This December, the people who own the biggest mansions in our home towns and drive the most expensive cars with security convoys, will be returning back to multi billion Naira country homes they inhabit once in a year.
Yes, they own the biggest mansions. They are the only ones that can burst big bundles now. They carry any variant, any volume of cash and spray any feet and face, without retribution.
They are the politicians who have access to our purses, plus power and influence to wield.
Top bureaucrats who massage the egos of power.
Top security goons who have access to slush funds.
Gang, militant and bandit leaders who enjoy patronage from government and the merchants of violence.
Preachers who have taken hold of minds and wallets.
Shrewd business leaders and industrialists who have turned us into commodities.
Illegal arms peddlers who are servicing the aggression of the underworld and sectarian animosities nationwide.
Underground drug dealers who are satiating the hallucinations of an increasingly frustrated and depressed population.
And the courtesans and cicisbeos who fuel the concupiscent dreams of those above.
Hardly do you still find an average, middle class upwardly mobile, honest, hardworking Nigerian, that is still able to do the things that were possible for that same age 30 years ago. Majority are still struggling to stabilize.
Nigeria is making it increasingly impossible for honest living to be made from honest work. The perquisites of dishonest living have become so alluring and they attract patronage more readily, than the opposite. The velocity of our shifting and eroding values, leaves us with a flattered socialization that is our own predator, our albatross.
The solidarity which society accords proceeds from dishonest and criminal living today, has flung the opposite to the floor in a very devastating fashion. How difficult has it become to tell a toddler racing through the maze of life, that the path to wealth without sorrow, is work and honesty? How many of those who have been honest and hardworking have become wealthy and you can point to that toddler nowadays?
Society is fencing opportunities from honest people and acquiescing to perfidy. From government offices to religious houses, to native shrines to financial headquarters, to even the law courts, people are simply not interested or are reluctant in dealing with you if you do not know how to, or accept to cut dishonest deals. The more crooked you are, the smarter you are considered. This step has to be retraced, so that our society too will receive redress.
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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