How I Became A ‘Prominent’ Lady

(Letter From A Woman Leader Of A Nigerian Political Party)


Dear Ugochukwu,

I was sufficiently provoked by your last week’s column captioned, “Criminalisation Of Poverty,” to share my great and exciting success story with Nigerians who throng this page every Wednesday to read you. Let me start by proudly informing you that I am a prominent, highly-placed lady, a distinguished member of the nation’s ruling elite, highly-connected political leader, a super organiser and one of those who decide the future and direction of this great nation. I worked really hard to attain my present exalted status, so no columnist should be jealous of me.

I am very happy and fulfilled. Today, in my community, State and nationally, I am highly respected and always applauded as one of the “illustrious daughters” of the land and role model, despite what some of you journalists may consider as the unflattering route I took in my rapid journey to the top. Well, not all of you are unappreciative of my person and status.

I regularly read brilliant reports full of flowery descriptions of my person in the media, especially, when I hold my usually great parties or attend public functions. But whether you would choose to accept it or not, in this our great country, once someone has “made it”, that is, achieved real financial, political and social success as I have done, and is also willing to occasionally dole out some crispy Naira notes, the person would become an instant celebrity, and anyone trying to question his integrity would be impatiently dismissed as an irritant and insufferably jealous.

Right now, I have two highly-rated chieftaincy titles, one conferred on me by the traditional ruler of my community (where I was practically a ‘nobody’ only a few years ago) and the other by a highly respected traditional ruler in another State. I am equally arranging to have a reputable University offer me an honorary doctoral degree to add more dignity, sophistication and intellectual colour to my already high status.

My Special Assistant, a former University lecturer, obtained his PhD from a very reputable University in the United States. And my driver? Well, he was always on top of his class while at the University. I have choice properties at highly coveted privileged spots in Lagos and Abuja, and my country home stands out as an exquisite palace befitting my status. I have no interest in owning houses abroad, so I only reluctantly agreed, after a lot of pressure from my friends and associates,  to purchase a ‘little mansion’ in London.

I am not ashamed of my very humble beginnings. When I finished secondary school, my father had dismissed me as a horrendous disappointment because of my dismal performance. And just like I had failed at school, I also was unable to learn to sew very well, and was always quarrelling with customers I had messed up their dresses at my shop in the State Capital where I had relocated. My boyfriend was the personal driver of a prominent politician. He lived in the Boys Quarters in the man’s massive compound where they stayed each time he was in town.

One day, he agreed I should visit him at home, but on the condition that I introduce myself as his cousin. That suited me perfectly, because I had my own plans too. Everyone agreed I was a very beautiful girl, an asset that helped me through secondary school since I was a favourite of my male teachers. And so as the Security Man admitted me into the massive compound and called my boyfriend, his boss suddenly appeared and barked at his direction:

“Who is she?!” he asked with a malevolent scowl, which could not obscure the undisguised lust with which his eyes devoured me.

“My cousin.” My ‘bobo’ answered almost quaking.

“Okay,” the man said, smiling nicely. Later, he invited me into the massive mansion “to welcome me properly,” and from there I entered a good, exciting life I never imagined existed…

Chief was simply mad about me and took me to many important places in the country and around the world where I met very important people. My (former) boyfriend complained once, but I silenced him by reminding him of his wife and children in the village, showered him with gifts, and occasionally allowed him to sleep with me when Chief travelled without him. Trust me, I can be that generous.

Moreover, you never knew with these drivers; he could pull a surprise one day and Chief would just show me the door and all the good life would suddenly end! One day, I told Chief I wanted to be a Council Chairman. He was shocked. A prominent, formidable godfather in our State, even our governor was anointed and installed by him.

“But you don’t have adequate education?”

“What do you mean, Chief? I have a School Certificate. The person who just vacated the office, what had he?” Then, Chief smiled, and soon after I was anointed and installed as the Honourable Chairperson of my Local Government Area. My father could not believe it. A great tumult occurred the day I rode into our community with my convoy to receive a distinguished Chieftaincy title conferred on me by our traditional ruler at a very impressive and well-attended Civic Reception organized by the community in honour of their “illustrious daughter.”

I didn’t want a second term, so Chief got the Governor to appoint me a Senior Special Adviser on Youth and Cultural Affairs, and later Honourable Commissioner for Women and Youth Affairs.

