If It Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck, It Must be a Goat..

I used to think I was pretty knowledgeable about a lot of things especially things having to do with vocabulary, semantics, syntax etc. I felt I could read a newspaper article with understanding and draw logical conclusions. Recently I’ve not been so sure. 

For instance, when I read about the Faroukgate scandal and came across the term sting operation, I said to myself “I know what that means, I don’t have to refer to Wikipedia for that” As a self confessed TV lover, one of my favourite genres is crime and investigation. I’ve watched countless episodes of CSI (all the different versions), Criminal Minds, Law &Order (UK & US), NYPD Blue… the list is endless. Bottom line, I take a keen interest in crime drama and documentary and I suspect I’m not the only one who is fascinated by this genre given the rate at which Hollywood churns them out. Americans are capitalists; they stick with the winning formula.

Today I read a headline in The Punch – “I collected money not bribe - Lawan”- and I began to wonder if I really know or understand anything at all. I’ve been waiting for a headline which reads thus “Otedola, Farouk Arrested for Bribery…” but instead I got a headline which says money is not a bribe. After reading today’s headlines, I decided to check the meaning of the term sting operation; after all, it could be that I was mistaken about its meaning all along. I checked 3 different reference sites just to be sure and they all gave this definition: a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. Well this confirmed my initial understanding of the term; I was quite relieved by this. 

I remember that Bimbo Adelakun, in one of her earlier columns, had mentioned that the only thing that would come out of this whole scandal was that Nigerians would understand the term ‘sting operation’. From all that has unfolded I don’t quite agree with Ms Adelakun; yes the term has come into our consciousness but it hasn’t quite played out according to its real meaning, it has taken on a ‘Nigerian’ connotation.   I draw this conclusion because a typical sting operation involves security operatives who usually make an arrest once the crime has been committed (I know some people may think I’ve been watching too much TV).  In the case of the Faroukgate sting operation, it’s been almost 3 months since this ‘sting’ and no one has been arrested.  The question that keeps ringing in my head is “was a crime committed?”, from all indications the answer to this is a resounding ‘yes’ which raises another question “why didn’t the security operatives make an arrest?” The only answer I can think of is ‘because this is Nigeria’.

Back to today’s headline which also highlights my ‘ignorance’; I thought I knew the meaning of the word ‘bribe’ but according to Farouk Lawan, I’m just an ignorant so and so who needs to brush up on her vocabulary. As I don’t want to perish in my ignorance, I decided to check up the meaning of the word bribe in the dictionary though I could have sworn that I knew the meaning before today, and here’s what I came up with: Something, such as money or a favour, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct.

 

Now please let us deconstruct this definition in the light of Messrs Farouk Lawan and Otedola’s early morning meetings. A person was in a position of trust and from my limited understanding, Mr. Lawan as a member of the Federal House of Representatives and a Chairman of an ad-hoc committee could be said to be that person. Money, a whopping $620,000, was offered and given to influence Mr. Lawan’s views or conduct. In this case, Mr. Lawan’s view that Zenon Petroleum should be duly investigated for subsidy fraud changed as soon as money changed hands (couldn’t resist that pun). Mr. Lawan urged his colleagues in the House to remove, erase or delete Zenon Petroleum from the list of companies under investigation. In my limited view, Mr. Lawan’s views and conduct were undeniably influenced by the receipt of the sum of $620,000. I have not read or heard of any report which indicates that Mr. Lawan gave his colleagues any evidence which informed his volte-face on Zenon Petroleum so I can only deduce that money influenced his earlier held view that the company should be investigated for subsidy fraud. However Mr. Lawan contends that he received money and not a bribe. I am greatly mystified by this defense but I choose to stick with my earlier reasoning which is based solely on the established meaning of the word bribe. 

I ran Mr. Lawan’s tenuous distinction between money and a bribe by my brother and he told me that he’s always thought that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. In this great country, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a goat or a snake or a cow or a whale but certainly not a duck!

