Category: Oyinkan Medubi

We all showed off our foreign wears, clicked our heels on foreign shoes, waved our imported bags, gorged ourselves on foreign foods and later we were surprised to hear that our Nigerian economy was not growing. Can you imagine the effrontery of this our economy?!

I attended a social function recently. At a free moment, I looked at the people who attended the ceremony as they bustled here and there in search of friends or food. It struck me that nearly everyone was wearing one lace fabric or another. Those not wearing lace fabrics were putting on something of equivalent status. Of course, they were all of varying designs and costs. As someone told me recently, lace fabrics can cost anything from three thousand naira to two hundred and fifty thousand naira or more. Clearly, to some Nigerians, the costlier the fabric is, the better. Well, I could not put the cost on what people were wearing that day but one thing that I did not see on anyone was made-in-Nigeria lace or even Ankara.

I rather wondered what such ceremonies do to the economy, because in our lace outfits, we were not growing our own economy. We were not only dressed in foreign things, we even ate things made abroad. Most people were fed rice imported from Thailand. Now, everyone is complaining about how expensive rice is. I think I have tired of telling anyone who cares to listen that we have been living on borrowed throats eating rice, spaghetti, tomato paste, knorr and maggi seasonings, and everything else. Even our salt is imported. So, at that ceremony, dear reader, we all showed off our foreign wears, clicked our heels on foreign shoes, waved our imported bags, gorged ourselves on foreign foods and later we were surprised to hear that our Nigerian economy was not growing. Can you imagine the effrontery of this our economy?!

     It is a fact that people want social ideals. People want well organised social structures with working systems such as constant electricity, flowing taps, corporations offering good jobs, hospitals dispensing cures, etc. A good social order also embraces some wonderful mores and values that lift up the society for the sake of everyone. The values may include hard work, living only on one’s earnings, not living beyond one’s means, being accountable to the society, taking responsibility for one’s actions, etc. On the scales, I guess you’ll say we are still some way off.

There is no telling what advantages can accrue to the country from a good social order. To start with, there is continuity of life: everyone gains from being assured that yes, they have the freedom to wake up tomorrow. Would you believe the number of people who have died silently from this dislocated social order we are practising – out of frustration, hunger, unhappiness, or plain, old illness? More importantly, there will be a place in the society for everyone – each according to his ability and reach. In other words, everyone can reach for the cookie jar as his/her height allows without breaking the jar. There is a jar on every level. This means that if all I want from life is a coconut, I can just go lie under the coconut tree until one falls in my mouth, or head as you will, and no one would mind.

However, the absence of a good structure has introduced into the country a social disorder that allows everyone to do as he pleases. People provide electricity, water, roads, jobs, cures, etc., for themselves. I was at a very small business arena the other day and was amazed at the array of generating sets arranged alongside a wall. I stopped counting at thirteen as they all emitted the same grating noise and belched the same blue-black smoke into the air. The other day, someone attempted to sell me a bottle filled with a dark fluid that she claimed could cure everything.

Worse hit is the social value which has indeed plummeted. For instance, a politician does not feel complete until he enters a venue with a retinue of attendants and uniformed men and women legitimately assigned to him by the Nigeria Police. I attended a burial ceremony once where one of the celebrants was waited on hand and foot by a uniformed para-military, to everyone’s annoyance and envy. The uniformed fellow insisted on standing behind the celebrant during the service, blocking some people’s view. The people could only hiss.

Unfortunately, this culture of social disorder is built on reverse logic. Reverse logic is when you plant seeds of corn and sit down expectantly waiting to reap a harvest of beans, arguing that the soil that produces both is the same after all. It is a culture of planting chaos and expecting to reap order from it. For instance, people argue that it is not their fault that lace fabrics are so attractive and available. So, we can give our local fabrics a face-lift: invite the plastic surgeons. Those are real artists.

The present system asks us to be dependent on foreign economies for every need in order to grow our own economy. This means that for every lace material we wear, we are promoting another country’s economy and ensuring another man’s job while our children cannot get jobs. This is reverse logic at work.

