When integrity bites the dust

So maybe Olusegun Obasanjo has the best decription of those his party anointed as lawmakers! Usually it takes one to know one. We all wish that there is an Island of Integrity out there, but bet the population is depleted. We are a nation of believers and ever since the Lawan-Otedole Saga, we have been looking for a loophole that will make Farouk Lawan a resident of that Island. An alibi would have fit into the public facade he created and nurtured in twelve years in the legislature. His first denial gave us the sigh of relief, but subsequent events pitched us into camps digging for dirt. We all knew that truth lay buried in the sandstorm of conspiracy theories and PR-stunts, but the more we dug, the more we covered it and chased shadows.

Should anyone be surprised that this scandal, is another chapter in the ever unfolding national circus of putrescence? The camp of those who believe that Nigeria is beyond redemption is swelling, but there are optimists who see the glass half full and pessimists who see it as half empty. Our land is fractured pieces of shattered glass and those in the National Assembly are a reflective shard of the  broken whole. The magnet of corruption sucks in everything within its path and grinds it into its form. At first every dainty material is shocked by the sheer depth of the rut; then as they sit-in, they find themselves adapting like a chameleon. Let me say that this is not a treatise in exoneration of Farouk Lawan.

It is a small shock that we are shocked about the accusations and counter accusations. We express this shock as if we could still be shocked. Years back, Anyim Pius Anyim and Ghali Umar connived to manipulate a law to suit Obasanjo’s demands. Anyim is the nation’s scribe today and enjoys full pension for services rendered to the system like Ghali. Who is still shocked? Putrefying notes were once dumped on the mace at the House. Somebody please give us the full account of what happened to that money and those who gave it?

A legislature that spends 70% of its time investigating the executive is not living up to its mandate and sure is getting its wheels oiled somewhere. How many probes have we had in recent times? What has come out of them except another act, another scene in our drama book of scandals? From  so-called ‘oversight functions’ our legislature has been turned into a forensic lab and a theatre of the absurd. These people have entertained us to a level, we have lost cognisance that they are part of the problem with Nigeria. We have the illusion that these vectors are the antigen to the national malaise.

Should we be surprised? I don’t think so. Except we are saying that we do not know how a small budget suddenly becomes a mega-million project year after year and becomes the one and only reasonable appropriation to be passed. As we are claiming not to know these people are the reason ministries, agencies and parastatals have delivered nothing in 13 years of home-grown caricature of the civilized concept of democracy? Except we feign ignorance and align with the view that majority of these people are products of popular mandate and not enthroned usurpers. Except our elections are not sham from ward to the highest level.

We should express shock and dismay only if we claim not to know that when budgets are inflated, there are no lawmakers waiting at the receiving end to cash in on the excess. We should be surprised if we accept as normal, the abnormality that makes employers of labour in the public service demand a written note from their legislator before they can be screened or employed. The truth is gradually forcing its way out and all one can say is God help our fatherland.

Our attention would soon be diverted from this into something much more pressing. In fact, there are those who do not want the real facts to unfold. They are more interested in the multi-billion dollar subsidy investigation presided over by a man whose integrity meter is as dead as a used battery. That is the level to which our moral compass has sunk. We are always in a hurry to move on, forgetting that , as our elders say, when a tree falls on top of another, it is the topmost that is first taken care of.

In the midst of it all our rulers have launched a new visa regime in the middle of national security challenge. Under it, any financier of terrorism can show up at any port of entry with wads of cash and almost become a citizen. It does not get better than this. Farouk Lawan would have his last laugh because we will soon forget about him. He can ask anyone without a sin to cast the first stone. There is the strident voice for the preservation of the status quo in the house. In other climes, principal officers take the bullet for the bad judgement of their peers, in Nigeria, we arm the ethno-religious militia to get ready for the war of preservation. The last has not been heard of this saga, when integrity bites the dust, nothing remains as it should!