morality with which to isolate and eliminate immoral politicians from their midst or Nigeria will die, and them will Nigeria.

But then again, perhaps if we could only summon the courage to ask the thieving politicians whence came their sudden riches, that may be all that is needed to start our country on the road to sanity.