If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there,” said Taiwo.
“We’ve heard that before,” said Ogbuagu.
“By the same token,” said Taiwo, “if you don’t know what sort of government you want, any government will satisfy you.”
We were at lunch at our favorite restaurant on the edge of the lagoon, letting the smooth waters roll over us. We had evolved this Wednesday habit for calming overwrought nerves, washing down the accumulating stresses of the work-week.
“Nigeria on my mind,” I said. “Surely the poet lied when he wrote: And I have not thought of Nigeria this past hour. . . .”
“Who has time to think of anything else?” said Ogbuagu.
“The trouble with the business elite,” continued Taiwo, “is that they are satisfied with any government in power. They will not lift a finger to bring about the sort of government they want.”
“Do they know what sort of government they want?” I asked.
“Their only desire is to make money,” said Ogbuagu. “Therefore, any government under which they can make money, any government that will leave them alone to make money is okay by them.”
“Even a government of chaos?” I asked.
“There’s no such thing. It’s either government—or it’s chaos.”
“What of bad government?”
“Bad government is just another word for chaos,” said Ogbuagu. “Or, if you insist, it is a junior brother to chaos. In any case, it doesn’t matter. People go into the jungle to make money.”
“That’s right,” said Taiwo. “And if you can make money in the jungle, you can make money under any government, however bad.”
“Isn’t it the conventional wisdom, after all, that chaos in fact promotes business? The more chaos, the more profit—for those who know how to play the game.”
“Is that perhaps the reason that businessmen from the well ordered societies have come to regard Nigeria as the greatest of the ‘emerging markets’? Presumably they will thrive best in this environment that is the very opposite of their ‘comfort zone’.”
“And is that perhaps why our own home-grown business class do not make any effort whatsoever to make our own country a ‘comfort zone’—because they too need chaos to make the most profit?”
“But aren’t they always complaining of ‘the high cost of doing business in Nigeria’?”
“Crocodile tears! Crocodile tears! . . . Yes, their initial investment is forced to be extraordinarily high, but then so is their profit. They simply pass on their costs to their customers. Business never loses.”
The question occurred to me, and I went ahead and asked it. You know me—I will ask a question even if it makes me sound naïve or stupid.
“Who are these Nigerian business elite or business class we’re talking about, anyway?” And Taiwo and Ogbuagu responded with a waterfall:
“Entrepreneurs of all sorts. . . .”
“Professionals of all sorts. . . .”
“Manufacturers, insurers, bankers, wholesale and retail merchants, importers and exporters, lawyers, doctors engineers, accountants, builders. . . .”
“As individuals and as groups, in their professional associations. . . .”
“The CEOs, managers, journeymen and journeywomen . . . .”
“You mean Esther with or without her coat?” I asked innocently.
“O. J., you’ve come again with dem ye-ye jokes,” said Ogbuagu in mock rage. “What does estacode have to do with it?”
“OK, OK. Let me be serious. . . . The business elite, it seems to me, constitute a natural extension of the political elite.”
“They dine from the same pot,” said Taiwo.
“Yes,” said Ogbuagu. “Whether it’s import license or foreign exchange, indigenization or privatization, or now that public-private partnership is all the rage—whatever the current cliché, by whatever newfangled name, the business elite work in tandem with the political elite. In practice, there is little difference between them.”
“That’s right,” said Taiwo. “Our business elite have as much stake in our present chaos, in our continuing misgovernment, as the criminal political class themselves.”
“Consider the accountants, with their professional oaths and ethical memberships in ICAN, ANAN, CICMA, IFAN, ACCA, etc. Not a kobo is stolen from any treasury in Nigeria without their unethical collusion. All the fraudulent accounting is their handiwork—in the public sector or private sector. The ‘cooking’ of books with false figures, enabling and concealing massive embezzlements—that is their true ‘profession.’ Nigerian accountants are dedicated only to accumulating a personal fortune—their share of the loot they assist the politicians in stealing.”
“There are exceptions . . .” I interjected.
“There are always exceptions. Every accountant you meet will tell you he/she is an exception.”
“The country can go to the dogs! That is The Accountants Motto.”
“Or, if you want to be long-winded about it: Nigeria belongs to all of us. We accountants have an equal right to loot the treasury and sink the ship of state. Why not? Don’t ask me to be a hero! You be a hero first and show the example! That’s the accountants—as individuals and as a profession, a ‘sector’, a class, an interest group.”
“So much for love of country, self-respect and pride. They look in the mirror each morning and see petty thievery, grand larceny, large-scale fraud. Lack of integrity. That’s what they will teach their children.”
“Are you exempting other groups?”
“Hell, no! I’m coming to them. . . .”
NEXT WEEK: What are banks for . . . ?
ONWUCHEKWA JEMIE