 Then, my foreign trips increased tremendously, some with Chief, and many others to attend any conference on anything (no matter how insignificant) that had to do with youths or women even in the remotest part of the earth.

Although I owed my appointment to Chief’s awesome influence, I nevertheless lured my Governor to my nest, and soon, he also became my active supporter, although he pretended he did it because of Chief, since he knew he could be impeached the very next day if Chief found out about our affair. Chief soon announced me widely at the national level as a “Women Leader” and powerful “grassroots mobilizer” from his State, and with his support, that of my Governor and State Party Chairman (whom I also was sharing very secret moments with), my visibility and prominence at the national level in our great party grew with incredible speed. Chief wanted me to the go to House of Representatives, but I preferred a national appointment (which I still retain).

I have an excellent Press Secretary who ensures I am in the news always, and everything I say or do gets duly reported, and prevents my ‘secrets’ from getting into soft-sale magazines. I have invested massively and wisely. Apart from Chief, I have also used other powerful party bigwigs who had lusted after me to get the things I want. They have already anointed me as the next Deputy Governor of my State.

I have also acquired significant influence of my own so much so that it is only on rare cases now that I require Chief’s intervention to get whatever I want. I recently launched an NGO to promote morality, honesty and hard work in youths, and regularly speak at youth forums where I draw from my exceptional personal example to warn them on the dangers of prostitution and corner-cutting.

This is my story, Ugochukwu.

And I must tell you, as a prominent member of the ruling class, the present Administration is on course, serious about its war against corruption, and has the capacity to make this nation one of the greatest in the next couple of years. I therefore solicit the support of vocal Nigerians like you, for the president’s excellent Seven Points Agenda and war against corruption.

Very soon, our nation will be ushered into a glorious era of unimaginable prosperity. We are here to ensure that happens.

Thank you.

I am Chief (Ms.)……[Name Withheld]

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When Did Poverty Assume the Colour of Crime?

By Ugoochukwu Ejinkeonye  
 It was a normal news report in a not too recent newspaper; the type we are used to seeing regularly, but would, most likely, merely glance through before turning our attention to more ‘important’ matters. But when I saw this particular report, confined to a small corner of the newspaper, something about it spoke a very clear message to my heart.   

Under the heading, “Cow Thief Bags 12yrs Jail,” the report said that an Oshogbo Magistrate Court presided over by Mrs. Ayo Ajeigbe had sentenced a certain Mr. Audu Mustapha to 12 years imprisonment for stealing a cow belonging to one Julie Idi. The estimated cost of the cow was N60, 000. The police had accused Mustapha of selling the cow and using the proceeds to purchase a small truck with which he conveyed ‘liberated’ cows to either where he sold or hid them. 

Now, if Mustapha who had earlier served a jail term in Ilorin for a similar offence, does not have a powerful, well-connected godfather, especially, in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), or other equally criminally powerful places, he should, as you read this article now, be in one of our dilapidated and uninhabitable prison houses enduring the just recompense of his grave sin against the State, and dreaming about his young (and probably beautiful) wife and their three tender children.

Was The Cow 'Liberated' By Mustapha As Robust As This?

  I must hasten to add that nothing can justify Mustapha’s ungodly action. Even people poorer than he is are resisting the temptation to steal; he knew the dire consequences of his chosen career and still tarried in it, because, it had juicy promises of quick, undeserved wealth. Now, the excruciating day of reckoning is here, and he has no choice but to quietly savour the bitter reward of his criminal endeavours. I will only sympathise with his family if they were unaware that in order to put food on their table, Mustapha was cruelly dispossessing other people of their fat cows. This can only teach one lesson: when crime is punished, deterrence is instituted.  

Now, if that is always how all such cases end, society would really be a better place for all of us. While down here, we, in an impressive show of self-righteousness, may haul condemnations further down on Mustapha with every scorn and unmitigated rage befitting a common criminal, more discerning people would rather view him as an unfortunate victim of a disastrous accident on his way to the exalted circle of the nation’s elite class.

