The coming espionage against Immigration rogues

Former academy Senior Prefect of Bourdillion College of Politics and Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, is stringing together something musical to the ear, that may end up being a billboard success, provided the assurance won’t end up being what street lingo will capture as audio, meaning what you just hear without getting. Nothing should be worse than a failed promise, but politicians revel in it. Though the Word of God says only a fool will make a promise and not fulfil it, it is a way of life with political office holders. Maybe, you don’t blame them so much. Here are men (and women) who spend a lifetime doing the right thing, the wrong way when at their best of behaviour.

Electoral victory is desirable everywhere as a mark of positive populism, but compromising the system, to be there can’t be right anywhere, including in Nigeria, where it has become a culture. That is even at their best. When they choose to go lower, animals may rate better than some of our leaders in the execution of deadly acts for their so-called mandates. I remember visiting a fellow seeking a return to the House of Representatives years back in my native land. I was told he was locked in a strategic meeting, in deep recesses of his home. The meeting took a while and I felt it must be with high-profile vote-swinging individuals or groups. Well, they have become high-profile in their own way and they surely swing election outcomes; thugs.

No, this piece has nothing to do with Aregbesola’s frayed relationship with his successor in Osogbo or diminishing influence on Lagos politics. The only connection the issue has with politics is just that it is a politician promising it and unfortunately, that is the greatest danger to the sweet melody being composed not becoming a great music. At a Thursday meeting with Immigration fat-cats, Ogbeni Oranmiyan–two affixes that titivate the Minister’s persona, promised sting operations and undercover agents, all-fitted with body-camera, at all passport offices nationwide and even abroad.

According to the Minister, “they (undercover guys) will detect and report any form of solicitations, inflation, improper communication, extortion, diversion, hoarding and other corrupt practices.” If Ogbeni could end official and unofficial, online and offline touting at passport offices, he would have solved one of Nigeria’s biggest problems, competing in monstrosity with the corruption-ridden power sector and nearly-irredeemable Police Force.

Passport offices, all over Nigeria, are like Charly Boy Show of yesteryears, where anything can happen. Haba, those guys get mind. Since international passport, as we wont to call the Nigerian Passport, was forced into the realm of status symbol because everyone now wants to check out like Mr Andrew of the popular “I’m checking out” commercial of the eighties, acted by late thespian, Enebeli Elebuwa, due to successive disastrous political leaderships, being foisted on the country by the establishment, both North and South, Immigration guys have been making a kill of it.

Even those hoping against hope to get visa to just any country, away from Nigeria, demonstrate inexplicable desperation in securing the Green-back passport, and those guys with starched conscience, like their cartoon-colour uniform, just milk every cow on sight, not minding if mad cow disease is manifesting in some. Who drinks all manner of milk? Not even the one we used to call ikun iya agba (old woman’s phlegm) due to its sticky nature, when flowing out of the well-rounded tin, when Nigeria was Nigeria. As tongue-licking as that sweetened stuff was, approaching it at home required extra caution. Some acquaintances had to gulp plenty of palm oil, after downing good measure of adin (palm kernel oil), while doing quick sip from milk can, stored by their mum.

For the minister to be proposing a panacea so radical, like his person and politics, he, without power, or someone very close to him, must have had a horrible firsthand encounter with those extortionists in uniform. From head to toe, Immigration officers running passport offices in Nigeria are not better than stink-pots. When the fry creaming you off wants to prove some funny credibility for charging you almost double the official cost of securing the passport, he/she (yes, female officers tout too) will start towing you from office to office, where the so-called ogas at the top sit to collect their shares of the loot, before signing their portions of the accompanying documents, while chatting away, doing practically nothing with bare tables. Is it possible to increase security features and reduce human participation in the process?

Lagos, Abuja, Ilesa, elsewhere, passport offices are dens of robbers. Minister Aregbesola would do well leaving behind a lasting legacy of being the one to be used of God to clean the Augean stable.

In this era of constant communication, the cleansing exercise, including the spiritual, because the demon of filthy lucre, reigns supreme over the system, should factor real-time citizen participation. If the Minister isn’t just engaging in swashbuckle for its sake, then a see-something, say-something engagement with the trending and viral public, is the way to go. Any arrangement that is shorn of name and shame, the kind that has emasculated police a bit from their extortion madness won’t deliver. While wired undercover agents are desirable in catching filthy hands right inside the cookie jars, allowing members of the public, to be involved in the planned espionage, would help the Honourable Minister avoid internal compromise.

Yes, I know with the peculiar Nigerian system, no anti-corruption antidote is fool-proof. The crime community around here always tries to be a step ahead of frameworks to stop illicit flow, but the Minister would be doing the image of the country a whole lot of positives, if some Immigration fat-cats end up losing to the Tom Vs. Jerry chase coming to the system. Yes, body cameras, undercover agents, sting operations, espionage, catch and cut and name and shame, won’t end the massive corruption industry within Immigration, but it would be nice to have some senior officers as the scapegoat. Who knows, maybe some falling into the Aregbesola’s ditch, would teach others the needed lessons, for the system, at least, to be rid a bit, of armi roba.

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