By Theo Adebowale
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From infancy to adulthood, we have moved from one town to another, another village to a city growing to know the Nigerian from Ifewara to Shonga to Jebba, to Ilorin to Ilesa to Oke-Bode to Ikirun, Iragbiji, Ada, Eko Ende, to Ibadan, Lagos, Eruwa, Lanlete, Ado-Ekiti. We have come to see the average Nigerian in Ekpedo, Benin, Agbor, Onitsha, Oweri, Port Harcourt, Igbobini, Igbokoda, whatever his or her religion or ethnic group to be rational, objective and humane.  The Nigerian neighbor in Kano, Kaduna, Zaria or Daura exposes delinquent behavior of children and condemns criminal tendencies of youths and adults, relations or strangers.

He knows what constitutes the good life, and what contradicts it.  Some years ago in Ado Ekiti, I drove recklessly around Fajuyi Park.  Before I got home, my family had received phone calls intimating my household of traffic infraction, and the danger I had constituted to myself and other road users.  These candor and frankness still obtain in our society until you approach the public space.

The elite has introduced confusion into the political community, brain washing the unsuspecting ordinary citizen. Whereas a whole neighbourhood would rise to apprehend a goat thief, the so-called elite summons the ethnic group to defend the treasury looter.  For the exercise, trade unions, professional bodies, town unions are canvassed to rise in defense of the ‘victimised.’  To a large extent labour groups have successfully resisted such incitements, though some unsuspecting members fall prey every so often for the lie, betraying common cause.  The various religious groups have not lived up to expectation in condemning criminal members.  Maybe the minister rebukes them in privacy and one would wonder why the Church that hands over burglars and house breakers to the Police would rebuke in camera, her member that misappropriates public funds under their watch, those that should have been excommunicated.  Drunkards, fornicators, that should not be spared, are more prone to sanctions than office holders that have dragged the name of the LORD into disrepute.  Loud condemnation of errant officials could be heard on minarets from time to time, but we may not be able to know how much sanctions have been executed against these ‘faithfuls.’  Religious issues may be shrouded in mystery because of the spiritual nature of process and procedure.  But what about the professional?  Mrs Mojisola Audu was admitted into a missionary hospital in Oluyoro.  The patient was handled carelessly resulting in heavy damage to her ear, nose and throat.  The report was filed with the Nigerian Medical Association in Oyo State but because of his denominational association the State Chairman sank the case.  The Press wanted to publicise the case; vested interests have constituted a brick wall.

Who shall we look up to in Nigeria? A junior worker in Ondo State was abruptly eased out of employment. A human rights lawyer was contacted.  He asked the young man to go get N250,000 before he would take up his case.  Supposing he was not an activist, supposing he was not a human rights lawyer?  But his was in the course of duty.  Now, the learned gentlemen.  The National President was alleged to be complicit in a money laundering case.  The Bar Association rose as one man to vehemently protest that transactions between an attorney and a client could not be subject of investigation.  There have been several allegations of prominent attorneys serving as conveyor of bribes to judges. Rather than investigating such issues to clear its corporate image, the Nigerian Bar Association would rather cover them up. Where law officers frequently undermine the law, the society is vulnerable because the learned ones who are presumed to be more honourable than the rest of the population have compromised.  Today, those who minister at the temple of justice are active in the process of frustrating the legal process and undermining the law, hence, lawbreaking is taking a professional garb under the watch of our barristers.  A week ago, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, pleading amnesia, admitted that he did not declare some of his assets as at when due, as requested by law.  Some attorneys counseled him to ignore court summons.  And some Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Nigerian equivalent of Queen’s Counsel mobilized their number to confuse the unsuspecting public, crying foul. Then ‘elders statesmen’ from a former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clarke and ‘the only wise’ Nigerian, General Chief, Dr Matthew Olusegun Obasanjo have started building a wall of reinstance against enforcement of the law and statutes of Nigeria. While the South-South leader saw it as one of the ‘devises to marginalize’ his region, Dr Olusegun Obasanjo said it was as an attempt to harass the Judiciary.  None of them is addressing the crux of the matter.  None of them is referring to the provision of the law or the breach.  But, we all know that if Chief Olusegun Obasanjo catches a worker in his Ota Farm with an egg stolen from the poultry, it would take luck for him not to face extra judicial punishment.  The Nigerian of 2019 is as intelligent, reasonable and law abiding as those of the old.  But the elite class has abdicated responsibility to a few loud members that are inconsistent except in pursuit of self interest.  And they employ propaganda to overwhelm this system, swaying public opinion wherever it pleases them, but definitely against the good of the larger majority.

What distinguishes developed societies, booming economies and performing polities is that they pursue the greatest good of the greatest number.  Israeli Prime Minister Benyamyn Nethayahu has been on police investigation for sometime on allegation of breaching the law regulating receipt of campaign funds.  He honours police investigation, and even attends to them whenever they go to interact with him on the matter.  Only last week, 97 year old Prince Philip of Britain was involved in an auto crash.  No life was lost, no injuries.  The British Police have spoken with him concerning non use of seat belt.  Buckingham Palace is not complaining neither the Conservative nor the Labour Parties are raising dust.  The other parties are not concerned.  The Queen’s Counsel and members of the Inner Temple are not bothered. They are busy in the discharge of their duties.

But why will the Nigerian elite ever so often drag the state and her people away from sanity? Why would they revive contradictions and inanities to perpetuate poverty, deepening confusion while they continually plunder the state?