You Can't Reason With Greed and Corruption

Being a social critic in Nigeria Is hard work. On the up side, one never runs out of material, nothing like writer’s block for the critic in this country.

Today I will tell you about how I spent my Saturday and you can decide if my opening statements are true or false.

On Thursday (14/06/2012) I got home from work and found out there was a power outage (nothing new about that), so I promptly switched on my alternative source of power. Sometime around midnight a loud alarm woke me up; this alarm signified that power had been restored by the unfortunately named ‘Power Holding Company of Nigeria’. Apparently people have resorted to these alarmingly loud ‘alarms’ so that they can wake up and switch off their generating sets when power is restored in the middle of the night.  Anyway I was still in darkness despite the information conveyed by my neighbour’s alarm; I went to check if I had switched my power source from generator to ‘NEPA’ and I had. So why was I in darkness then? I couldn’t have run out of electricity credit because I had recently recharged my prepaid meter.  I was in this state of confusion till the next day and PHCN had chosen this precise period to supply regular electricity thereby rubbing salt into my wounds!

To cut a long story short, I waited till Saturday to investigate the mysterious outage and guess what? I had been disconnected from the main power supply to my close. Now the only reason for a disconnection is an unpaid bill and as I no longer have a post paid meter, it is impossible for me to owe electricity bills. Foolishly, I thought that there must have been some mistake so I took off to the PHCN undertaking (I wonder why their offices are called ‘undertakings’) in the area and lodged a complaint. I was expecting a shamefaced apology at the very least for this high level of incompetent customer service. Well let’s just say things don’t work that way in Nigeria. The person in charge of disconnections (curiously designated as the marketing officer) boldly announced to me that he was aware of the disconnection and the fact that I was not owing a dime. So why was I disconnected? Alas I was guilty by association: my neighbour was allegedly in arrears of N150, 000 (that’s about two year’s worth of electricity bills unpaid yet they’ve been enjoying the same supply of electricity as everyone else  for as long as I can remember but that’s a story for another day).  By this time, the only thought that kept crossing my mind was “I am living in a crazy country”. Since I had been given an unreasonable explanation for my disconnection, I decided to cancel it out with my own reasonable demand – “please come and reconnect my electricity”.  Unfortunately reasonableness doesn’t always beget reason so I got a more unreasonable solution – “Madam go and separate your wires from your neighbours” For a split second, I imagined myself on a ladder with electrical wire all around me trying to “separate my wire from the neighbours” You see what being around unreasonable people does to you? You begin to think unreasonable thoughts too! By this time I felt like screaming but since I was the reasonable party in this discussion, I had to keep my cool.

Anyway, I brought myself down to earth and asked the next reasonable question – “so who will undertake this erm…separation?” The marketing officer nodded at me like a teacher who has finally been able to get through to a particularly dim student. He then beckons to two young men who had been hovering about like vultures waiting for the final death throes of their prey.  The young men were supposedly electricians who were going to ‘help’ me sort out my rather ‘difficult’ situation. They eagerly got into my car and followed me home ostensibly to go and assess the amount of work required. Then they started their assessment and I noticed that they were looking a bit disturbed so the following conversation ensued (I am going to name them ‘Good cop’ and ‘Bad cop’ because they acted out the good cop/bad cop routine with me):

Good Cop:         Madam, we are going to sort this thing out today

Bad Cop:         (interjecting) But it won’t be easy o, it’s not going to be easy at all (he shakes his head regretfully)

Good Cop:          As long as madam will give us money to buy the wire, no problem

Bad Cop:              Remember we have to rent a ladder too

Good Cop:           Madam don’t worry, we will make sure that we conclude today

Me (madam):       So how much wire do you need?

Bad Cop:              A lot o! Can’t you see that we have to go through about 4 houses before we    get to you?

Me:                        So how much will this cost?

Bad Cop:              N5000 for labour

Me:                        No I can’t pay that, after all I do not owe any money (still trying to appeal to reason)

Bad Cop:              Madam, that is not my problem, I’m just trying to help you. This is private work not ‘NEPA’ work.