True, the social order of the Nigerian system is a little confused right now, but we can straighten it out. I do remember a time during President Obasanjo’s time in office where he led Nigerians to patronise Nigerian-made fabrics to grace occasions. The move caught on like a flare. Everyone adopted the less costly fabric made in Nigeria as the wear of important occasions – weddings, burials, birthdays, etc. Then tailors became fashion designers and wealth began to spread. Unfortunately, the move died out in the time of President Jonathan and fashion designers became tailors again, though new and improved.

Our social disorder has even grown wings. We watch as those who have stolen the country blind seize the privileges that should go to the entire society. We acquiesce that they should have better access to the country’s money. We acquiesce that they should enter the Central Bank Vaults to fetch it themselves at times, as I heard that Obanikoro once did. I’m still waiting for someone to deny this quickly so that I can sleep well at nights and stop tossing and turning, asking myself what I’m sitting here doing instead of…

So, the thieves in high places have justice because they can easily afford the law. They have better security so petty armed robbers and kidnappers do not trouble them. They have better access to undeserved respect and honour because people prefer to associate with them rather than with me. I’m not the one they call to their high tables.

Seriously, people, we have tried one type of social disorder and it has not worked. I think it is time we tried another kind of social disorder. The other day, we had electricity at my house for about six hours at a stretch and I developed the jitters. That was so abnormal that I felt sure something was wrong, a new social disorder, do you think? I rather liked it, especially as this abnormality seems to have become persistent lately.

Another abnormality I would like to see is someone opening up the factories again and making Nigerian-made fabrics replace lace as the fashion wears at social events. Let the Ankara reign once more; let the tailors have work again (no, I’m not one), but you’ll be surprised the ripple effect that’ll have. Let the public taps run again – I’ll probably run out of the house when it first happens, but I’ll adjust. Let hospitals dispense health and doctors and nurses actually care for the patient rather than fight the government and each other. Who knows? We just may like the new disorder.

This generation has not only proved to be bereft of ideas, it is barren of ideals. It has taught the coming generation (presently called youths) nothing but selfishness, ego and folly… It should be thoroughly ashamed of itself; I hang my head in shame for my generation.

The world is upside down, but the problem is that I am still standing right side up. That makes for some very awkward viewing. For instance, I find that I have persistently gone around thinking that swimming pools should be dug into the earth, you know, near the foundation and all, not on the roof. I have also believed that it is practically impossible to walk on water; but when someone succeeds in doing exactly that, I’m at a loss what to call him: Jesus? In the same vein, I have always believed that adults should teach youths all about social behaviour, not the other way round. This is called the socialisation of the young. However, when youths begin to teach adults, then I call those children adults. Now, what do I call the failed adults: children?

Over time, this nation has watched in horror as its youths have plunged themselves into the socialisation process from the deep end. It’s almost as if they were born zany, if you will forgive the expression. Mostly, they are holding life at the slippery edge of unreasonableness and the downright bizarre. If they are not flaunting their parents’ ill-gotten material acquisitions with immeasurable and baseless pride, they are waving their parents’ guns and influences in people’s faces. I tell you, it’s a crime against nature that I was not born a privileged youth in these times.

Honestly, this should startle us as a nation. This column has repeatedly pronounced judgment on this country for the way it has handled its youth matters. We have vainly drawn attention to the fact that this nation cannot afford to let its youths grow up without a national orienting and orientating ideology that can point the way to a future for them and the country. It is not only wrong but also unfair to ask our youths to socialise themselves their own way just because we have been magnanimous enough to throw them into our poorly funded, poorly directed schools owing to the absence of a national youth ideology. But that is not why we are here today.

We are here today to show us that our youths are not learning the right lessons from the adults. Let’s face it; the present generation of adults who constitute the leadership has failed this country. This generation has not only proved to be bereft of ideas, it is barren of ideals. It has taught the coming generation (presently called youths) nothing but selfishness, ego and folly. It has taught them that all that matters is getting a lot of money, it matters not how. It should be thoroughly ashamed of itself; I hang my head in shame for my generation.

