Once upon a time in the life of an INEC Staff

When Fatima Musa said she is tired, her voice over the phone eddied with the fatigue and suppressed frustration she must have been feeling.

In those few words, there is the exhaustion of 12 long years of hide and seek, of wandering the come-today-come-tomorrow maze of Nigerian bureaucracy. Twelve years of dropping everything she is doing to go to INEC’s Abuja office to pursue what is rightfully hers and her children’s.

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Her husband, Musa Idris Kokolo, an INEC staff, died on August 22, 2008. He left her with their six children, split evenly between the sexes—three boys and three girls. The youngest was a sickly two-year-old at the time his father died. He himself never grew to see his 14th birthday.

For Fatima, who everyone calls Yaya, it was not raising these six children as a single parent that has exhausted her. But the endless expeditions to INEC’s headquarters, the constant crescendo of hope and the body slam of disappointment each time she comes away without her husband’s benefits.

I have known her for 10 of those twelve years. And have been to the INEC office myself regarding her situation. It seemed for a while someone dropped the ball. Files were not pushed or followed. Or they got trapped in a corner of the maze and times and things passed over them. Bureaucracies. Little frustrating things.

There was a time she was asked to turn up with her first son, who was also listed as a next-of-kin by the deceased. The son, tired from the frequent appointments and little progress over the years, decided not to show up.

Several times, I have called a contact at INEC. He is a busy man and has little to do with the department that handles staff benefits but made the effort to push on the file. There were times progress was made but all of that stalled when an official said a printer had broken down and documents could not be printed or photocopied.

The frustration of Nigeria’s labyrinthine bureaucracy is a beast. It is real and feral and eats people’s lives. It has eaten Yaya and if one is to go down to it, perhaps it cost the life of her last-born child. He was called Daddy. He was a small quiet child who often stood by and watched when other children played in the streets. Daddy has always been sickly. And when he died, he was only 13. It was hard enough raising a sickly child, it is certainly harder when you have no money.

You see, Yaya and her children live on handouts for many years. She lives with her children in some two rooms someone was kind enough to let them have. Before she started working as  a cleaner in a private school, she had practically no income. For years, most of her children were out of school. Sometimes they helped the neighbours run errand, wash dishes, for a little something to eat.

Over the years, being witness to this case, I have seen the worst of our system and perhaps the best of our community spirit.

Her eldest children had to drop out of secondary school. A friend and I decided to help foot the bill for those ones. The community gave the little ones the chance to have primary education in the community school for free.

I don’t know how much their father’s benefits amounts to but if they have had it, at least they would have known that their father worked for his country and got something out of it. They will remember that their country gave them something even if little, when they needed it.

Sometimes I wonder what was going through Yaya’s mind on the day she sat by that hospital bed watching her youngest son die, or on the many nights she and her children have gone to bed hungry. I wonder how much she thought of her husband on those days, wondering how different their lives would have been if he had not fallen ill and died that day, twelve long years ago.

Why am I writing about this today?

Because her weariness wearies me. Because I am tired of the sadness and desperation in her voice, of the sense of Nigeria failing her children each time I see her children. I am tired of encouraging her, stoking the flames of hope in her that if we keep pushing, keep knocking on INEC’s door, someday, it would open and she would get what is rightfully hers. Because I do not want her children to one day look down on the Nigerian flag with disdain and ask: what has my country ever done for me?

When that happens I don’t know if the N100,000 INEC gave the family to help offset Mr Kokolo’s medical bills, or the N40,000 they gave to help with the burial, or the N30,000 they gave during a condolence visit would count. Anger and a lifetime of frustration has a way of making these things seem insignificant.

Fortunately, with the reappointment of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu as the INEC chair, for which I take this opportunity to extend my felicitation and good wishes, it means there will be some continuity in the commission. And I hope the kind Professor will take a look into the intractable case of the death benefits of Musa Idris Kokolo who died one day in August 2008.