Good Cop:          (addresses his colleague in Yoruba in an ‘appealing’ tone) let’s just manage N3000

Bad Cop:              Ok Madam, we’ll accept N3000 but you have to pay N7000 for two bundles of wire

Me:                        (Spluttering with outrage) you expect me to cough up 10,000 to reconnect my electricity when it should not have been disconnected in the first instance?!!

Good Cop:          Madam we are only trying to ‘help’ you o

Bad Cop:              Let’s go jare, I don’t have time, I have work to do.

So that was that, no electricity for me yet. I couldn’t help marveling at the audacity of the two guys; in fact, I was so shocked, I had to laugh. I decided to shift my negotiations to a higher level, so I called the Landlord of the house (my Dad) and I explained everything to him because I knew he was bound to know someone higher up in the PHCN office. He promptly called the Manager of the place and told her the situation, and then he asked me to go back to the office and speak to the lady in charge.

I went there boldly, under the illusion that a management level staff would handle everything with dispatch without demanding any gratification, after all it was their mistake not mine.  I met the lady and she mouthed the same unreasonable explanation about my neighbour’s indebtedness (whatever happened to confidentiality?) albeit with a caveat “If I had known it was Lawyer’s house, I wouldn’t have disconnected it”. She assured me that she would sort it out; she even graciously offered to ‘help’ me get some wire so that I wouldn’t have to pay for it. She then lowered her voice and said to me conspiratorially “you’ll have to give N2000 to the boys, you know they are not supposed to be at work, I’m just going to appeal to them on your behalf” For some reason, I felt embarrassed for her, I felt ashamed of what we had become as a people but I gave her the N2000 even though I didn’t see the ‘boys’ she was referring to. As if that was not bad enough, she also informed me that I’d have to pay the person she would assign to the job as it would take up a lot of his time. I wanted to ask what the N2000 I had just given to her was for but I was too tired, too disillusioned and even too embarrassed to ask so I kept quiet and nodded.

In the end, the electrician did come and he also promptly announced to me that it was going to be a ‘difficult’ task so… I understood and I just nodded wearily because I knew that there was no reasoning with greed and corruption.

My electricity was eventually reconnected and I paid even though I shouldn’t have but it was either that or live without electricity indefinitely. I had plans to meet with a friend on Saturday but I didn’t get to go because I was dealing with PHCN. To crown what I choose to call a ‘wonderful’ day, as soon as the power was restored, I switched on the pumping machine (only Nigerians will get this) and you know what? The pumping machine was instantly destroyed by a power surge.  I had to take the day off work on Monday to sort this out…

Tears are Two a Penny

At what point do we become inured to pain and suffering? When does the news of multiple deaths become just another headline? When do we stop feeling? When do we lose all sense of responsibility?

I ask these questions because I think the people we have left in charge of our security and governance seem to have reached that point. You may disagree because of the widely circulated pictures of Goodluck Jonathan weeping at the Dana Plane crash site and the news reports of the Minister, Stella Oduah breaking down in tears also at the same site. Remember Diezani Allison Madueke wept like a baby over the state of our roads a couple of years ago when she was the Minister of Transportation. If my memory serves me well, I don’t recall any tangible improvement in the state of those roads that caused so much sadness for the ‘tender-hearted’ Minister. I wonder if she’s been weeping again over the embezzlement of N1.7trn in sham fuel subsidy payments under her watch as Minister of Petroleum Resources; or the recent $3m bribery scandal making the rounds as a result of the same subsidy palaver.

The Dana Plane crash killed over 150 people in a matter of minutes and yes it is cause for deep sadness and maybe that is why the President wept. However, has anybody taken the time to calculate the death toll from Boko Haram attacks since the beginning of 2012? Has the President gone to each bomb site to weep too? Have the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Inspector General of Police gone to all the sites of bombings and shootings to commiserate with tears in their eyes? Have they decided to urgently review the training of our security operatives? Have they sacked the police commissioners of the respective states where the murders have become prevalent? Are they reviewing the country’s response as a whole to terrorist attacks? Has the Senate asked some security chiefs to step aside as Harold Demuren of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority was ordered to after the plane crash? What exactly is our Government doing to stop Boko Haram's killing spree? I ask these questions in light of the flurry of activities and declarations that attended the tragedy of June 3^rd. 