This present generation of adults has proved again and again that it has no idea what life is all about. By seeking material wealth only and teaching youths to also go madly in search of material wealth, the adults have not only missed their way, they have taught their children how to stumble and crash. They have proudly told the young ones that respect only comes in one package: money. Unfortunately, they forget to tell the young ones that they, these same adults, were the ones who set the bar in the first place.

The reason is very simple. The generation before theirs, that is, the generation of the parents of the present adults and leaders, did not teach the pursuit of materialism as the gospel truth for correct socialisation. That generation taught all the things that make for communal peace including respecting others and the laws of the land. The present adults however threw these lessons into the wind and gave themselves a new testament that has nothing to do with kindness or nation building; just ego ‘tripping’.

The consequence of sowing the wind is that we are now reaping some serious whirlwinds.  I read in the news just this morning an allegation that some lawyers had been caught writing some examination papers for some law school students. Now, how’s that for contempt of the court?! Seriously?! As it is, it is still an allegation that we understand will be investigated. However, it is clear that what has gone around is now coming around full circle.

Listen to another one. I read that some three or four Nigerians were executed in Indonesia recently for offences that included drug peddling, among them a certain Mr. Ezimoha from south-eastern Nigeria. I also understand his body was not only brought home for burial, he was interred with a great deal of fanfare and pizzazz by his people. His poster, they said, described his death as ‘the painful exit of a hero’. Hero?! Sorry, but I am wondering how someone allegedly accused of and executed for drug peddling can, by any stretch of the imagination, be called ‘a hero’. Now you see how far out this country’s tide has gone.

Listen, I am not blaming the youths. Indeed, I do not blame this young deluded man who thought money got by any means is money. He lived by what he was taught by the society. He is a product of a poor socialisation process that gave him a false illusion of wealth creation. He is as much a victim of this system as any of the youths who think that parading their parents’ wealth will earn them respect. This man thought that respect comes from being rich, no matter how many lives are destroyed in the process. By giving him that loud burial, his people are also affirming this erroneous notion.

There are many youths who think like that young man. There are those who practice different trades like armed robbery, ‘yahoo-yahooing’, human ritual-killing, political touting, or just plain old drug peddling across the globe. Most of these people seem to have imbibed the lesson that the end justifies the means – i.e., being ‘a money man’ justifies how ever they may have got the money. This is one category.

The other category of youths is the group being bred by their loving adults to be leeches and parasites on the society just as they, the adults, have been. These can generally be found among politicians who are breeding their children to succeed them in their political posts. The lessons taught these ones mostly centre on living on the society’s resources without contributing to it which is the same as living in opulence without labour, opportunism without care and privileges without responsibility.

The last category consists of those unschooled, untrained and kept aside as a reserve force to use for social disintegration. Again, this odious move comes from the political class. This category has bred the boko haram, militant and other groups from among our youths.

It is at this point that the country needs to accept its own blame for jeopardising the lives and future of its youths. In failing to lay down its laws properly for both goose and gander, the society has unwittingly affirmed the position that it is not the hunt that matters, it is the game at the end of it. By allowing so many of its adults to destroy the communal peace, the society has taught its youths not to seek happiness in the creative process of wealth seeking but just to seek wealth.

Nigeria has failed to tell the youths the most essential truth: ill-gotten wealth is not wealth; it is robbery. This country owes its youths the right lessons, if indeed It is to be handed down to them. The most important lesson Nigeria needs to teach its youths is that the pursuit of personal happiness is the happiness.

There is no single hero’s cape that can fight the mess. We all need
to put on our capes.

Nigeria has not been blessed with too many heroes. Awolowo for instance, looked at the willful and stubborn children of the western part of the country and sent them to schools under the free education programme. Perhaps, it was to rid them of their stubbornness, but I suspect it was more for the mental peace of the parents while the children cried. But by some strange pull, the malaise spread to the rest of the country and the government adopted it as a national habit. And now, the parents are crying because they have to pay so much for their freedom, and the children have found their own peace by forming secret cults.

Balewa is another example. He told his people in the north to stay still and he would bring Nigeria to them. While they waited, they did a bit of farming and by another strange power pull, that act also spread. Now the rest of the country is still, nothing is moving and no one is farming.

