How on earth can one justify a two million naira apology?
It used to be called the widow’s mite; now, we can talk of the widow’s millions! Yes, dear reader, mother luck actually smiled and placed a rose into the sooty hands of a poor widow in Edo State, Nigeria, in a way that one can describe as ‘Only in Nigeria!’ For being insouciant towards the law, I say, this poor widow went home with a handsome sum of two million naira, a job, and the memory of tea with the governor! Tell me, what do you call this kind of luck? Rascally, that’s what!
Now, let’s get this story straight because I am so indignant my thoughts are liable, nay threatening, to run ahead of me right into next year. As I understand it, the governor of Edo State, Mr. Adams Oshiomole, had been trying his very best to transform the entire state, particularly the horrible roads, into something closely resembling paradise here on earth. And I said, ‘Good man; bless you for trying’. Indeed, I not too long ago passed through Benin and was astounded by the many canyons on the roads that threatened to swallow my vehicle. As I heard it, many people before him did not deign to lift a finger in the direction of the roads. Oh, they lifted their fingers all right, but I will not say where for fear of offending the dainty ears of my readers. Anyway, from reports reaching us in this corner of the country, the man Oshiomole was doing quite well until a certain widow, Mrs. Joy Ifije, entered into the picture.
Any interaction with members of a disadvantaged group is always fraught with danger, a little like walking on eggshells and even more like holding dynamites in one hand while holding a lit cigar in the other. You are bound to come away with egg on your face. That’s right, the word is angry sensitivity; for such people are forever trying to foist their failures on others. For example, have you ever held a conversation with a working woman on why she appears to have suddenly gained weight? If you are not wary, dear sir, you will be treated to a treatise on how members of her fair sex have been hewers of wood and beasts of sooooo much burden for centuries until your ears ache. Talk indeed, of the unfair sex. Now, how was Governor Oshiomole to know all this when the poor man did not study group behaviour or even English?
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the poor man fell right into the hands (no, not arms, silly) of this widow, Mrs. Ifije, who had displayed her wares right on the kerb of the main road in defiance of the law and in anger at her fate. Two things strike one here. The first is that this behaviour is so typical of Nigerians that I still wonder that we have any roads to walk in this country. Actually, I have come to the conclusion that there is no group in this country with a greater disregard for the law than the low-income group made up of petty traders, artisans, etc. Collectively, they all appear to have adopted the philosophy that where poverty prompts an action, the law must yield its arms. So, the hapless driver or pedestrian must battle to put feet gingerly between wares that have taken over roads. Once, a vulcanizer graciously permitted me to park my car in front of his shed ‘for a few minutes only’. I looked up and down, just to assure myself that I was really parking my car along the town’s only main road provided by the government. Satisfied, I apologised and told him that I did not know he owned the road. Obviously, there is the law, and there is… Now, where is Sunny Okosuns to tell us who exactly owns the road?
The second thing is the ambivalent attitude of the law itself towards the low-income group. Nigeria is considered one of the most lawless countries in the world because the people as a group seem to have adopted this attitude of indifference towards rules and regulations. For the most part, the law condemns the attitude but does nothing to punish the offenders. This is why there is no fear in the land. So, traders take over streets and policemen walk by or walk home with freebees. No one talks. No one, that is, until Gov. Fashola in Lagos who managed to keep his mouth shut while talking, and now Gov. Oshiomole, who could not keep his mouth shut for very indignation. Up to that point, I had been with him.
Gov. Oshiomole lost me, however, not because he could not keep his mouth shut (no, I certainly do not support the ‘Go and die’ tirade) but because his apologies were too effusive. I do not understand how on earth one can justify a TWO MILLION NAIRA APOLOGY without having gone through a law court. Actually, I have several objections to that very expensive apology. First, where does that gift of two million Naira come from? I am sure the good people of Edo State are very well disposed towards their governor. I would be too if I lived there. I am also sure that the governor is a genuine leader at heart. However, I do not think that gives him the licence to apologise to people with the state’s funds. It is not an argument to say that all the money belongs to the people after all; that is only an apologia that implicates helplessness. It is the people’s money but it is for building the state not for funding apologies.
My other objection concerns Gov. Oshiomole’s logic. After giving the widow a monetary offer, he went further by giving her employment to go and ‘fight’ (other widows?) against trading on the streets. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Here was a woman who had nothing in the world save her children, and suddenly, because of what someone has tagged the ‘Go and Die Encounter’, she found herself a millionaire and you are now asking her to go out and fight what made her rich. I would not. I mean, how can anyone expect me to attack even in the mildest form that very thing designed to take me out of poverty? That is one madness to which people will not listen.
That’s another thing: who exactly is expected to listen to her – other widows hoping for their own ‘Go and Die’ encounter? If I were any one of such widows, I would not take kindly to an encounter with Mrs Ifije. I would look her up and down in a typical fish-woman fashion, beg her to please leave me alone and not stand in the way of my own ‘Go and Die’ encounter. Who knows the next person to pass by, insult me in indignation and turn round to apologise handsomely? I would therefore turn my back on Mrs. Ifije.
Then, how is the poor widow to now begin to cope with the hordes of relatives who will now besiege her hitherto poor home in a renewal of avowed long-stemmed relationship? It’s the kind that starts with ‘don’t you remember, I am your long lost, great-great-great-grand-father’s long lost cousin seven times removed.’ Now, how can anyone forget something as simple as that?
However, it is possible to get it right. In the course of providing governance, toes will be stepped on, but care should be taken that wrong signals are not sent out. Governors can sympathise, empathise, have fellow-feelings with and towards us the citizens, but let a reprimand be a reprimand. Otherwise, we just may find that gestures such as Gov. Oshiomole’s can easily be counter-productive. For instance, what lesson is Mrs. Ifije to learn but that crime pays in millions?