It is sad to say this but I think the major reason for the outpouring of grief by people in high office over the fatalities of Sunday June 3 2012 is because the victims had names by virtue of who they were in life and the sort of accident that claimed their lives (no plane carries people without a manifest detailing the identities of passenger and crew members). When you are confronted with names and pictures; proof that these people lived, that they once were but are no more; when you hear testimony from friends and family who have a VOICE; it is hard to not to feel anything even if you belong to the highly insensitive Nigerian ruling class.

However, I don’t think this is the case in the incessant mass murders taking place in the North Eastern part of the country. Even the print media doesn’t bother with naming victims, they are sometimes described as ‘villagers’ or ‘worshippers’ (when the attack takes place in a church) but more often than not, the dead are seemingly ‘nameless’ and ‘faceless’, ironically like their killers whom Government officials routinely describe as ‘faceless elements’. Most of the victims of Boko Haram do not have friends and family who can be heard so there is apparently no tangible evidence of life before it became extinct and so our President can offer the usual hackneyed condolences and the bare faced lie that ‘we are winning the war on terror’ and go on his merry way as if nothing happened.

I am not trying to diminish the loss and sorrow caused by the Plane crash of Sunday June 3^rd; I am only trying to tell Nigerians not to be deceived into thinking that our Government cares because the President and the Minister wept in public. I do not want us to be distracted by all the motion without movement; the purposeless activity which has become the stock response to national tragedies and scandals alike. I want us to collectively demand that our leaders fulfill their roles and stop playacting.  

 I am asking those in authority to develop real empathy for the people they govern. I want them to become effective leaders, willing to act out of compassion. Real leaders empathize and then ACT. Remember that Jesus wept when He heard that Lazarus had died but then He went on to raise Lazarus from the dead (I know some of you are thinking ‘but that was a miracle’ the moral to be taken from this story is that HE DID something positive borne out of compassion). Weeping with the bereaved is all well and good but ensuring that people are not needlessly bereaved is even better.  If tears are all we can expect from the people we have entrusted our lives to, then we are in a very sad situation. Indeed, if tears are the best our Government can do for us as a people, then Mr. Jonathan’s aides should quickly order containers of cotton handkerchiefs for the President and his Ministers because, in Nigeria, preventable human tragedies occur every day on a large scale, it’s just that some victims have ‘names’ and ‘faces’ and others don’t.

Change Lessons

Lessons I’ve learned about change:

• Change is hard. It’s hard on the person taking the decision to change and on the people affected by that decision.
• Don’t expect to be applauded when you want to change things; we are mostly creatures of habit.  We like to stick to the ‘formula’.
• Change is necessary. In fact life isn’t sustainable without change…can you imagine if seasons never changed? If babies never grew? If you had to live today over and over?
• Positive change doesn’t bring instant satisfaction; if it did, people would not keep banging on about ‘the good old days’ (when there was nothing like penicillin or aeroplanes or cars or simple hygiene for that matter!) Classic example is the case of the Israelites. They were slaves one day and free men the next day but they still found a lot to complain about in their new found freedom.
• Change (positive change please) is hard work but it’s worth the effort.
• Decisiveness and change go hand in hand. There just has to be a deliberate decision before any change can take place.
• People say procrastination is the thief of time…I say procrastination is the greatest barrier to change. Remember all those New Year’s resolutions?
• Change is active. A decision is followed by a set of actions or else nothing happens.
• Positive change breeds more positivity (Rom 5:4)
• Change is not an end in itself. Change for the sake of change never lasts but result oriented change is another matter. If you change your diet just so you can say “look at me, I’m eating healthy stuff” you’ll soon be back to burgers and fries for breakfast. If you change your diet so that you can lose weight, each pound you lose inspires you to stay with the new diet.