Zik, our last example, asked his people in the east what they wanted. They replied that they wanted to trade, so he told them that the entire country – nay the world – was a market for their capture. Again, the trading culture spread all over the country and everyone has broken out in a rash of shop-keeping ever since.

Obasanjo, starring in ‘The Return of Uncle Sege,’ galloped up, looked at the situation of things, and exclaimed ‘Whara mess!’ Twice, he said it! And he promptly began the task of trying to put things right, throwing trade, education, farming and stillness into the air like a circus juggler in a practice session. But he either did not know how to throw or the things themselves defied the law of gravity, nothing went up or came down, except maybe his blood pressure.

Then Buhari came, cape flying behind him, and landing with a thud. The whole country reverberated as he strode in with his heavy boots. Quickly, he sized up the situation, and decided that the country was too full of sores for his liking. Deftly, he traced the putrefying sores to some strange concept called corruption caused by Nigerians’ greed for material gains where they had not sown. Promptly, he brought out his sword from his back pocket and began waving it around madly at the guilty. Many of them are still trying to look for their decapitated heads.

I really wish JFK’s statement – ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country — could be credited to a Nigerian because no country needs it more than ours. Many of us in this country do not know the words of our anthems; it is all we can do to even recognise its tune! I understand there was a quite a stir in the assembly recently because an ambassadorial nominee did not know verse two of the national anthem. I don’t know it either but that has not prevented my amala from going down the red lane in peace, meat or no meat!

The flag is definitely not our hero. No one seems to have realised that it is anything beyond a piece of cloth. If we did, no policeman or navy man or soldier would willfully kill another Nigerian citizen while the flag stands hoisted on a tall pole in front of his police station or other public buildings, waving its love and benevolence and cover for all its citizens in the air. We would also refuse to soil its whiteness with the blood of our fellow human beings in the name of religion or politics or greed or anger. We would, in addition, keep its greenness lush with cultivated fields where amala and brothers would sprout in obedience to the invitation from our fingers, to feed the nation.

We need national heroes who can see better and understand better and instruct us better. We are looking for heroes who will look at all of our infantile kleptomaniac tendencies and turn down the corners of their mouths at us and tell us to ‘grow up’. We need heroes to rescue us from what presently goes as our national ethos defined in broken down structures, dilapidated infrastructures and constantly changing policies. We need people to teach us to dream in matters of national planning, education, what can or cannot be imported, industrialisation, and even eating! This last has been known to be the cause of a great deal of instability. Let me explain.

From three square meals, the average Nigerian who does not patrol the corridors of Aso Rock previously learnt to keep his soul within his body with the contents of two meals, garri and groundnuts making a very satisfying second. Then Nigeria went down officially to a one-meal policy, when cassava came into its own and found its primary purpose on earth: as an industrial resource. To think that all these years, we thought cassava was food. Now, from that one-meal policy, the country has since descended into a one-meal-in-two-days-or-more policy.

This country definitely needs heroes, to redefine many things for it not least of which are the domestic and foreign policies. Among the domestic problems to tackle is the question of population control. In view of the food situation, I need to know whom I can call ‘Brother’, one who is allowed to fight with his siblings and can therefore share the family’s amala and oil dinner; and one whom I can call ‘Oh Brother!,’ and from whom I should, in one single, swift and supple movement, deftly hide that amala pot under the bed.

The domestic policy should also naturally compel all husbands to declare all their assets and their salaries to their wives. The wives should also be given the right to pick what they need and want from such declared assets and emoluments, or go on strike. And where two or three women are gathered together in deep discussion, it should not be thought that they are gossiping but are only discussing union affairs, mainly children and husbands. They may also be discussing whether or not to declare a strike, which may be worse than the NLC total strike, over the price of garri. The alternative is that all the housewives, to a woman, may pull on Buhari’s agbada.

