One week, one scandal

It is not difficult to catch thieves in Nigeria. Our thieves don’t steal in the dark. They do it the rodent way — stealing and eating it in the very presence of the owner. Everyone, including the common felon knows that Nigeria does not always punish according to the seriousness of crimes. And you don’t think this is exactly the reason why goats have no respect for hunters? The protectors own the predators; the guards breed the thieves. So, why would those who pilfer not strut and eat with confidence when they know they are the judge in their own case? Certainty of arrest and severity of punishment are the two greatest disincentives to criminal behaviour. But you are encouraged to misbehave and do just anything when you know that you are safe no matter what. Those who rape Nigeria will do it and do it and do it again because they benefit from layers of class and ethnic condoms. Punishment is the affliction of sinners who don’t have “persons.” Nigeria’s only Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, once experienced it: “I just caught a thief,” he told Dr Omololu Olunloyo, “but they said I can’t try him until (and unless) I catch a Yoruba thief and a Hausa thief.” He must do ethnic balancing and ensure “true federalism” in the arrest and trial of plunderers of the common wealth.

I have read several supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari sob gently, quietly in the last two weeks. They are in sorrow because their enemies are mocking them. The tears of Buharists and the Buharideens have particularly flowed more rapidly following the Abdulrasheed Maina matter. “He lost me,” one of them declared on Facebook. I have also seen several Buhari haters in celebratory mood. They are happy that this god whose head and feet appear made of clay has personally called down the rains. They say Buhari has become an expert in how not to punish friends and acolytes caught doing what thieves do.  They say he is not like Olusegun Obasanjo who used his guilty friends as sallah rams to fete his powerful, thieving enemies. And he is almost like Goodluck Jonathan whose friends enjoyed absolute immunity. You remember that Interior minister who supervised the death of scores of young job seekers in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt? Did he receive a common query from Jonathan? Can you remember someone called Dieazani Alison-Madueke too? She enjoyed her excesses till the very end. But Buhari has found a middle ground between Obasanjo and Jonathan. When Babachir Lawal was caught cutting golden grass, did the “presidency” not send him home and set up a panel to “look” into the allegations? Is that not enough punishment for someone who enjoys the president’s confidence? When Kachikwu and Baru were making too much noise on those strange NNPC $25billion contracts (or loans), did Buhari not call and whip them into line? Even the Senate set up a probe panel under Wammako. When the Maina issue blew out, did the president not move in quickly with a sack and a directive to the Head of Service to probe and submit a report on it “before the close of work”? If you have not heard from Buhari on the probes, it is because that is his own style. He doesn’t fail his friends. Do you begrudge a man because he says this is how I will run my affairs? What else should a president have done?

Buhari is slow – and deliberately so. He sets up panels and committees to probe infractions committed by his boys. The reports come to him and he then sits on them. That is what his haters say. But his friends counter that every human being has a style. The way a dog crosses rivers is not the way of the fox. The wily dips first a paw, measuring the depth. Then with stealthy carefulness, it adds the second, then moves. If you want to eat and eat well, you don’t take a plunge into strange depths without precautions. Nigeria is a forest of lions and hunters, the president needs to be careful. That is from Buhari’s friends. But what carefulness selects who to pamper among sinners? An ex- Buhari lover vows that henceforth “our own thieves” will be protected as long as where they steal is Abuja. Another concurs that truly he has also come to see stealing in Abuja as reparation. This, he maintains, will remain so until the consequences of stealing are unified across the nation. Cologne for family, acid for others can’t be definition of justice and fairness. The heavy burden which justice and fairness place on kings makes fools of princes who covet the throne. You must punish friends who sin as you punish foes who err. Where this is lacking, Michael Zimmerman quotes an ancient Indian writer: “the stronger would grill the weak like fish on a spit; crows would devour the sacrificial cakes; dogs would lap up the sacrificial offerings; no one would have any right of ownership; and everything would turn topsy- turvy. . .”    There can’t be peace where praise and worship are organized for the lion who killed the children of the poor but is accused of genocidal inclination when the carnivore goes for kids of the noble.

I have also heard entrenched lovers of Buhari lament this season of scandals. One day, one scandal is not what they voted for, they moan. One of them, Hameed Ali of the Customs shed very bitter, loud tears last Friday: “Everyday, when you wake up, there is a story that makes you shiver,” he cried in the presence of mourners of their receding integrity. What Buhari promised is change and those who believed him say they are still in the waiting room of the maternity ward. They are expectant but worried at daily news of threatened abortion. I sympathize with them. Sometimes I wonder how the minders of the image of this Buhari government find the peace of mind to sleep. It has been one week, one scandal in powerful circles. The bad news are just too much and the big men should be asking “who did we offend?” Every day, every night, they scramble their bombers to intercept nuclear warheads from friends and foes.  The carefully arranged building blocks of integrity of their regime suffer shocks and tremors on daily basis. When the president was to leave his place of restoration in London weeks ago,  we were told the “king” was coming with the sword of justice. But since he came, this king has faced enemy and friendly fires that task the enduring integrity of the field marshal. And his haters say he should blame himself. Kings who immolate evenhandedness on the altar of self interest have swallowed the palace mortar. The king must be naked if he chooses to shred the Babanriga that earned him the throne. The haters tell the tale of the wise king who takes himself as the cleverest of all in his kingdom. They say this fabled king enjoys his daily display of integrity and wisdom while his ministers applaud. No matter what he wears, this king tells himself, his people will continue to value and celebrate his immaculate handsomeness. But he soon sells himself to scammers who sew him a costly garment of nakedness. The promise the king got is a special precious dress visible only to the corruption-free. And so everyone sees this dress on the king and salutes its beauty and elegance. It takes a child in his innocence to tell the king that he is in total nudity. “The king is naked,” the child shouted to the shame of the palace. Buhari’s hailers know he is challenged but won’t say what they see. They must hail the elegance of their angel’s unsoiled dress. His critics can’t see his grandeur because they are soldiers of corruption fighting back. But if I were of his government, I would scream like that clear-eyed child. I would hold a mirror to the president’s face. And if he refuses to see what I see, I would throw up my hands in utter frustration and exclaim: God! What a man!