by Debo Adejugbe

As the venomous and dreaded corruption drives through our land unchallenged, it should never escape our minds that we, the people, are complicit in its growth.

Recently, I wrote about our politics and its close resemblance to a “rocking chair”, all movement but no progress. The sad tale isn’t about how bewildering our leaders loot now; it is the advanced competition they have among themselves, on who possesses the best looting machinery. We have seen it happen countless times despite the ominous signs it portends for our future.

To ask for probity in the polity is equivalent to being a neophyte; a politician who lacks the structure and wherewithal to seamlessly swim in our wealth untouched and unhindered. You see, they steal our collective wealth and oppress us with the same while we revere their power, reach and ingenuity. Few things are needed to become a man of the people and the ability to lavishly throw money around ranks as number one. The novice among them are impelled to join the fray or get thrown out while bus is moving.

In Nigeria, we have long mastered the art of turning simple drama into a fully overblown crisis. In recent years, we’ve had the 3rd term debate, the 6 year single term, the removal of a virtual subsidy on PMS, the ascension to office of a shoeless president, the ridiculously conceived salary structure of legislators, the laughable immunity clause for our legislators, the “Jesus tweet”, the mystery surrounding a President’s health status and later, the “Lazarene” first lady and many more.

These should be basic issues but we’ve dramatically blown them out of proportion that we have consistently ignored to question our elected leaders on the simple basics of governance as it affects our everyday life. We have adopted the ‘siddon look’ attitude while those who dare ask are getting pummeled or killed, just because they understand what questions to ask and who to direct them to. We have consistently displayed our lack of understanding on what growth is, and at such, we have been blessed with leaders agreeable to our thought process.

In 1966 – Pre-coup era in the Nigerian polity – Chinua Achebe prophetically carved a fiction out of our impending future. It was meant to capture the politics of an unnamed African country with problems such as bribery, incompetence and the festering corruption among the various government apparatchiks. He was thirty-six years when this novel was published and in the concept of youths as we mouth it nowadays, he would have been one of us.

His story revolves around a first person narration by Odili, a school teacher, about his erstwhile teacher-Nanga, who had become a Member of Parliament. Nanga, as Odili painted, is seen by his constituents as suave, innocent, smooth and ultimately referred to as “A Man of The People”. He could do no wrong, despite obvious corruption, waywardness, pettiness, inefficiency and the usage of his position to corruptly enrich himself. In the course of the narration, we saw how Nanga bedded Odili’s girlfriend, Elsie – a result of his position and wealth – under the watchful eyes of Odili, which was where the story took a new turn.

Odili became a parliamentary candidate in a new party and he was to contest against Nanga. This couldn’t be, as he was out-spent, beaten and out-muscled from the game. He couldn’t even convince his kinsmen in “Urua” to ditch Nanga. They had, in conjunction with the other villages promised and pledged their votes to Nanga. They were afraid of “no development” in the event that his re-election bid fails.

In the end, Odili got his revenge via a coup that flushed the corrupt and bloated government out of place. It should be noted that Nigeria, until that time, had never experienced a military coup. The story also shows how the people encourage their elected representatives to steal and loot – owing to their incessant demands and ridiculous expectations from them.

As the venomous and dreaded corruption drives through our land unchallenged, it should never escape our minds that we, the people, are complicit in its growth. As seen in the novel, Nanga was promised “advance votes” despite his inefficiency and corruption because the people were afraid of the uncertainty that an alternative will bring. They were content with the odious status quo and preferred to ‘siddon look’ tacitly encouraging the corrupt establishment to ride on unchecked.

Don’t fret over understanding a book written by Achebe in 1966, it is a documentation of an unfolding future and the bleakness of everything we hold dear if we decide to stand aloof and criticize the alternative we have not tried. Odili, representing a younger generation of passionate and patriotic youths, up in arms against Nanga, the established and ridiculously corrupt elite, failed because the people were afraid of change. Repulsive as the established order was, they decided to “keep faith” rather than take a “leap of faith”. Should we keep floundering in 2015 because we lack faith?

To understand how important 2015 is, here is the last word from Achebe: “You died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest — without asking to be paid.”

Let’s stand up for those who lost their lives fighting this battle to liberate our land, we need to urgently throw the kitchen sink at the injustice that permeates our polity and how we ingloriously worship positions. It’s time to support an Odili or a Nanga, your choices are irreversibly relevant to the end product. Do we want another “Man of the People” or a “Man for the People”?

Just like the Tricycles (Keke Napep) on our roads, we have garbed ourselves in a chronic identity crisis. We are neither here or there; we don’t want to be seen as a sellout or a follower. The time has come to choose and the choices are glaringly obvious.

What path/part have you penciled down for yourselves as 2015 approaches? Are you one of the inglorious tribes that sells out for a morsel or one of those who genuinely crave a future that we can all be proud of? History beckons again and your choices are the foundation on which that history will be built.

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Debo Adejugbe is a trained Telecommunications/Electronics Engineer and a certified IT professional living in Lagos. Dad to amazing Hailey and an advocate against Sexual and Domestic Abuses. Debo has political sympathy for the Labour Party. He tweets from @deboadejugbe

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.