Idang Alibi
11 November 2009
analysis
When other people call us a nation of scammers, we patriotically take offence and wage a rebranding war to convince the world that we are not. But every day what some of us see are efforts to widen the horizon of scamming. Methods and strategies are devised on daily basis by brilliantly unscrupulous persons to stay afloat the sinking poverty line.
My pain is that in trying to survive, many of those clever persons are not thinking of ideas that can help our nation become great. All they can conceive of is how to take advantage of the gullibility and vain glory of our people. From the highest to the lowest, we seem to have embraced with great zeal an escapist theology which says that the easiest and quickest way to make it in Nigeria is not through creative, innovative and productive hard work, but through cunning and skullduggery.
We read every day of contract scams. In the days of import license, some Nigerians used to import sand and sawdust so that they can keep a generous portion of the hard currency approved for import of items that would benefit the economy. Until the Federal Government put an end to foreign training, we used to have what I will like to call the seminar scam.
In this, some smart management consultants in collaboration with some well placed public servants, legislators and all manner of Nigerians used to arrange some bogus seminars in Ghana, Dubai, South Africa or anywhere else that caught their fancy where taxpayers' money would be spent in the name of capacity-building. If you settle the organizers, they will write the certificate of participation for you here at home and spare you the trouble of traveling to the venue and spending your money.
The new trend now is awards. All manners of clever people are now organizing awards and giving them to all manners of people some of whom are themselves scammers. This is not surprising because as Bishop David Oyedepo once said, any man who falls a victim to 419 is himself 418. You can only be recognized for a fake award if you are yourself inclined or disposed to fakery.
It may sound harsh but it is true that even the National Honours Awards which are meant to be given to Nigerians and even foreigners who have truly distinguished themselves in their contribution to national development have now become a bazaar where hacks, thugs and people of no distinction whatsoever are given national recognition.
Journalists, students, NGOs and all manners of people are now award givers. Journalists, whose job description is to criticize people or hold persons in the public eye to accountability, have now joined the bandwagon of giving out awards for 'distinguished achievement' and receiving them from organisations that they are supposed to monitor.
What business do newspapers have in conferring awards on so-called 'deserving Nigerians'? Awards were meant to fish out unsung heroes and those who have truly added value to society but in Nigeria, political thugs who lead ballot box-snatching and rigging squads during elections are now beneficiaries of awards.
This is a nation that has grossly underachieved yet we have so many award winners in all fields of human endeavour. If a nation ever becomes a developed one by the number of its citizens who win various awards, Nigeria would have been much more developed a country than the USA and other countries of Europe and Asia.
No sector in Nigeria seems immune to awards scams. University honorary degrees that are usually bestowed on truly distinguished individuals in other places, are given to some dishonourable persons in Nigeria. Some inept leaders who have not done any remarkable thing in their lives except rigging themselves into positions of authority are decorated with bogus awards. What amuses me so much is that some of this non distinguishable people who actually need awards for non-achievement, take care to frame insignia of such funny recognitions and display them in the most conspicuous corners of their parlours and offices. What a vain people these Nigerians are!
Students who are supposed to be anti-establishment in their disposition have now joined in the award bandwagon. They now confer awards on some thieving politicians. Wonders will never end in this obodo Nigeria. Some national student leaders openly extol the 'virtues' of some conservative and totally inefficient leaders. And you truly wonder what is going on in Nigeria.
And it is nothing other than a growing disposition among some Nigerians of trying to survive through dishonest and dishonourable manner without sweat. Things have been turned upside down in Nigeria. Every one is in one game of survival or another. If you have the right price or the right connection you can 'win' an award in Nigeria even if you compete with no one for the award. Nigeria is today a nation where there is no sense of shame or of propriety. All cherished values are debased in Nigeria. Who will bail us out of the depth to which we have fallen as a nation?
A few months back, I opened a newspaper to see a message congratulating one minister whose name I will not mention as "the minister of the year". This minister is one of the most colourless and least performing in the Federal cabinet. The award was given by a group which said it had instituted them in honour of the late Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello. The awards are called the Sardauna Leadership Awards.
Up till now I wonder what the minister got this award for doing. For going about his work in a most colourless manner totally bereft of initiative? What bold initiative that commands community, not to talk of national, attention can be credited to the minister? The next day I saw a full page colour photograph of the minister in many of the country's national dailies. Some one was congratulating the man for winning the award.
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) should condemn the ill use of the great Sardauna's name by mercenaries who want to use his great name to scam people.
Nigeria surely needs a re-branding campaign. But that one should be one that will seek to re-orient Nigerians to embrace the philosophy of honest hard work as the key to greatness. We do not need to convince others that we are a good people in a great nation. We need to convince ourselves to do good deeds in order for us to have a truly great nation.
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