“If you see a thief and you allow him to be stealing, what did you do?...You have stoned nobody that is why we are stealing”. You will stone me? Who have you stoned?...Me I want to steal only One Billion Dollars, let them bring it!!
If you don’t take your destiny in your hands, we, we will go, another ‘leader’ will come, and they will continue to steal..!!!!
- Rivers State of Nigeria Governor, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi
The above statement made at a public event, supposedly in memory of global icon, Nelson Mandela, brings to the fore the seeming intractability of crime and corruption in the Nigerian system. Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, a Governor of one of the 36 states in the Nigerian contraption, had bluntly told his audience, which comprised hundreds of youths and members of the civil society, inclusive of Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, that not only was he and his cohorts, the politicians, robbing the people blind, but that he had a target of One Billion Dollars and that so long as the people were not ready to stone thieving politicians, the looting will go on.
More benumbing was the reaction of the audience after such audacious confessions. Whilst no one took up the challenge to cast a first stone at this self-confessed felon, the audience incredulously gave Mr. Amaechi a ‘standing ovation’ for his comments.
Presuming there were no stones at the venue to spontaneously respond to Mr. Amaechi's call, did the attendees at the event not go there with shoes?
The scene depicted at this event is merely symptomatic of the Nigerian society. Public officials whose only source of stupendous wealth is the access to loot State treasuries with impunity, walk the streets in lavish convoys, flaunting their loot to a hapless pauperized populace who are not only mesmerized but appear to deify and hero-worship the very characters who stole from them.
If the audience at Mr. Amaechi bragging and daring event had been populated by ne’er do wells, the uneducated and ignorant persons in society, one would have held out hope that with proper sensitization and enlightenment, the masses would realize the wool being pulled over their eyes and in due time be able to confront these self-confessed thieves. Alas, the audience at the event where Mr. Amaechi tendered his confession appears to comprise of suit-wearing suavely dressed professionals (and as I stated earlier, a Nobel Laureate, who in other climes convert their exalted positions to an instrument of public conscience and serve as societies moral compass) who are apparently knowledgeable and informed.
Where then lies the hope for societal sanitation for Nigeria?
Not only do thieves find their way to high political offices, they now brag about it and dare the populace!
Not too long ago, in view of the inability of our judicial system to rein in these set of criminal elements posturing as politicians (better referred to as polithievians), we had to rely on British Courts to jail a notorious ex-convict who still meandered his way to become a State Governor in Nigeria (James Onanefe Ibori). Should we not be striving to strengthen our system making it less conducive for criminals and able to hold these thieves to account for their misdeeds?
Perhaps one can only take consolation in the old adage which proclaims that: ‘Everyday belongs to the thief, but one day belongs to the owner’. It is truly hoped that our thieving politicians will be more audacious as Mr. Amaechi was at this public forum in Lagos, dare the people more, perhaps one day, tell us to our faces how dumb, foolish and unthinking we have been to have allowed them to continue to steal us blind. And perhaps one day, that proverbial red line will be crossed and the people will awake from their hunger-induced and ignorance-nourished slumber and do what is right – clear the stable of felons.
Holistic restructuring and renegotiation our contraption will eliminate such perfidious, insolent and reckless rulership.
Video: Mr. Amaechi's remarks - in the first portion he reads excerpts of Madiba's views before veering into his own thoughts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ug0ifwslG84
Picture: Rivers State Governor, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi
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