Breaking news. This just in. A top-level confab was held yesterday in the capital city in great secrecy. From mid-morning, residents noticed a relentless retinue of convoys with blaring sirens, all headed in the same direction. Soon, all traffic came to a stand-still; and it was three hours before free movement resumed.
Their destination was the big convention hall, which guaranteed that the proceedings would not remain secret for long. It was the entire leadership, from all parties and factions, the timber without calibre, the empty vessels that make the most noise.
“We are Prophets of the Status Quo,” said one of them who had slipped out of the hall and we managed to corner him. “We want things to continue exactly as they are. We don’t want change.”
“But you’ve been screaming about change for months. You even switched parties . . .”
“That’s just for show. Nobody in this business wants change.”
“You were elected to move the country forward,” we persisted, “not to stand still.”
“Why move when we do so well standing on one spot? Think about it.”
“Is the country doing well standing on one spot?”
“We the leaders are doing very well. The leaders are the country. L’etat, c’est nous.”
“Don’t the rest of us count?”
“Of course. You are the chorus, the cheerleaders, the praise-singers. And the criticizers. Every member of the body-politic has his or her function and appointed place. The soles of the feet cannot change places with the fingers of the hand, nor the arm with the leg, nor the heart with the brain.”
He rushed back into the hall. But soon enough another member came out.
“What you have to understand,” he said, “is that we leaders are together. United in our goals and even in our methods.”
“With all the loud quarrelling?”
“That’s just theatre. Comic relief. It’s part of the script.”
I was speechless.
“You don’t believe it? . . . Listen: gone are the days of tribalism and all that sort of trash. Tribe and tongue may differ, but in brotherhood we stand. The glue that holds us leaders together is thicker than blood. Stronger than religion. It is the glue of greed. Boundless, insatiable, unlimited greed. You sorry little pen-pushers and mike-wielders, get it through your thick little skulls. We are a mafia. . .”
“You mean like the Kaduna Mafia or Civil Service Mafia?”
“Never mind those Born-to-Rulers and General Orders. One of the goals of today’s meeting is to confront and wrestle down the recalcitrance and wild indiscipline of all such regional and special interest mafias and bring them under the umbrella of the National Cake-Sharing Mafia. Nothing and nobody can touch us. That’s why I’m letting a thousand cats out of the bag like this. Without fear. Ho-ha!”
Dumbfounded, I searched for something meaningful to say. I started to stammer.
“So . . . what are you . . . you doing . . . about . . . co . . . co . . . corruption?”
He broke into a laugh loaded with condescension and pity.
“What you call corruption is only our way of doing business. Yes, even the best-run countries of the world have corruption. But their leaders are not as clever as we are. For one thing, we don’t want a well-run country. . . .”
“We don’t???!!”
“No, we don’t. To run the country well would be suicide for the leadership. It’s like installing a computer system that will keep accurate accounts of all monies. What would become of the science of stealing which the civil service has refined into such a fine art? Do you want the entire NNPC to collapse? Do you want us to return to the bad old days when we had to burn down an entire building in order to conceal fraud?”
“Why do you say that leaders of better run countries are not as clever as ours?”
“Because their corruption is half-baked. They cream off only 10% or 15% off the top of every contract, and use the balance to do the job and do it well. Here we take 90% or even 100%. Nothing is left for the intended supply or construction.”
“But why? Why???”
“Because psychologists long ago discovered an obscure, little-known truth of the human condition, that is, that individuals or groups, when their condition is totally wretched and hopeless, they will wallow in pain and helplessness and self-pity and maybe commit suicide. But when their condition is halfway tolerable and they nurse hopes of better days, they are more likely to rise in revolt, murder their oppressors and seize control of their lives and their country’s resources.”
He paused for breath.
“You can then see why we inflate contracts ludicrously (the worse affront to reason and common sense, the more effective); why we award contracts to non-existent companies; why we pay huge sums to ghost-workers and ghost-pensioners; why we smartly avoid any sort of accounting or audit; and why we never punish anyone for any wrongdoing. This way, the country is left at standstill (or even regressed to pre-independence conditions), and anyone dreaming of tackling it sees right away that it’s hopeless. Can you beat that for strategy?”
I was chilled to the roots. . . .
Onwuchekwa Jemie
•To be continued
