We must thank God for little mercies. In the end and after a lot of dithering and obfuscations, the general finally summoned the reserve of courage and moral rectitude to do the right thing. Unfortunately, this was after considerable damage had been done to the government’s ethical template and the platform on which the Buhari administration rode to power.
There is little political wisdom in watching a cancerous growth spread to vital organs of the body simply because the leadership does not want to succumb to the moral lynch mob. Certain things are simply too ridiculous and embarrassing to stand the test of modern governance. A scandal is a scandal.
There is no point equivocating about an unfortunate an error of judgement or lapse of moral imagination. Whichever way one looks at this sordid development, the grass-cutter scandal is a major embarrassment to the Buhari administration and everything it purports to stand for. When a government begins to shift its own erected goal posts of probity and integrity, it invites national ridicule and obloquy.
Perhaps in the dead of the night and after all the futile grandstanding and insensate dismissal of objections, Lawal would have had time to rue the very sloppy self-betrayal which led him to influence the award of a contract for bush clearance to a company he had considerable interest either by remote ancestry or indirect affiliation. It was a very messy thing to do. You can never procure material satisfaction with the currency of national misery. It was an act of unpardonable cruelty compounded by poor judgement.
Perhaps it is only in Nigeria that the plight of people internally displaced and turned homeless by war and social affliction can be turned into a bazaar of exploitation and get-rich scams. It shows how far social cannibalism has eaten deep into the fabric of a normless post-colonial nation. An otherwise affable and obviously engaging personality, it is hard to see how the “suspended” secretary to the federal government will live down the shame and public opprobrium. His technical dismissal must now afford him an opportunity to reflect deeply on the vicissitudes of public life and how remarkably brittle and unreliable public adulation can be.
It is a pity that David Lawal had to go in this shabby manner. That he had to be pushed rather than fall on his sword willingly and with courage does not suggest nobility of purpose or honourable rectitude. Yet in a more profound and fundamental manner, his tragedy speaks to a more troubling institutional failure: the lack of a cult of heroic example and the culture of honourable resignation in our public life. In more civilized climes, a whiff of scandal or unacceptable conduct are often enough to prompt honourable resignation.
Unfortunately, we live in a society in which more often than not, nomination to public service is seen as part of a patrimonial network of tribal largesse and ethnic spoil-sharing. In such circumstances, the lone office holder is often more of a victim than a victor operating under the protocol of unseen and unyielding elders rather than personal principles. In such circumstances, resignation can only be contemplated at the pain of death and exclusion since it is tantamount to cowardice and a wilful voiding of the chances of the larger ethic consortium in a joyous kleptocracy.
As a minority candidate among minorities in a fractious multi-ethnic polity, nobody could have imagined the kind of pressures David Lawal faced to stand his ground and damn the consequences. Heavens will not fall and nothing will happen eventually. After all, corruption and official are malfeasance not the exclusive preserve of one ethnic group. Boy, you need to develop cujones and great immoral courage. Those who are screaming at the roof top are screaming to have their chance at the national till.
Until we develop some core national values which will drive public policy rather than what Peter Ekeh, the great Nigerian sociologist, has famously described as a culture of the two publics in which the national theatre is seen as an alien coliseum of ethnic gladiators where anything goes, we will continue to jog in the jungle of anarchy and misbegotten primitive acquisition. This is the real lesson of the grass-cutter scandal.
But it is morning yet on creation day, provided we are willing to learn the correct lessons. This country needs a new Administrative Order which will instil rigour and rationality into the public service. Somebody will have to take the bull by the horn. Human institutions are not handed over to societies from heaven. Institutions are creations of strong and dispassionate leaders acting in concert with the most progressive section of a patriotic and nationalist elite class.
There can be no doubt that General Buhari has the discipline and courage to instil a new Public Order for this country, but certain cultural and ideological inhibitions, particularly an unstated aversion for political modernity and a predilection and peccadillo for making nepotistic appointments into sensitive offices, do get in the way from time to time.
This may be his own way of protecting his back, particularly in a volatile and unstable polity. But it did not help the first time around and it is unlikely to at any point in time. There is a rumour that when the chief civilian security officer of the Buhari military regime was hauled into detention room with his deposed and traumatized principal by the coupists of July, 1985, he was so completely plastered and leglessly soused that he could barely utter a sensible sentence.
What the APC needs are strong, countervailing forces who could look the president in the face and tell him he is wrong. No matter how determined and personally principled a leader is, he will labour in vain if certain structures and infrastructure are not in place. In prebendal politics, nepotism is the first principle and massive corruption is always the end-product.