 I suspect that he did not bother to study the rules of the game very carefully and so may have easily run foul of a very important law of the game, namely: Thou shall not be too greedy.  What this means is that if he had generously ‘settled’ the OC’s at the checkpoint (All correct, Sir!), or even  ‘cleared’ with the DPO of all the police stations on his route, he would most likely had escaped the humiliating appearance before the learned judge in Oshogbo, even if he had stolen a human being! In fact, he would have been a free man today, doing his ‘honest’ business without let or hindrance, and even getting the opportunity once in a while (that is, if he prospers very well) to attend state banquets and shake the smooth, soft hands of the high and mighty, more so, if he had allied himself with some influential ‘responsible’ party elder in his community, secured a Molete-kind of immunity, and regularly donated handsomely to help the ‘great party’ secure its ‘fraudslide’ victories. 

The truth we all know today is that many of the people parading themselves as prominent Nigerians today climbed to the top through the Mustapha route or variants of it. At the risk of repeating myself, assuming Mustapha was not caught and disgraced this early in his career, and his business had thrived and he had been wise enough to invest his wealth in the installation of many of his less-successful colleagues in power, he would today be dinning with ‘highly distinguished and  honourable’ lawmakers, governors, foreign and local diplomats and even the president, and being invited regularly to chair high profile events where brilliant sermons would be delivered on integrity, transparency, anti-corruption and good governance – citing his exceptional industry and sterling honesty as  worthy of emulation by today’s youths.  



But, while he would now languish in jail for twelve years for stealing a cow that sells for about N60, 000, very important convicts like Big Tafa, Governor-General Alams and Boy George got a few months’ ‘rest’ each in cosy prison suites for playing around with the nation’s billions. And many of their more daring colleagues in criminal accumulation are still out there throwing expensive parties and hobnobbing openly with the nation’s rulers whose ‘zero-tolerance for corruption’ is universally acknowledged!  

Something must be wrong with a nation that severely punishes small thieves and celebrates bigger criminals.     

In 1999, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, whose farm had failed, was practically a poor man, and he did not hide it. One of his closest aides had even told the nation that what the man had in his account was only N25, 000. But now, as former president, his Bells University and Secondary School is valued at billions of naira. There is also his multi-billion naira farm, a couple of other companies and investments, a Presidential Library Project for which billions of naira were raised through a method Prof Wole Soyinka aptly described as “Presidential extortion”, and his famed bottomless pocket which has effectively crowned him as one of the richest billionaires this side of the Atlantic.  

Indeed, until a decent and patriotic leadership emerges in Nigeria , Obasanjo would never be compelled to explain the sources of his mysterious wealth, or how $16 billion spent on well-advertised power projects only plunged Nigerians into deeper, thicker darkness. Nor, will anyone ever ask Gen Ibrahim Babangida (who is scheming to rule Nigeria again) how $12 billion suddenly developed wings and flew away right under his nose as military president.    
As cases of suspected graft (and they are legion) are swept under because the calibre of the persons involved, impunity is effectively entrenched. Influential Nigerians abound whose sources of boundless wealth are shrouded in very deep mysteries. Nigerians know many of them and quietly dismiss them as Very Important Criminals (VIC), but the government and even the media celebrate them as ‘statesmen’ and ‘patriots’.  

Unlike Mustapha, they were able to avoid being caught early in their career until they amassed enough wealth to qualify for admission into Nigeria ’s privileged class of untouchables.  Some of them even get National Honours and are appointed or ‘elected’ into highly exalted positions of power and influence, where they characteristically help immensely to deregulate and institutionalize stealing and political corruption.  

What all these go to show is that in Nigeria , it is, perhaps, safer and more rewarding to be a successful criminal than a poor man – which is very saddening indeed.  

Successful criminals are either in power or its corridors, or friends and associates of those in power. They are those set of ‘law-abiding’ citizens who are able to purchase and build palatial homes in ‘approved’ places. But the poor are the confirmed criminals, always hounded and oppressed by the government, for being able to only afford to seek refuge in the slums, which governors, ever thumbing their noses at them, have either sacked or already marked out for demolition and prompt reallocation to the same members of the privileged class.  

We all know that it is usually the honest poor that get arrested on the mere suspicion that their haggard, hungry looks suggest they might be criminals, or even for such non-existent offences like ‘wandering’, and dumped and forgotten in detention camps for being unable to buy their freedom.

Yes, they are the same people that suffer most the consequences of bad roads (they can’t afford to fly), power failure (they can’t afford healthy alternatives), insecurity  and increases on the price of petroleum products, which in turn jack up prizes of goods and services. In Nigeria , where crime is class-defined, poverty has since been criminalized. The rich only get into trouble when they are on the wrong side of the power equation, and their ‘trials’ are celebrated to prove the point that “no one is above the law.” 

