A long night

By 

Omorodion Uwaifo

Reuben Abati's "The Blood that Will Flow  in 2003" was a sad read. But if he meant to tell Mr President how to deploy the police and the army in that year, he did not say enough. If he was scared of the volume he thought might flow he did not say how many litres. If Mr. President would want the blood for DNA analyses as he might, he should know what volume. Only then can his ministry place a contract for the right size of tank. Is it not right that he should know the genetic make-up of those who give him nightmare?

My guess is that Reuben's concern had more to do with the scalpel than with the blood. He told us in his inimitable way that graft was alive and well. Hear him. "The stories continue to make the rounds about how local government chairmen and state governors head for European banks at the end of every month. Not for holidays, but to save part of the loot for the month and to build a war chest..."

Well, as if one did not know. In the rich tapestry that is Nigeria the fixed warp is that, which is corrupt. Graft is the cement that binds the elite. It knows no wazobia, no North, no South, no tribe, no principle, no religion, no friendship and no favours. It is the key that opens all doors. Has it always been like this? Let us look through a lens into years past.

Two friends walked down Igun Street in Benin City in 1942. A man much older than they were came upon a house whose roof glittered. It had been re-roofed with iron sheets the day before. In a city littered with thatched roofs, it was a great show of affluence. That was not all. The mud walls of the house were plastered over with sand and then whitewashed. There was also a skirt of coal tar that rose to the man's knee height. A few houses were better, but the man might not have been to the European Reservation Area of those days.

The two friends did not know what the fuss was about for they were young. But for many years they saw the people as they dealt with him with a barge pole. It was as if he were a thief. Those who knew him did not marry into or from his family. The people wanted no part of graft or theft. At that time, rubber and timber were the people's big business of choice, and they were such that none could do in hiding.

All that has changed. Benin no longer has a close and knit people. Many have moved to other parts of the country as others have moved from other places to replace them. As with Benin, so it is with other towns in the country. People are now more dilute and with it, the bonds that once held them have weakened. Homes, streets and neighbourhoods no longer share the bonds of the past. Homes are no longer scrubbed; streets are not swept clean; and neighbourhoods are not cleared of bushes and drained of floods any more. No one cares now. Boys and girls build homes of stone walls and their parents hail their busy-ness akumen.

Government is a metaphor for that which is meant to be remote, they say. The Federal Government is the monster from the netherworld. It robs them and holds them down. What is hers belongs to a monster and to no one. So, destroy them if you would, they would say. Better still; take as much of them as you would for you and for your people. Then you would be a true hero. And your name might just show up in the next national honour list. For what you did, a glad FG would get you busy on the duties of the state.

And you would do the same again. The problem is that you need a cover for your trails. It is a solid cover if it comes from politics. With it, be found out and no one would do a thing. Those without the clout would grumble, but who wants to know what they think or feel? As people say -when the rich farts his minions say thanks, sir. But when the poor does, everyone thumps the nose in anger. If you are no wazobia you may have a clout as much as your naira. The weight of the people behind you counts for nothing, lost as it is in the tyranny of numbers. No matter if they stole the numbers. In the fight to steal much more, spend you must. Don't, and someone might come from another place and buy up the seat. After all it is an investment with a chance for huge returns.

Four and a half decades of theft and wastage sing their dirge. In that time we have grown a taste for luxury and that which is grand. But we visit the best cities of the world and come home to urinate on our streets. We send our children to the best colleges in the world. They come back to state jobs that offer them no challenges. The Emeagwalis stay back and they grow to be toasts of presidents. Yet, we have had rulers. And they ruled like gods. Drift along we did to where the current of their misrule took us. We live without a purpose, without a hope. We rush to houses of worship and come back as true children of Beelzebub. We are weird.

All of Nigeria is a land of the prey. Ask reporters who have a knack to be present here and there. The British preyed on our timber, on our palm produce and on our groundnuts. They preyed too, on our ignorance and left us with a legacy of fraud and sham justice. Robbers prey on the people, politicians prey on the people's purse and anyone that can find a victim preys. Now we stare at a dark abyss. The people wear poverty like a diver's suit and wait to prey on those that want their vote.

It is no day. It is a long night black as pitch from East to West, and from North to South. Someone tries to light a candle, but another puts it out. Will there ever be dawn, Lord? When might the thieves who prolong our night go? When might you Lord give us people with morals and with principle to serve us? Now the most vile of them are banding and are sworn to prolong our misery. They will come with pots of the naira they had stolen from us, to bribe us for our votes. They boast nothing but prose, theft and death. And with hunger the scourge of the truth as their ally; they could win Lord, unless you stop them. Save us dear God, or we perish.