Picture this! Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (MoF-CoMoTE) in Nigeria. During this period, her official movement was like that of an Arabian monarch. Pomp and circumstances, pomp and pageantry, pomp and ceremonies, whichever is applicable.
It was chaos – blaring sirens, breakneck speeding pilot cars, swerving and dangling along the road with dark-goggled, war-like well-kitted policemen hanging or perching dangerously on them – a convoy of luxuriant Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), looking as if freshly-minted from the factories in Japan, squeezed in the middle and trailed by backups with equally well-kitted operatives. You would never miss it.
Today, the same Okonjo-Iweala is now the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a global entity worth zillions of times in rating and influence than a mere minister of a country, not the least, in Africa. But spot the difference. Today, the same woman goes to her office in just one car and a driver. All the chaos is gone. In fact, the only ceremony to underscore her present status was when she assumed office on March 1, 2021.
What was it like? On that day, a welcome party was organised, comprising no more than a dozen men and women, probably only staffers of the organisation, who lined the corridor leading to the entrance of the building, clapped, shook hands and led the way. End! No speech, no food, no drinks, no party. The ceremony did not even last up to 10 minutes.
Pan to Number 10 Downing Street, home of the United Kingdom Prime Minister. On Friday, July 5, 2024, Rishi Sunak stood at the foyer of the building to give a farewell speech after 19 months in office as PM. After a short speech which lasted less than 10 minutes, he stepped into a waiting Audi sedan and drove away.
Enter Kier Starmer, his successor, few minutes after. He even came in a smaller car alongside his wife into the welcoming cheers from a large crowd that gathered at the same venue, went about shaking hands and exchanging kisses. No airs, no chaos, no security forces with whips in hands brandishing all manner of firearms to scare away citizens.
That session ended and with his own speech, equally short and pointed, he moved into his residence and that was it. From now on, all that would come from him are policies of how to make UK better and leave the country better than he met it. He would never give approval to any contract, let alone sign one. It will be the duty of the bureaucracy to prepare all his budgetary items, which would be geared towards this end. Nobody would hear him making budgetary provisions of billions of British Pounds for feeding in that residence or billions more for either the purchase of more vehicles or the changing of tyres of the ones already acquired.
In fact, if he needed an extra pillow for his bed, he would have to buy it from his own pockets. If he needed to repair the air conditioner, he would simply alert the maintenance team that are probably in-house.
Now, does anyone think that even without any single person wielding a gun without an open show of the paraphernalia of security presence in that arena, the British PM is more vulnerable to attack than an African President on a day like this? Certainly no! Any fly that poses a threat at that event would be dead before it could even get close to achieving the aim.
Now, do not forget that the UK is home to the most impressive, exotic and expensive automobiles in the world. Rolls Royce, reputed as one of the world’s most prominent vehicles only fit for royals, is a British product. So is Range Rover, Jaguar, among others. So, the PM could as well order hundreds of the latest and most luxurious of these cars, have them fitted with state-of-the-art contraptions to deliver maximum comfort only fit for sovereigns.
But why are they not doing so? Simple answer! Restraints! Both official and personal fetters ensure that such a route would never be travelled. On the official side, the workload and the proclivity for government office as problem-solving arena as opposed to a place for maximum enjoyment strip them of any impetus towards such a life of ease and pleasure. Besides, it is completely impossible for such a demand to be met, assuming a PM with such mindset finds his way into office. Official checks and balances would make sure of that.
From where would he start to make such a requisition? Would it come from the watertight chain of bureaucracy where every official is put in check? Certainly impossible. Even a mere mention of that or a shadow of it could cost him his job. So, no official limousine, no long official convoy. Even an official plane is not there. Why? The PM is just like any other British citizen and sees himself as so.
On the individual level, it is all about values, about honour. How would a British man of high office feel with the insinuations, side glances and snide comments given to politicians and people in high places in Nigeria, let alone being labelled a thief? He would probably lock himself in a room and put a bullet in his skull rather than live with the shame. Yes, it is an ample incentive for suicide.
There, values and honour far outweigh any form of vainglory. Thus, because the essence of such opulence and individual display of it would be lost, or be swallowed in the belly of high value, nobody would travel that road. In other words, instead of attracting admiration, the result of such open display would conduce public disdain, ridicule and rejection. It is an environment where the littlest veneer of mistrust would not only diminish individual rating in the society, but also consequently destroy political fortunes.
Unfortunately, those values as found in Britain and other western nations are intrinsic. They are confined within the territories of those countries. They are never carried beyond the shores of the land. Elsewhere, particularly in Africa, those individual and official restraints are not encouraged among leaders. Rather, the same British officials loathing of the slightest act of malfeasance in their country will do everything and use every means to encourage African leaders to steal, as long as the proceeds would end up in London or other suburbs in the form of buying expensive goods and properties or simply salting away raw cash in bank vaults.
Indeed, because leadership evolution in Africa is still tied to the apron-string of these western nations, those who want to copy western styles are not allowed to do so. Because directly or indirectly, African leaders secure, hold and enjoy power at the pleasure of these controlling forces abroad, the recruitment process is careful and deliberate to ensure that government offices from top to bottom are populated by economic brigands – mindless thieves without mercy for the common till.
