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Penultimate week, I paid an unscheduled visit to a commissioner friend of mine in one of the northwestern states and, because I was in a hurry, I parked my car outside the premises and trekked to the gate, where I met five security agents on duty. I greeted them and proceeded on my trip to the main building.
All of a sudden, however, one of the security personnel shouted at me, asking who gave me the permission to do so without seeking what he called security clearance from them. I apologised and returned to their duty post, where they subjected me to all sorts of ridiculous questions. After obviously satisfying them with my answers, they asked me to fill in details about my address, phone number, email address and other particulars in a book, which I did. I was then permitted to proceed.
It was, however, while all that was happening, that I realized my mistake when I saw tens of visitors coming in with their cars, with no one asking them any question or subjecting them to any scrutiny. Once they blared their horn, the security personnel would just open the gate, and salute the occupants, if the car was a good one.
Having realized my ‘mistake,’ I vowed to as much as possible never repeat it, and so, on a visit to another agency of government, I made straight for the gate in my car, and it was promptly opened. I was given a very smart salute by a Civil Defence officer at the gate and no one asked me any question. Those, however, that made the same ‘mistake’ that I made by parking their cars outside, or those who didn’t have any, were subjected to the same rigours that I experienced days earlier.
Just last weekend, also, I accompanied a friend to the Abuja residence of a very top traditional ruler in the North. Since I was not the main visitor, I parked my car outside, and for the next 30 minutes or so that I waited inside, I saw that all that one required to gain unrestrained access to the compound was a good car, and the security personnel would come running to open the gate. I saw how easy it could be to harm that very senior citizen, as those who got in with their cars were just ushered to his living room without being known or asked any question. Imagine the implication if one of them came with a bad intent.
The story is told of a top politician who stormed an important event that he was invited to, but without dressing gorgeously. He was denied entry at the gate, even when he showed his invitation card. The gatemen did not even care to read the name written on the card and shouted at him to disappear from the scene, which he helplessly did.
This top politician also realised his ‘mistake’ and quickly ran back home, where he dressed in a very flamboyant attire. Upon his return to the same venue, the same security personnel that denied him entry moments earlier gave him a smart salute and ushered him to the high table. When food was served, guests shockingly saw him pouring it into the pockets of his flowing gown, messing the expensive dress up. Shocked, the organizers asked why he was doing that, and he responded that he was feeding the guest that was invited (meaning his cloths). He went ahead to narrate what happened when he arrived at the venue dressed less gorgeously and said that his dress, and not him, was the guest.
According to the World Poverty Clock, a staggering 40.1 per cent of Nigerians live in abject poverty, or below the poverty line, with the report adding that an individual in Nigeria is considered poor when he or she has less than N137,000 annually. This means a whopping 82 million Nigerians get subjected to all sorts of trauma and are even dehumanized every day just because they don’t have the means to dress well or drive in their own cars.
In Nigeria, poor people die because they don’t have a few hundreds of naira to buy urgently needed drugs, and talks of millions going on empty stomachs for a long stretch of time are daily occurrences. Jobs are pretty difficult to come by, as most job offers are shared by legislators, governors, judges, ministers, traditional rulers and those in high places. Being hopeless, and feeling so every minute of the day is the norm, rather than the exception, especially if you are not born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It accounts for the reason criminal elements, including terrorist Boko Haram, keep hiring our young ones, to kill and maim innocent citizens.
Surely, poverty is not an excuse for anyone to engage in crime, as our laws make no provision for such as an excuse. It means that anyone caught engaging in any crime will be severely dealt with by the law. But then, even the law is mostly only applied on the poor.
I know of an innocent young woman who has been sentenced to death because her parents refused to give the investigating police officers the money they demanded to turn a favorable report. I also know of another woman presently in Jos Prison who is being detained because her husband did not have the money to give the policemen that came to arrest her, falsely claiming she was a kidnapper. She was detached from her children, parents and relations and has been in that prison for almost three years now, with the case dragging at a snail’s speed. There are millions of such cases of innocent citizens dying in our various prisons because they did not have the money to bribe the police or the courts.
It is time elite members of the Nigerian society changed this mentality, even if for their own good, as injustice has a way of catching up with the wicked.