 If you, dear reader, don’t know all these, then you hardly know anything yet about Nigeria .
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scruples2006@yahoo.com

August 2010

Nigeria: The High Cost Of Greed

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

To a people addicted to the tragic luxury of self-delusion, truth hurts badly.But then, truth always refuses to go away. It lingers around to perpetuallytaunt and haunt those that loathe and despise its face. 

Now, the truth we can no longer afford to deny today is that anybody, in fact, any animal can rule Nigeria. I mean that even a baboon can be Nigeria’s president or governor. It is that simple! All it will take, after all, is for the baboon to get a Maurice Iwu to rig him in and then learn the simple art of stuffing dirty bags with dirty naira notes and delivering them at the appropriate quarters and at the appropriate time, and Nigeria is his to pillage and desecrate as he likes any day! 

President Goodluck Jonathan

And if he is lucky enough to be blessed with the kind of morally challenged characters presently encumbering our political space, and the tragically light-minded National Assembly headed today by David Mark and his cousin, Dimeji Bankole, he can as well wrap the entire country up, confidently put it away in one of the folds of his wife’s wrapper and retire to an oxygen bed for a long, refreshing sleep. And the heavens will not fall! 


Instead, supposedly sane and rational human beings would unleash their revolting selves on the citizenry, with convoluted, toxic arguments about how Nigeria would immediately cease to exist if the baboon suddenly picked offense and retrieved Nigeria from where it was rotting away and gave it back to the Nigerian people. It is not a new malaise, mind you. Mr. Alao Aka-Bashrun, the esteemed former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) stated it more elegantly many years ago when he said that even if some armed robbers got together and seized power in Nigeria that he knew some of his colleagues who would immediately rush in with their CVs to seek to “serve” in the regime of those bandits. A country whose political elite is driven mainly by self-serving considerations rather than ennobling altruism is a country that that will go nowhere. And that is why Nigeria is yet to demonstrate any signs that it is going anywhere. 

Mrs. Turai Yar'Adua

There is something called self-esteem, and it is very sad that it remains grossly in short supply in Nigeria, especially in the pool from which Nigeria is, most unfortunately, drawing its irredeemably greedy rulers. Time was when all a leader wanted was to leave a glorious name and sterling legacy behind. But the set we have been stuck with for sometime now does not appear to care about such things. Call them thieves to their faces, and they would not even blush. All that excite them are the fat accounts and choice properties they have criminally accumulated across the world. And when they advance any opinion, one searches in vain for the slightest hint of conviction and principles.

 Sadly, such terms, it would seem, are totally alien to their entire worldview. They appear driven by only the expected immediate gain to be carted away, and clearly lack the capacity to even appreciate that Nigeria needs to remain there till tomorrow for them to even find something more to steal. 

How a society became so unlucky as to leave its destiny in the hands of mostly dregs and scum in its midst is one dilemma that might engage the most learned sociologists and experts on behavioural studies for ages? When then would Nigeria’s reclamation commence? Can the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, be relied upon to represent the beginning of the much awaited recovery? 

Nigeria always fills any sane and decent person with unqualified sadness and even despair. At no time in our history has a country been so badly diminished by raw greed. 
As I watched in utter disgust the series of poorly scripted and unsightly drama periodically unleashed on the polity by a bunch of ultra selfish and unpatriotic entities led by Mrs. Turai Yar’Adua to discourage any attempt by Nigeria to get on its feet again after being horribly crippled by her husband’s lamentable lack of vision and  gross inertia even long before his evacuation for medical resuscitation; as they undertook several desperate moves to destabilize the country by instigating ethnic and religious tensions just to maintain their stranglehold on the country’s resources, it was just unbelievable that men and women empowered by law and paid from the public purse to put a halt to the whole nauseating nuisance were sitting passively and watching helplessly, as the hideous activities of an irresponsible few threatened the peace and stability of the country and further diminished it before the rest of the world.

 In which civilized country can such bunch of low creatures dare to stretch impunity beyond its malleable limit like that and get away with it? These are some of the factors that deepen the enduring feelings of hopelessness and despair in Nigeria!