This is what the west look forward to – simple application of different dynamics in pursuance of the ubiquitous term – national interest – a dangerous phenomenon that is as ruthlessly delivered as it is destructive to the recipients.
Ask yourself what happened to all African leaders who tried to live like a British PM. First, they were dubbed rebels and marked as dangerous. Is it a coincidence that the likes of Zaire’s Patrice Lumumba, Nigeria’s Murtala Mohammed, Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, and most recently, Tanzania’s John Magafuli, virtually all met some sort of unpleasant, and in some cases, brutal ends? The case of the sudden death, through “COVID-19 complications”, of the late Tanzanian President, reputed to have rejected foreign loans and foreign pressures that he believed could further fetter his country, controversial as it is, remains quite revealing.
The rest and many more of these leaders were brutally mowed down in their primes to stop their ideologies from taking firm roots, in sequence of events, with the overt and covert imprimaturs of western plots. Of course, their places were supplanted by individuals with diametrically-opposing ideals, such as dominate the continent today.
So, because one way or the other they have the dominant role in the recruitment process, they choose very well by ensuring that only those with the mindset of extravagance, unquenchable greed, insatiable knack for egocentrism, and base narcissism make it to the leadership podium, as opposed to what is acceptable in their countries. Frugally-minded leaders with sound national agendas are never allowed close to power.
Why? The enduring argument is that the west needs bad leaders in Africa and elsewhere to thrive. Indeed, it is stressed that the day leadership in Africa finds expression in prudence, moderation and uprightness, a heavy hammer-blow would be delivered to the heart of Europe and America. Not only would it end the mindless feasting and pillaging of the rich natural resources of the continent, but it would also end the tendency of Africa being a dumping ground for luxury goods from the west.
So, while Members of Parliament (MPs) in Britain would ride in trains and buses to work and legislators in the US resort to car-pooling to save cost, their Nigerian counterparts would apply proceeds of loans obtained from their countries to buy SUVs. While the Governor of New York would drive to work in one car, the governor of Zamfara, one of the poorest states in Nigeria, will do so in a convoy of 10 cars. While the PM of The Netherlands rides a bicycle to work, his Nigerian counterpart goes to the mosque, church or his private home in a convoy of 120 SUVs, all fuelled at the expense of the common purse.
But also picture the difference in the societies created therefrom. Again, they are as sharp and contrasting as night and day. This picture clearly shows in the development of public infrastructure. So, while those in power in Nigeria use public money to purchase SUVs to navigate roads ridden with craters, muds and ditches, the roads in western countries, in contrast, provide a completely different picture. There, public funds are used to pave their roads into classy, durable and enjoyable structures for the public, but here, only few enjoy the SUVs cruise while the rest have to survive on what is left. Even at that, even the SUVs offer little succour in the end. Many of them had even imprisoned their owners either in stretches of immovable traffic or impassable on bad spots on the same roads.
Now, the abiding question is why this difference. Again, simple answer. The sight of an SUV does not create the same imagery in the west as in Africa. In Nigeria, it connotes arrival and announces wealth and influence. It is the sign of the Nigerian “big man”. In the UK, however, it is rather a burden. Anybody on a regular salary could equally walk into a car shop and get it either on rent or hire-purchase on easy terms. But that also means higher taxes in all ramifications. So why travel the route in the face of alternatives? It is this dynamic that separates the two entities.
Thus, recognising the influence of pride, egoism, self-conceitedness in the African leadership structure, the west knows that promoting these tendencies is the most potent weapon to preserve their leechlike relationship with Africa. So, not only do they pump in more SUVs, they ensure that only leaders that will buy more and more of them would get to office or survive in them. They are aware of how these leaders act like little children lured with new toys and how they are fascinated with little things. They could not have forgotten how the forebears of these people sold off their children into slavery with mundane gifts like whiskeys, gunpowder and mirrors. It is not surprising that they are doing exactly the same today just to buy SUVs and other fancy products from Britain and other countries around the world.
So, do not be taken aback by the length Nigerian officials could go. When the white man gave their fathers those mirrors, they used them as one of the symbols of wealth. People flocked their homes simply to use the mirrors to see their faces. For that privilege alone, they were able to take other people’s wives and marry many for themselves from the numerous women making themselves available just to be called wives of men who had mirrors.
Today, the raison d’etre is not different. In recent days, the controversy across the nation is about the Samoa Agreement and the implication of Nigeria and African countries signing it. Stop asking why they did. The alluring smell of money is such a binding factor. For $150 billion loan, they could willingly sign off anything after perceiving that irresistibly sweet aroma. For that money, they would be willing to allow half of their citizens being corralled into slavery to go and work in foreign factories as their fathers did before or sign off their entire continent into colonialism once again.
When they do, never ask why. The reason is staring everyone in the face. Just like their ancestors received mirrors, and to demonstrate the “I better pass my neighbour” mentality, sold out their children to slavery, their sons might all but be willing to repeat the same just to be the toast of the society. They will do it. All for what? Today’s mirrors – SUVs!
*This article was taken off Igboanugo’s Facebook wall and republished with a few edits.