The foreign policy should spell out for us whom we can declare war against, such as noisy neighbours, intemperate market women who hike prices indiscriminately, and government officials who delight in changing the country’s policies without a thought to anyone else. Our heroes would also help us decide which aligned or non-aligned movement or league to join, such as the comity of homes sharing the same ideals: refusing to have anything to do with new-fangled things like iPods.

Seriously though, this country could do with all of its one hundred and fifty million national heroes, who would fashion out some ideals that would pave the way to a more purposeful future for us as a people. We are looking at things like inventing the mouth organ (roasted corn), weekend burial ceremonies (happiness), but would, on no account yield any more money to the first world countries for the privilege of living in the same universe with them (keeping foreign accounts).

Sadly, that hero lies deeply asleep in each one of us. You and I are the heroes that this country needs to pull out of this gargantuan mess that past decades of national carefree jamboree has plunged us. There is no single hero’s cape that can fight the mess. Buhari’s alone cannot do it. We all need to put on our capes. Come now; let’s be the heroes Nigeria needs today.

• This is a revision of an article published in New Age in 2005.

A child that is well brought up from home is better equipped to prevent and successfully deflect any harassment

What times we are living in! If you are not fighting to keep your life these days, you are battling to keep the life of a loved one from armed robbers, kidnappers, and the government. This has had many people devising for themselves different means of self-protection. The really normal ones among us bring lions into their homes. When anyone goes for a lion as a guard, you can tell he has lost faith in the law. Most of us abnormal people take one or two dogs into our homes in exchange for a few services such as expecting them to bark or bite unwanted guests.

A really ferocious dog was once unleashed on an armed robber. No, it didn’t belong to me; the dog that is, not the robber. The unfortunate robber had hoped to evade police capture by leaping over walls that took him from one compound to another in a neighbourhood, only to find himself under the fangs of a Rottweiler in one. You could say the robber leaped from frying pan to fire. From the story told by the owner of the dog himself, that dog knew a robber when he saw one. We are told that the police had to delicately extricate the severed arm and other body parts belonging to the daring robber from the still active jaws of that dog.

I have not been so lucky with my dogs. I have always had a great deal of difficulty unleashing them on anything but their food. Indeed, one dog was so ferocious toward his food he knew the hour of its arrival and always came to sit near or around the kitchen at the due hour. Another one unleashed its courtesy onto strangers by allowing them to climb over my wall and get into my compound whenever I have not been at home. So clearly, there are terrorist dogs, and there are terror dogs.

One terror that the state appears to be preparing to unleash on the citizens, I hear, is the bill punishing the sexual harassment of students by their teachers in tertiary institutions. In brief, it appears that the bill wants to make an offence out of any attempt by any teacher to take any sexual advantage of their charges in those institutions. Teachers are to teach, no more, no less.

Let me say from the outright that it is most reprehensible indeed for any male or female teacher to take any sexual advantage of their charges. Actually, it is rather low of anyone to take advantage of anyone completely in his or her power. I read somewhere that the real mark of a powerful person is one who has the power to crush someone but desists from doing it. I believe that to dangle one’s power in front of a weaker vessel or to actually use the power signifies an inner core that is very, very weak and insecure. This goes for wife beating, child beating, raping, paedophilic activities, sexual harassment of minors, rich men dangling money in front of poor girls, rich people’s private torture chambers, etc. They are instances of self-indulgence, and they just reinforce the unnatural belief that might is right.

Nevertheless, for our assembly to bring out a bill simply to deal with a number of errant teachers in tertiary institutions sounds to me like overkill and a waste of state resources. The state already has resources to deal with it. The courts are always open for any aggrieved person to seek redress on any matter, not just sexual harassment. In any case, the courts will still be the final arbiter in that bill; so, why go through the long route of the bill to get to the courts?

More importantly, I’m not too sure who exactly can claim that he or she has been sexually harassed. Can a handshake, a small pat, a playful punch, a small tap to attract someone’s attention, etc., all count as harassment? If so, my dog does most of these to me all the time. I should sue the heck out of the burgher. A teacher-student relationship cannot but be somewhat friendlier than that of two strangers if any meaningful impact is to be made in that student’s mentoring. For all I know, most teachers are responsible and knowing ones who know where the line is.

