Mixed metaphors: Can your father survive a nail-scratch?

In the end - I want to start from the very end - the truth about Nigeria is character: an ailment characterized by a feverish desire to take as much as possible. When I say, “as much as possible,” I refer not to education or political power, but to economic assets, particularly money.

While there are Nigerians who will always have my respect, the sordid pattern and practice is simply that when we are in a position-particularly a government position-we convert it into a thing, an avenue for one thing: self-enrichment.

In the end-I said I wanted to talk about the end-nothing belonging to the public would work. For instance, no elevator at the airport would work nor would there be toilet tissues in its toilets. The State or Government House Clinic would have no drugs or functioning machines. The highway would not be constructed, despite two or three or four budgets. The traffic lights would not work. Communities would still lack drinking water. But meanwhile, Oga or Oga Madam-and sub-Ogas and sub-Madams, would have acquired vast estates (and I am not talking about real estate, yet). But of course, we would not know that, yet.

There would be accounts in this bank and that. In this bank, perhaps several accounts, and in that bank, more. But we would not know of them, yet. And then foreign exchange accounts with all kinds of improbable, indeed inexplicable numbers, would creep in.

While all of this is going on, Oga or Oga Madam fiercely advocate the public interest. To listen to them speak-sorry, read-at public events is an education, as they offload the most passionate of ideas about public service and probity.

When Oga speaks outside Nigeria, he is not fettered by the sniggering cynicism of anyone who really knows him, such as his secretary or any relatives or friends. Oga Madam unloads with such eloquence and passion at conferences and meetings that other nationals tell you they wish she led your country.

But as an older Nigerian, here is my story, arising from my having written for the public for nearly 40 years. While I have worked hard to keep my picture out of the press, it is impossible to do the same with my name.

This has meant that I have sometimes been identified somewhere by Oga and Oga Madam, ancient and modern-governors, ministers, permanent secretaries, diplomats, directors-some of whom have engaged me in one way or another, often dripping with ‘concern’ about Nigeria.

But then you visit Oga’s office, for instance, and you observe how excellently maintained his private toilet is-a Nigerian is no Oga if he does not have a private one-as opposed to the general facilities which are in an atrocious state.

Perhaps it is not surprising, should there be a light breeze, to discover that while children lack drinking water, and there is no aspirin in the medical centre, or that those tissues are perennially in short supply at the airport, or that that major roads cannot be completed this year or the next, that Oga is found to have been in business for himself.

Think about it: how many leaders of Nigeria in the past 20 years alone, have not been found out? How many governors did not openly convert the state treasury into their personal insurance for life? How many top civil servants have not become illegal property manipulators in Abuja while their very offices rotted? How many top-level diplomats or policemen or soldiers did not convert their offices into personal wealth at home, abroad or both?

But the worst part is the pretense and the hypocrisy that are used to cover the greed and irresponsibility.

Which is why, when a case comes up such as that of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen, you avoid your foreign friends or avert your eyes. Not because there is no malfeasance elsewhere, but because, having explained that he had merely forgotten to file his declaration of assets as required by law, he follows up with perfectly ridiculous explanation. He sounded as incongruous as President Muhammadu Buhari, telling the world he was an upright man combating corruption, leading the British press to question how he came to own five homes and was able to send two children to a university in England with tuition alone at £26,000 per child per year. I never heard Buhari’s answer.

Nonetheless, I have criticized the Nigeria leader’s handling of the Onnoghen case, as it clearly reflects his political agenda.

But Buhari’s agenda does not exonerate Onnoghen. The Chief Justice is a reminder of top-level Ogas and Oga Madams in Nigeria’s public life: grandfathers and grandmothers and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters who are exposed by a character scratch no bigger than a finger nail.

I have encountered many such people who are so greedy they exploit their offices each time they smell money. As public morality has decayed through the years, they have decayed fashionably with it while hypocritically denouncing others…until that little scratch arrives.

This greed and hypocrisy have rendered Nigeria prostrate as drops of our individual flaws have delivered a landscape in which nothing works but the propaganda and pretense microphones. There is a clear fault line from the Joseph Tarka and Godwin Daboh corruption mess of 1980 to Nigeria becoming trapped between Buhari and Atiku Abubakar today.

The question is whether the Oga or Oga Madam in your life who preaches in the church or mosque has forgotten to declare his or her assets. Should that fingernail scratch happen, will there be commendation or condemnation?

That said, I commend Professor Wole Soyinka for publicly rejecting the presidential candidatures of Buhari and Abubakar, affirming on Thursday that their parties should be rejected at the polls.

“It is time for a totally new direction, and when an alternative emerges, we will give the candidate our backing,” he said.

For months, I have argued that there is no distinction between the two “leading” parties and joined in advocating that third force. As I understand it, however, negotiations continue between many of the other parties to determine a coalition candidate.

But we must be realistic: with only two weeks before the election, it will be extremely difficult for the coalition to make an impact, particularly in winning the presidency.

Let me say that differently: but the coalition, if it emerges, must understand that while the election of February 16 must be contested, the real prize is not the presidency, but the future.

To that end, the real task is not to choose a common candidate, but to establish a vibrant platform for the third force. In Nigeria, we like immediate results, and everyone appears for the harvest, an approach that must change. The objective must be to establish that farm, taking advantage of the Buhari/Atiku contest to share the planting season.