By Okey Ndibe
As a novelist, I frequently experience the
sensation that I could never invent imaginative events that, in their tragic or
absurd extraordinariness, can stand beside the strangeness of life, as it is
lived in Nigeria.
Indeed, I follow public events in Nigeria with a certain sense that some grand
master of fiction, versed in absurd tragedy, stands just out of sight to shape
and orchestrate these events. For me, to read the pages of Nigerian newspapers
is often akin to reading the most wrought fabulist fiction. Except that the
events one encounters in news reports, bizarre as they may appear, are deeply
rooted in and describe the shattering realities of Nigerians’ lives. These are
often events that trigger the declaration, “Only in Nigeria…”
Before I get to recent illustrations, I must quickly cite some classic examples
that have become so woven into the essential fabric of Nigerian life that they
hardly strike Nigerians anymore as odd much less astonishing.
It’s only in Nigeria that God “votes” in
elections – and, in fact, casts the decisive vote. So, Nigeria’s
election riggers invented the disingenuous mantra that only God gives power. If
Candidate B is declared winner of an election, even though everybody knows
Candidate A won it handily, all the imposter has to say to settle it all is,
“God has given me power.”
It’s only in Nigeria that public officials
fatten their bank accounts from funds budgeted for public purposes – and then
demand that the people whose lives they have impoverished must fast and pray
for better electric power, to be spared death in road accidents or death in
ill-equipped hospitals.
It is only in Nigeria that a governor would
declare that he has “totally transformed” every sector of his state – and then
promptly fly abroad for medical treatment the instant he experiences a
headache.
It is only in Nigeria (as happened in Ilorin, capital of Kwara State in January
2009) that a commissioner of police would call a press conference and point to
an “arrested” goat, as a robber who turned himself into an animal just as
pursuers were about to grab him. Newspapers around the world reported the
absurd drama. It is only in Nigeria
that the said officer would make such a global ass of a major national
institution and retain his job.
Nigeria must
be one of the few places in the world – perhaps the only one – where governors
are effusively declared “performers” for paying the salaries of state
employees. And if these governors happen to invest some funds in the
rehabilitation of a few kilometers of roads, why, they are simply canonised.
Nigeria is
arguably the world’s most notorious location where a mindless embezzler of
public funds is no longer a thief if s/he belongs to the right (ruling) party,
the right religion, the right state and the right circles. Nigeria is a country
where just about anything is rigged or riggable in favour of the rich and
connected where the police would hardly ever disturb the peace of a well-placed
suspect, however grave the crime, and where many judges are only too willing
(for the right price) to oblige well-heeled suspects and accused every manner
of justice-evading legal gymnastics.
