Lately the nation has been entertained with tall tales of how top Presidency hands were caught in one of the greatest international robberies of all time. But the culprits were damn lucky. Their great luck is that Nigerians are not generally aware of the enormity of the evil these rogue fellas have perpetrated in our names and against us. To put it simply, plagiarism is the greatest moral and material degeneracy and thievery today.
The details are as follows: Originally, plagiarisms were taken as the mere moral offense, something a “rogue boy’’ does. But as industries and economic prosperities migrated up from the sweatshops and factory pits, to the design studios and brainboxes, the concept of intellectual property took a new and vibrant turn. It is now the greatest source of material wealth around the world.
To have an idea of it, let’s say you bought a smartphone for N1 million. The fact of it is that the cost of material and manufacture would have been less than 25 per cent. That is what is paid the Chinese firm that mass produces it is, less than N250,000 apiece. The rest is in intellectual, including creative, property. So to steal the intellectual property (IP) in a smartphone is to have stolen value more than if you pilfered N1 million physical smartphones. And the dam-bursting surge in our Nollywood (IP) dollar revenues is also a pointer. The world is richer it appears because Genevieve is alive and acting!
And this matter is reflected in the logic that today most companies’ greatest assets are their IP, including their brand equities. And while intellectual property is generative, non-IP assets are often inert. So it is taken that to steal intellectual or artistic property or aspects of it is the greatest act of criminal brigandage in the modern world today.
However, most Nigerians are still of the ancient regime when IP theft was taken as petty stealing. But that is wrong. So plagiarism, which is an arm of IP stealing, has to been seen with modern eyes. Plagiarism is the theft of the greatest assets of the modern era. Thus it may be said that any man who can steal IP can do any crime.
But there are other questions to ask. We may all recall that Dr. Chris Ngige, a minister at the temple of the APC, was out at Enugu and was explaining how it was that President Buhari couldn’t hire many Easterners. According to Ngige, they were not trustworthy for hire by the President. For him, Buhari needed to work with only those he could trust. So, is Ngige now saying that President Buhari trusts plagiarists who are the worst of thieves? Ngige Ronu, please don’t wound yourself!
The other is that the President used the plagiarisms during the launch of an ethical and moral reawakening. The point is, how does one explain that, to trigger off a new and higher morality, the same Presidency is indulging in IP thievery, even if by mistake as claimed by Garba Shehu, presidential motor-mouth? Is the whole “Change Begins With Me” circus not now a fraud, even if by mistake? Should it not be junked?
The point must be made that the Presidency, or what the British calls the Cabinet Office, should be the epitome of deliberate and programmatic excellence. The margin for error must ordinarily be reduced to zero, especially for set pieces. Literally, one can go to the bank with every word that comes forth from the Presidency and not be turned back, for insufficient funds, forged signatures or plagiarisms. This is because the President is not acting in his personal capacity but on the behalf of 190 million Nigerians and their resources therein.
If there is a plagiarist within, I am afraid for the safety of the Presidency. A plagiarist can do anything including betray his master as he does his sources. And the latest charge of Boko Haram that they would kidnap the President alarms one further. This is when it is remembered that a plagiarist is at play in the most secret places of the Presidency.
Already, the plagiarism drama is making bold international headlines and embarrassment. It makes Nigeria a country that is not serious, a country whose presidency plays schoolboy thievery games. The last time two German ministers were caught as plagiarists, Chancellor Angela Merkel sacked them almost “online real time.” There is no time to waste. The Presidency must ‘cut heads’ and serve them to the public on a platter of what remains of her tattered integrity.
Access is everything
Everybody knows Aliko Dangote is the richest Nigerian. What many may not know is that the very concept of a rich list is not a natural thing and did not befall us like harmattan. That it has become so popular should not make us forget that it is an invented order. It was all started by B. C. Forbes. The founder of Forbes magazine, had an insight that may look common after the fact. He discovered that journalism was not in good and excellent writing. The prime law to being a great journalist was to secure access. Immediately you have access, even a perfunctory writer’s ability will make you glitter like gold.
