By VICTORIA NGOZI
There is nothing new under the sun, so goes a wise saying. Nigerians would disagree for events in recent times are shocking to most people and not comparable to anything they have known or seen in recorded Nigerian history.
Stealing, misapplication (padding), misappropriation and looting of public funds have taken on a new dimension. People are no longer content with stealing millions of naira which is now equated to chicken feed but appropriating millions of scarce, foreign exchange – dollars and Euros. Dollars, Euros, et al are the new golden calf that is worshipped. Virtually everybody in Nigeria – the old, young, students, unemployed, etc, now keep tab of the dollar’s exchange rate. I was surprised when one akara seller in the village was telling me that the dollar was exchanging for N500 when I complained that the bean cake was getting smaller and smaller. What her petty business has to do with dollars, I could not readily fathom.
Apparently, the international Forbe’s list of billionaires which mentions just about five Nigerians on its top list is false. We have more Nigerian billionaires if recent discoveries by the anti-graft agency are anything to go by. And these are raw cash. I bet none of the official Forbe’s billionaires can produce N5 million cash instantly. They all rely on shareholdings, promissory notes, property and other non liquid assets for their wealth. But our undocumented billionaires can bring out billion naira cash instantly by simply opening their secret vaults in their houses. Were it not that the cash are displayed physically, many of us would not have believed that one man alone can amass billions of naira in his house. And while the rest of us are being directed by the authorities to fully embrace the cashless policy, not so these fellows who as part of the elite policy-making officials sold this policy to us. Talk of ‘do as I say, not as I do’. Rather, these undocumented billionaires are taking us back to decades past when our grandparents used to keep money at home, mostly under the pillow or in traditional saves. Small, chicken change then. But now these abracadra or overnight billionaires keep their huge cache of raw cash in specially constructed vaults in unimaginable places like underground rooms, fake walls, septic tanks, you name it. It reminds one of the tricks used by drug traffickers to conceal their dirty product from prying eyes of drug enforcement agents.
Though we are no native speakers of English Languange since it is not our mother tongue, we are now being literally tutored that there is a difference between a bribe and a gift. Ordinarily, a gift is a kind of souvenir or memento or some other asset you can always gaze at and instantly think about the giver, to keep the memory of the giver alive in you; it is supposed to be a token of appreciation from the giver to the recipient, so they usually come in ‘small forms’ by way of size even though their monetary equivalent could be quite phenomenal. But the average Nigerian because of our misplaced priority and wrong view of life would rather you give him cash than a 5-carat gold jewellery. The cliché is, ‘na gold I go chop’ notwithstanding that the high quality jewellery costs millions and millions of naira. We would rather you monetise whatever gift you wish to give us.
It could be that the bad eggs in our oil and gas industry changed their perception about gifts when a former Petroleum Minister got indicted for receiving a piece of wrist-watch as gift. They then decided to be receiving their own gifts in dollars and other foreign currencies a la Yakubu et al. On the basis of this apparently new definition of bribe, some of the former high ranking individuals being investigated by our anti-graft agencies have boldly without scruples, demanded that their stacked up cash be returned to them immediately because it is a token, kola gift. So, if an office messenger in a strategic government office who earns N18, 000 a month receives one million naira gift every month by obliging some of its customers to push through their files quickly, it is a gift, not bribe? Given this new form of graft, government could consider enacting a law putting a limit to the amount of cash gift any public official can receive in the course of his official assignment – not more than his/her annual pay perhaps.
Graft is one of the banes of our society and it is noteworthy that women wish to join the fight against it as I watched the launch of the South-West zone of ‘Women against corruption’ on live television. It is said to be a nationwide drive and initiated by the First Lady, Hajia Aisha Buhari, miffed perhaps, as are many, by high sleaze around us. But how should women go about this fight? They should go about it in a quite different way, away from the methods currently being used by the executive, legislature and judiciary. At moment, government and its agencies are taking on corruption in a combative, public way. Women on the contrary, should tackle corruption in a quiet way without desiring accolades. Love is the greatest weapon against any untoward thing. And that is what women should employ. Is it not said that the destiny of a nation lies with women? Women are the silent engine that shapes the direction of the world.
Unfortunately, the God-given feminine charms have been misdirected and trampled underfoot by women themselves as we join men in the rat race for vanity. Rather than use their innate charms to prod men to noble deeds, we have turned it in the opposite direction, to lead men and by extension our world to evil acts and perdition. Women bear the greatest guilt for the wrongs in our society. Perpetuators of these evils are fruits of the womb of women. And women could influence the fruit of their womb by associating with, willing and longing for only what is true, noble and good at all times and earnestly. But majority of us choose to indulge in vainglorious corruption of the soul.
Ikeano writes via [email protected]