Now, were there no persons and institutions empowered by law in Nigeria to investigate the sources of the alleged limitless resources with which the crude, dangerous desperation flaunted by those fellows was being generously funded? There were suspicions that the slush fund flowing around like polluted rivers had ensured the silence and passivity of those who ought to do something. And so the nauseating dramas kept being enacted to the shame and embarrassment of all of us. There were also several ungodly alliances that we were told must be maintained at the expense of the country and its long-suffering masses. What a tragedy! For goodness sake, how long shall we continue to hide under the debasing excuse that this is a badly run country where anything is permissible, and where decency and development would continue to remain elusive to a long suffering people? When shall we lay claim to a better testimonial? How long shall a country greatly endowed like Nigeria remain grossly diminished before those it ought to be better than? 

No doubt, the consequences have been enormous. Because of the kind fellows we allow to take charge of our affairs in this country, there is decay everywhere, because they lack the capacity to appreciate the need to build enduring features for posterity. The only language they understand is grab-and-plunder, which has caused the country to bleed profusely and die gradually. Consequently, Nigerians are fleeing their country in droves daily as if it is involved in a very devastating war. In all manner of countries they are being subjected to all manner of unimaginable humiliations and debasing deportations. 

 Did you hear that Nigerians are also now being deported from Sudan, of all places? How low can a country sink before it decides to seek self-rediscovery? Which day will the timid majority resolve to confront the tiny gaggle of defeatable thieving minority and rescue the country from their cursed hands? When shall we all stand up and bellow a big ‘No More!’ to their hellish determination to never even minimize their mindless plunder of the country’s resources? 

 Public officers and rich Nigerians now send their children to schools in Benin Republic, imagine that? Our rulers have deemed it fit to watch the schools here to rot away, while they carted away the funds that could have turned the institutions in Nigeria into international centres of excellence. 

I felt deflated the other day while attending a forum at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, when I found out that Americans, Britishers, Chinese and people from diverse nations of the world were proudly studying there. In 1993, I met an America Professor of Economics who proudly announced to me that while he studied for his Masters Degree at the University College, Ibadan, (UCI) in 1958, he stayed at Kuti Hall. I wonder if he can advise any American child today to get near that same Kuti Hall he spoke so glowingly about, or encourage the child of his worst enemy to attend a Nigerian University. 

While a friend and I took a walk around midnight on a Saturday at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, we felt so safe, despite the several trees in the well landscaped and beautified compound that lent the school its serenity, but which could also provide cover for cultists to strike. As we stood on a walkway, about eight American youths hopped across, chattering, laughing and feeling so much at home and happy with themselves. 

Children of countless Nigerian government officials are enrolled in this school, generating huge funds for Ghana with which it offers divers scholarships to its own citizens. These prodigal rulers would prefer paying all the money to Ghana than improving and making our own schools qualitative and safe so that youths from several parts of the world can also come to Nigeria (as used to be the case) to study. 

Nigeria has enough resources to buy up the entire Ghana. No doubt, Ghanaians do not have the drive and innovativeness of Nigerians. Under sincere and honest leaders whose eyes and hearts are not focused only on the treasury, nothing can stop Nigeria from becoming one of the greatest countries in the world?  It offends me each time anyone attempts comparing Nigeria with Europe or America. From Swaziland, Botswana to Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia to Uganda, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast to the Gambia, Nigeria is, perhaps, the only country in the whole of Africa that is yet to achieve stability in its energy supply. What a pity. 

Maybe, there is a silver lining on the horizon, although doubts still abound. Dr. Jonathan, instead of making himself the head of Petroleum Ministry (Nigeria’s cash cow) has elected to be the Minister of Power. Let’s hope that this is really a sincere effort which will mark the end of debilitating, pitch darkness in Nigeria which has killed industries and left the country prostrate. 

But sometimes, one wonders whether Nigerian masses are even worth fighting for? The same people who are exploited and oppressed daily by heartless and godless public officers are the same people who would eagerly agree to be rented as brainless crowds to demonstrate and whip up support for sinking corrupt and/or incompetent officers.

When will Nigerian masses see their oppressors for who they are and learn to distance themselves from them, no matter the peanuts they offer each time any of them is being made to account for his or her role while in office? Those who agree to be rented are using their own hands to perpetuate their own slavery. When shall we learn?     
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