The point is straightforward: If you are not admitted, you can’t report on any great event. So Forbes reinvented himself by posing rich, sharp suits and pipes to match. In looking rich, he was able to fool gatekeepers, passing himself off as one of members of the rich fraternity. And in being let in he made a fortune building a newspaper reporting the rich. Of course, other poor journalists who looked the part discovered that they were not admitted to the great gathering of the tribes of the rich and had their games foreclosed.
This brings us to the issue of the President’s choice of a finance minister. Matters have gotten so bad that even Catholic Bishops who are often buried in sorrowful prayers and silence are crying out: Buhari please save this nation, hell could not be more perilous economically than today’s Nigeria.
The implied verdict is that, among other things, Finance Minister, Ms Kemi Adeosun, is overwhelmed and has lost her mojo. Some are even questioning her professional credentials.
As for me and my household, we hold slightly different opinions. Her problem is that of access. She is not admitted or perhaps admissible. The details are as follows: The international financial system is a cold and cruel world. To be successful as a finance minister in our globalised world ruled by Anglosphere American Wall Street and Britain’s City of London, you must be an alumnus of just a handful of universities, the Oxbridge and Ivy League list universities, scattered around the world.
The point is not that you must be bright. Brightness helps but is not in issue. The point is that, as an alumnus, you can rally the standards. Of course that may not be just or justice, but that is how the world, especially its financial system, is run. It is absolutely snobbish and clubby.
The fact of this was brought into sharp focus when Chief Emma Iwuanyanwu led the call to bring back Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Perhaps a few grounds needed to be cleared. Part of it was that Okobnjo-Iweala may not necessarily know more economics that Adeosun, though that might be. The point is that Okonjo-Iweala was groomed at one of those Oxbridge, high if not holy, grounds. The impression is sometimes falsely given that those Oxbridge or Ivy League schools are there to train talents. It might as well be. But their central duty is to serve as a recruitment ground for those who will run the world, especially its finances. The implication is, whether it is in China or India, whether it is in the IMF or World Bank, in America or Paris, it is her kind, the same faculty alumni, who are running shop. And they know one another.
That is to say, if Okonjo-Iweala is finance minister and the economy runs into crisis, there is no party who can be of help in the closet international financial system, that will be more than two phone calls away from her.
Meanwhile, because all of them read New York Times, it used to be The Times of London, they are in constant communion with one another, and as one congregation are forever ready to help a sister or brother in distress.
But Kemi [who?] Adeosun, nobody knows her. Her great college, University of East London, is not even in the first 50 universities in the UK. And the fact of this denies her any connections in the closed world of international finance. It is this fact of the right access and contacts that allowed Okonjo-Iweala a leg up to deal with our debt overhang in the Olusegun Obasanjo years. It is not that what is to be done is mysterious. It is just that it is the privilege of club members and they are not outsourcing anything. So, an Adeosun couldn’t have done it. Not that she doesn’t know what to do, but that she has ‘no name tags’ and can’t be admitted.
Gideon Rachman a Financial Times of London writer, hints on this writing of India: ‘’the office of the chief economic adviser… the two most recent names were Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian. Both men were distinguished Indian economists who had spent most of their careers in the US and were at least as comfortable in Washington as in Delhi.’’
Please, repeat, who are as comfortable in Washington as in Delhi. The fact is simple. International finance is a super-secret society and to be a branch manager or what people call economic or finance minister of a nation, you must belong to succeed. The least entry qualification is Oxbridge and Ivy League certification.
To sharpen things, if it is said that possession is 9/10 of the law, it can be said that access is 9/10 of journalism and being an effective finance minister. These are the small prints only lawyers, geniuses and crooks, the three are oftentimes one, pay attention to.