I grant that there are a few teachers who have many blind spots in their eyes so cannot see any line even if it is staring them in the eyes. In truth, they seem to have an attitude that says, ‘So many fringe benefits to get through, and so little time to do it!’ And they are eating up the poor little tykes like a tractor going through the fields. The tertiary institutions already have resources to deal with such; they are called disciplinary committees. However, we ought not, because of these few ones, bring out an entire bill.

Nevertheless, it has been established that the crop of students we have now is a far cry from the days of university studentship. In the by-gone eras, studentship was about professionalism because only the best got into these higher institutions anyway. They knew what they went into the schools for and seriously pursued it. Not so anymore; students are now busier pursuing their social images and then ‘see’ how to wriggle out of their failures. So, can the bill guarantee that there will not be any misapplication when a student fails to do his or her work and turns around to claim that he or she is being harassed to cover up? Can the bill protect all fairly and squarely?

Listen if we must go ahead with his bill; can a teacher also claim sexual harassment by a student? The reason is that some of the time it’s the student who is doing the harassing through really bad dressing, flirty and coy behaviour or preferring to meet selected teachers alone and at odd hours. Believe me, the intervention of many tertiary institutions in students’ dressing has only helped so much. It is still below knee level as many students are drawn more by fashion’s trends than school rules.

Once, I told a student that her dressing was causing me to feel cold. The top was very transparent with her undies in full display, it was harmattan and she was knocking on a male lecturer’s door when I passed. If I were that teacher, I would claim harassment for sure. Another one wore a very skimpy skirt under a very transparent gown. When I stopped her to complain about it, she said she had tight leggings under the skirt. Really! If a teacher is expected to hold himself or herself, I think students should be schooled from home to lend a helping hand in the matter by dressing decently.

However, if the country insists on going ahead with this sexual harassment bill, then I must ask that there should be complimentary bills. Just as the assembly has heard stories coming out of the ivory towers for them to come up with this bill, so also we have heard stories coming out of the assembly about how money is flung at young girls to make them succumb to the advances of men old enough to be their granddaddies. A father was said to have thrown out his daughter and her prize Benz on account of this. So, let us have a bill criminalising sugar-daddism. While we are at it, let’s also have a bill outlawing insufficient housekeeping allowance; it’s criminal.

Before we unleash that sexual harassment bill, let us have a rethink. A child that is well brought up from home is better equipped to prevent and successfully deflect any harassment. I think that is where we should direct our energy.

Because of the flagrant lifestyle of our leaders, the next generation has permanently lost its direction and sense of hearing. It only hears money jingling in one ear

I don’t know about you reader but last week, I had a great experience. I was asked to stay home for three days as a reward for good behaviour! Well, that’s what it seemed to me but you and I know that the holiday was for the Ed-el-Fitri festival that signalled the end of the Ramadan. Naturally, since I had been fasting three or four times per day for so many days, I thought the two-day holiday was well deserved. When it was extended to three days however, I thought I had hit the jackpot of sleep, considering I am well endowed with the genes of extreme laziness. Don’t blame me; it runs in my bones; nope, not ‘family’; there are so many hardworking people in my family they actually annoy me. Let’s leave that topic for another day.

Anyway, the social media had a field day trying to pin down the body responsible for giving me three days of rest. As if I cared whether EFCC, INEC, APC, PDP, boko haram, NDA, etc., had anything to do with it. You and I know there is only one body responsible for fixing holidays within the land: and that is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Fortunately for me, they are under my remote control. Since I didn’t want the holiday to end, I simply activated the control code on the device: ‘When I say the magic words, you must declare extra holidays for the country on any day of my choosing.’ And they did. Seriously though, I find it curious that that ministry has not thought it right to apologise to the country for that great lockdown. What times we’re living in! The banks and other serious business houses should just take Panadol Extra for their financial losses on account of that Holiday Extra.

