THE DREAM OF NIGERIAN

IT has all the ingredients of a damn good movie. A box office hit. Suspense, cash, power and passion as well as incredibly salacious details.

But, no thanks to the vicissitudes of these recessionary times, the story and the little debate it inspired have been elbowed to the background by other contending issues – budget padding, Boko Haram and its contentious videos, assets sales debate, Niger Delta bombings and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as well as the biting hunger in the land.

Now it is being mentioned in whispers – in newsrooms, staffrooms and restrooms – as if it is some blasphemous stuff that could attract a mob action.

Apologies, dear reader, for the rather long and circuitous preamble. This is not about some innocuous matter, which may have slipped through your memory. No. Nor is  about the muffler – that new addition to the dress code at the House of Representatives. The green scarf made its debut on Monday when Hon. Abdulmumin  Jibrin was asked to face a committee for bringing the House into disrepute by alleging (with facts and figures) that Speaker Yakubu Dogara and others loaded – sorry, a wrong word there – padded the 2016 budget with extraneous estimates from which they planned to reap bountifully. Many lawmakers, giggling like kids visiting a zoo for the first time, garlanded their stocky necks with the scarf to show that they stood with Dogara in this test of integrity. And yesterday, Jibrin was suspended for 180 legislative days. Honourables.

Again, my apologies. Now to the matter(s) at hand, which as I had earlier said you should be familiar with, despite all attempts by other matters to crowd it out of the front page. Former First Lady Patience Faka Jonathan  is claiming to own about $15.5m found in the accounts of four companies, which have pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is yet to question Dame Patience. Some have argued that the former First Lady shouldn’t have owned up to the ownership of the cash, which she said her husband’s former Special Adviser on Domestic Affairs, Waripamo Dudafa, put in those accounts against her wish. Others, led by Ijaw youths maintain that it is not out of place for the former First Lady to own such a little fortune.

We were told that Her Excellency acquired the cash through gifts from some cheerful givers, who obviously knew how dull and drab the Office of the First Lady could be without cash to run its all-important projects. Before we could digest that, we learnt that it all came from her late mother’s estate, which the old woman wisely bequeathed to her loving daughter.

Some bystanders, who obviously knew nothing about how sensitive investigations of this nature are carried out, pounced on the poor woman. Gifts?  I hear you o. From where? Why didn’t she open the accounts in her own name? If she was too busy to ensure that the accounts bore her name, why was she unable to order Dudafa to fetch the documents for her to do the needful? Those, I need to stress, were her sympathisers.

Others, latching onto her humble background, were asking: “was she not a mere pepper soup joint proprietress? Was she not the ice cream vendor? She must explain how she made the money.”

An old friend of mine smiled as he announced that indeed “an ice cream vendor” could become a millionaire in whatever currency. Why? The Nigerian Dream, of course, he said with a mischievous chuckle.

Before one could intervene to stop what looked like a parody of the “American Dream”, the concept that anybody can attain any height he wants, irrespective of colour or race or background, the lanky fellow, a don whose hair could do with a visit to the barber’s shop, went on to list some other compatriots who, according to him, have found and are, indeed, living the “Nigerian Dream”.

Yahaya Bello pursued his ambition  to be governor of Kogi State like a star athlete preparing for the Olympics. He put in everything he had, but the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) eluded him. Gripped by anger, fuelled by a consuming ambition, he dumped the APC. Bello joined the corner of the party’s vicious opponents as soon as the battle was joined.

Former Governor Abubakar Audu looked good to carry the day in the November 2015 election. He was leading the poll. Victory songs were already being composed. Then, suddenly, fate supervened. He fell ill and died. Suddenly. Naturally and logically and legally- many insist – his running mate James Faleke was expected to step in, but APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun (the same Oyegun of those NADECO days?  Lord have mercy) had another plan.  Bello was from nowhere vaulted on to the podium to take the party’s ticket in an election for which he never campaigned. The race had been run. He was brought in to collect the trophy. Today, His Excellency Yahaya Bello is the governor, after the Supreme Court affirmed his election.

To what do sociologists ascribe this strange phenomenon? The Nigerian Dream, of course.

There is also another fellow whose bizarrre story is well known. He announced his arrival on the political scene by fetching water for the residents of a state capital. He had no political capital whatsoever. He was goaded on by his wife’s dream that he was destined for the Government House. The elite scorned him. He was derided and reviled as a joker and an illiterate who had no certificate to show for his assertion that he got some education.

Some said he was a motor spare parts vendor and bus conductor who graduated into running his own bus (danfo), ferrying students from a polytechnic’s lecture rooms to the hostel.

In no time, the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defying a huge opposition, gave him its ticket to run. Today, our man is a two-time governor, who is threatening to run for vice president in the next general election. Always brusque, he excoriates the first family at will, speaking like a possessed Bar Beach charlatan of a prophet.

No prize for guessing right who this poster boy of the Nigerian Dream is, dear reader.

Another fellow who had no record of any legitimate undertaking, whose only means of livelihood was violence in the creeks of the Niger Delta where he acquired the title of “General” has also found the Nigerian Dream.

He was hunted like some game by the authorities, who accused him of heading a group that blew up pipelines to sabotage the oil industry – the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. From the creeks, he issued threats and carried them out with military precision.

The government was disturbed and confused. Some said it should come down heavily on the militants; others preached peace, saying Nigeria must not be seen to be fighting Nigerians. Reason prevailed. The amnesty programme of the Umaru Yar’Adua administration was born. An army of boys from the creeks were handed cash monthly like some dutiful workers after being persuaded to surrender their arms. Some were sent to school overseas. Their former commanders became big time contractors and power brokers in the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration that succeeded the late Yar’Adua’s.

Now, one of those prominent “Generals” flies his own jets. He roams the waters in his own luxury yachts, living like a Hollywood star. Needless to say, the chief rides posh cars that move in convoys. A true VIP. The other day he was declared wanted for shunning the EFCC. He was later seen at a ceremony, decked out in his chieftaincy regalia – big beads playing around his neck- and guarded by the very police mandated to seize him. Ah!

Fairy tale? No. It is the Nigerian Dream.

Soon, the season of awards will be here. Bankers will, as usual, top the list of distinguished professionals who will be decorated with all manner of awards. Banker of the Year. Most Innovative Banker of the Year. Women Friendly Bank of the Year. Agric Friendly Bank of the Year. And more.

The fellows to be honoured will turn out in the best from Oxford Street. All smiles. Not even the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revelation that they had been dealing the naira deadly blows by their round tripping game will change anything. Factories are closing abruptly. They are starved of forex to get raw materials and banks are charging incredible rates for loans.

Despite all these, our bankers will be celebrated as they continue to enjoy the Nigerian Dream.

So much for a bad dream.