By Abdu Rafiu
It is the same old story, but let me open the column with this. I am at a crossroads. I had planned to write to celebrate with my erstwhile boss, Dr. Patrick Dele Cole, more addressed as Dele Cole or PDCole in the circle of friends and associates, on his 85th birthday. He must count as one of the oldest in the land in these times. Many of the old staffers of The Guardian were with him in Abuja on Saturday to celebrate the day. From the pictures of the modest reception forwarded to me, he is obviously in radiant health. However, I had hardly finished savouring the beauty and sweetness of the account when I got a call at dawn on Wednesday. The caller said to me: Have you heard? I replied him: Heard what? And he said, Check the newspapers, print or online. I did, only to read, Breaking News and leading the bulleting of the first such papers I clicked was: “Doyin Abiola is dead.” It hit me with the weight of lead. I was thrown into mourning…but not grieving. Mourning that invited me into deep reflections, but not grieving so that I can accompany her with loving and prayerful thoughts that her path in the beyond may be blessed. Mourning is brought about because every definitive parting of relations or close friends and colleagues brings pains arising from fond memories of times and experiences shared. Yet, every pain is a sediment on the soul. On account of the clash between celebration and mourning, I have decided to shelve writing on neither for today.
Back to the gesture that harbours danger to public morality. President Bola Tinubu is not doing anything new. What is new and embarrassing is that he has not learnt from the public disapproval of this kind of rewards meted out by past administrations. Two, he has not been able to fix the engine of public spending that has broken loose almost as soon as he mounted the throne. The age when on beholding N1million you faint has long passed. Justice Victor Ovie- Whiskey, chairman of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) said in 1983, following insinuations of impropriety in the discharge of his responsibility, that if he were to behold N1million he would faint! In the words of my colleague, Ted Iwere, Features Editor of The Guardian at the time, it was “when the electoral process that year was facing credibility challenges, and many accusations were flying around the electoral umpire.”
Today, hardly does any one talk about hundreds of Naira any longer and most sparingly tens of thousands, but lavishly in millions, billions and trillions. When last did you see N50 notes? Where are N5, N10 and N20 notes? Coins have long gone out of reckoning. A beggar would look at you one kind, indeed contemptuously if he was given N100. The standard alms begin from N200. Was that the reason the government went all out to splash each of the young female footballers N150million? And a three-bedroom apartment and national honours to boot. Because the Super Falcons went away with such largesse, the President had no choice but to repeat the same for the female basket team fondly called D’Tigress that also brandished their trophy for the victory in basketball competition. Each of their handlers went home with N50million. All this was at a most inauspicious time: retired police officers were protesting the government failing in the regular remittances of their pension perks; nurses embarked on seven-day warning strike. They called it off after four days following government intervention and assurances that their complaints would speedily be looked into. Lagos State University, though a state institution, was shut down over labour matters, over which ASUU and SSANU declared indefinite strike, emblematic of unresolved grumblings in the universities across the land.
This will be my third intervention in this kind of excessive gesture with public funds. In the first, dated May 18, 1989, and captioned “Joe Lasisi”, I wrote as follows:“There is a spirited debate in town over whether Joe Lasisi should trade his accustomed punches in America next week Saturday. There have been arguments and counter arguments. The only time boxing ever held any attraction for me was in the days old when in fulfilment of rites of transition from teenage to manhood you engage in pugilism and learn to exchange punches and tackles with your peers, your playmates. One blow landed on my face and I ran home to grandma with one eye closed and swollen. Friends hailed me, King Joe! At the time King Joe was reigning in the boxing world. The engagement was quickly called off and my gloves were permanently hung. Since then, I have had less than fleeting interest in this sport where capacity for hate and violence are tested to their fullest. Later as years advanced, I have been wondering why it can please anyone to make brutality the day’s business and a means of livelihood. A huge crowd gathers around celebrated boxers like moths around light. Ecstasy reaches a crescendo and the business is regarded as a huge flourishing entertainment. Footballing is even more popular and has now acquired a new status, which entitles its priests to N75, 000 each and shares in an oil company. Some were given houses at some time. Athletics is capable of putting a country on the world map—as if that in itself matters. It must be a diseased world, a fallen mankind that can find entertainment and fulfilment in bestiality. Women are now being recruited into playing soccer. There is a handful already in boxing and wrestling, in weight lifting. This sick world! Of what lasting values can all these be—that a man is the fastest runner in the world? How much farther can we march before the scale drops from our eyes to realise that we are headed for the wilderness. To Joe Lasisi, good luck if you take on Virgil Hill, with the nod of the Nigerian authorities. I won’t stand in your way. I have only stated my own view”.