Anyway, another lockdown is playing out across the states in the country. Let’s take our normal wanderings across the land (I am a good one for wandering I tell you) and you will be wonder-eyed at the jokes playing out before your very eyes. In Ekiti State, I understand the workers finally took to the streets with placards indicating they had had it up to here with the non-payment of their salaries. I also understand that the state’s governor, never one to be outdone, joined the protests even though records have it that he is the principal debtor. Hmmn.

There is no street protest in Kogi State, but I hear the workers are not having an easy time of it because it appears the governor is playing out his childhood fantasies: dancing on naked fires in superman costumes! I understand that the person chosen to lead the state on the platform of a political party decided to select his principal officers of the state from the opposing party. I want to think that he is probably keeping his friends close and his enemies closer, I don’t know.

Niger State thinks it has solved its own equation with a balancing act that defies all of us to contradict it The governor has paid everyone fifty per cent of their salary and has kept his arms akimbo. After looking round and regurgitating on the matter, he found that he needed to save for a rainy day (for himself or the state, I really don’t know); so I guess he decided to consult Socrates on the matter. Yes, you’re right, it’s a no-brainer; but who’s to tell him? You?

In Oyo State, the people are up in arms against the governor’s decision to privatise the public schools as a way out of the quagmire of shortage of funds. Indeed, the placards-carrying school children protesting this move moved him not a jot. Last I heard of the matter, it appears the governor is asking that the people apologise to him.

Reader, I have taken the trouble to go round as many states as I can so you will have a picture of how our money is being managed or mismanaged in the states, and what is causing the lockdowns. Let me reproduce for you here one message I received during the week:

… In Akwa Ibom State, the law provides that ex-governors and deputy governors receive pension equivalent to the salaries of the incumbent. The package also includes a new official car and a utility vehicle every four years; one personal aide; a cook, chauffeurs and security guards for the governor at a sum not exceeding N5m per month and N2.5m for his deputy…

In Rivers, the law provides 100 per cent of annual basic salaries for the ex-governor and deputy, one residential house for the former governor ‘anywhere of his choice in Nigeria’; one residential house anywhere in Rivers for the deputy, three cars for the ex-governor every four years and two cars for the deputy…

This is the reality for all the 21 ex-governors and deputy governors who are currently serving as senators … and ministers…

What, you may ask, have these examples got to do with the different lockdowns being currently experienced in the country? Everything, I would say. According to this report, which no one has denied or refuted or even reduced, the Senate and House of Representatives is full of these ex-governors and deputy governors who are receiving all these severance packages and are still dipping their long and greedy hands into the state purse under the guise of being senators and reps. How in the name of all that is holy can any state find the funds to pay its workers their due salaries when it is busy feeding the behemoths who go by the name of ex-this and ex-that of the state?!

There is so much to say on this subject but your sensitive ears, dear reader, will not permit me to say it. Many states remain ruined because of the (mis)governance of some of our (ex)governors; yet here we are permitting each state to show its gratitude to those who misruled it permanently. Reader, please imagine for a moment what will happen if this democracy endures and a state winds up with fifty ex-governors and fifty ex-deputy governors. Chaos will rule, permanently!

Sadly, the politically and spiritually chasmic lifestyle of these leaders without leadership qualities has come home to roost in the country’s socio-political ethos. Young men (and women too) think it no strange thing to kidnap a hapless citizen existing on a  salary (unpaid) and ask his/her family to buy him/her back with millions, kill someone else in a money ritual or take to militancy. Every child now wants to live on the Billionaires’ Street and have houses in Dubai and everywhere, thanks to our political leaders’ lifestyles.

People cannot travel so freely anymore for fear of being kidnapped or re-kidnapped, i.e., kidnapped a second time. Oh yes, it happened. Accidents are no longer the chief killers on the road; it’s now kidnapping. Even when a relative living elsewhere is sick, you must trust that providence will bring a miraculous healing to the person. You cannot put yourself on the road or everyone may soon forget the sick and concentrate on finding and ransoming you.

This curtailing of my freedom of movement is the greatest and most horrible kind of lockdown. Because of the flagrant lifestyle of our leaders, the next generation has permanently lost its direction and sense of hearing. It only hears money jingling in one ear, even if the money has to come through kidnapping, killing a relative or militancy.