A year later, I followed up my thoughts in a piece titled “Danger to public morality” on President Babangida’s poor judgment resulting in bad allocation of public funds and distasteful wastefulness. It is the same obscene behaviour which, unfortunately, President Bola Tinubu, carried away by the performance of Falcons, has unwittingly exhibited. The article ran as follows on March 23, 1990: “On the way to swell the bank account of each footballer who took part in the just concluded 17th African Cup of Nations tournament is N50,000 which in the words of the President, is ‘a token appreciation by the nation, of the team’s gallant efforts…’“The government is unyielding in what it regards as the rightness of its cause in this matter despite criticism against it in the past when similar huge sums of money were tucked into the boots of young men to be emptied into their accounts.
“The practice is as obscene today as it was in the past and even if for the umpteenth time, the government ought to be reminded of its implications on public morality, national objectives of hard work and battle against crime.“The President did not consider it sufficient to wrap them up with the aura of his office, flash his accustomed toothy smiles at them, pat them on the back and dispatch them to their respective homes after a good handshake and photographs they would cherish for the rest of their lives, photographs money cannot buy. Imagine a young man being brought before Queen Elizabeth 11 for a handshake and photograph for a similar event for which we throw a heavy sum of money at the youths as their rewads! That young man would consider it the greatest that can ever happen to him!
“The impression is being unwittingly created that the language of our national service is money. No one may be prepared to render selfless service any longer to his fellowmen and country until proper calculations, indeed, bordering on negotiations, have been made for material gains that may accrue at the end his call-up, legitimate gains or ill-gotten gains. The intractable battle against crime becomes harder still because the contention will be money at all costs, the end justifies the means.“A huge sum of money has been thrown into the unproductive sector of the economy. What is given to each player can conveniently pay the salaries of 10 university graduates for a year.
“If by any act of commission or omission, young men and women go away with the feeling that it is more rewarding to face footballing than to swot behind their reading desks, their minds will be on how to make cheap money than to face their studies and learn skills to prepare them for the future and to help build their nation. The physically endowed of the girls will throng beauty contest venues to flaunt their beauty, after all, who knows.
“It is being inadvertently suggested that there is no virtue in hard work, productive work. In what way does a nation of footballers, boxers and wrestlers develop itself, on deep reflection? Nothing could have painted the implications more vividly than Josy Ajiboye’s cartoon during the Shagari Administration. The cartoon showed a woman chasing his son about in the neighbourhood with cane determined to beat the hell out of him. The boy was reading instead of being out on the field playing football! She said while everyone was being given money and houses for trophies from football matches her son buried himself in books! What has been shared out to footballers in the last one decade is more than has been given to researchers. What has been voted for manufacturers (through NERFUND, MES et al) who together with workers are the real builders of a nation are loans which they have to pay back; (except the unscrupulous ones among them who will try to evade doing so). And when their firms flourish, they pay company tax of 40 per cent which is outside other disincentive charges. Most good and diligent workers receive between N50 and N100 or N250 as bonus. Ernest Shonekan of UAC, Christopher Kolade of Cadbury or Col. Sasaenia Oresanya of O’dua probably pays more.
“The government should not pander to the wishes of the governed where the question is what gratifies weaknesses. The leader must be seen to be leading, as the President has courageously done with the introduction of SAP which enduring message is the unfolding of talents and abilities through initiative, self-propelling, daringness and application as one who does not work will not eat. Go to nature, a bird that sits on the ground, crying for food, and does not fly will not have food brought to it. It will, in addition to starving, lose the ability of its wings. The fish that does not swim will lose its air-bladder and will not be able to swim the raging storms. It will just lie at the bottom of the sea and will be prone to attacks by sea animal predators. The government’s responsibility is to, in love, give benefit, not indulgent comfort. That is what will awaken from slumber and make each person individualistic to be able to develop to his utmost. The government owes the citizens protection primarily.
“Not until we avail ourselves, as individuals or as a people, the higher knowledge of the truths of life and existence in this age of enlightenment will we be able to get our bearings right.
“What does anyone, for example, gain by being the fastest runner in the world? After acknowledgement as the world’s greatest boxing champion or best footballer what else does it mean to his development and the richness of his inner life which makes for a better person and nobility? Exercise is in order to keep the body agile. Movement ensures good health. A person who does not keep his body and system moving may have the part neglected, atrophied and may shorten his life, for he will be moving against the Law of Motion and will be flung off life conveyor belt for lack of balance. Thus, exercise is for each person’s benefit. But over exertion will also cause harm. It is the sensing of the inestimable benefit of exercise that has been perverted and turned into a way to wealth and fame but not to making one a noble person and true human being any more which is the crown of life, one who can look up to the Heights in calm and victorious confidence.”
This was published 33 years ago at the time General Ibrahim Babangida was in the saddle. The criticism of IBB at the time by this column also holds for Tinubu today. President Tinubu was in grave error in throwing such largesse at the players which is capable of stalling, indeed deadening independent initiative of the young girls to face life. If after all is well and done, we must participate in global competence, wearing national jersy should be considered honour enough with a warm handshake by the President. Sharing out such humongous sums of money was misplaced, revolting to the national spirit and obscene.
The Guardian
