That Nigerian-Canadian civil servant, Nellie Mayshak, spent years working for the government of Ontario. Not one accusation of stealing and corruption.
Then she goes back home to work in Nigeria and steals from Nigerian pensioners humongous amounts of money that would have crippled the economy of Ontario had she stolen a fraction of such amounts while she was here.
Let us forget the monumental disgrace she represents for Nigerians in the diaspora and Nigerians in Canada. Her case is instructive for only one reason.
Come with me.
Obviously, Nellie Mayshak was already a thief when working in Toronto.
But. She. Did. Not. Steal.
Question: why did she not steal in Canada?
Answer: the fear of consequences and the absence of impunity.
Canada did not work for her. Why continue to work honestly in Canada and watch your paycheck go up in smoke every month, eaten up by Federal and provincial taxes when you come originally from a society that has agreed to function on a paradigm of crime without punishment and impunity?
For any Nigerian with criminal proclivities living and working in the Western world, that is the proposition that Nigeria constantly fixes in your consciousness: come back home and join our commonwealth of crime without punishment. Come back home and become an instant billionaire. Here, we do not ask questions about how you made your money.
That Nellie did not steal in Ontario and went home to steal billions is another reason why we must rethink Nigeria radically. We cannot have a situation where you fear crime and consequence in Canada, America, and Britain and relocate to the Nigerian eldorado of crime and reward.
That she has been suspended is a good start. Let us hope for a fair judicial process that will be pursued to its logical conclusion.
However, prosecuting and jailing this Nigerian-Canadian idiot is not enough. And many of us think that the solution to our problem of lawlessness, impunity, and crime without punishment lies in visionary leadership and strong institutions. Those are significant planks of the solutions but they are hollow and ineffective without some form of social revolution and evolution which involves the forging of a collective attitude of hostility to the kind of society that we currently operate.
Until her monumental stealing as a civil servant was exposed, Nellie, like Dino, FFK, and politicians of all parties, was obviously living above her means among you. You saw her cars and mansions. Yet, she probably had a front row seat in her church, with special access to the Pastor. Yet, you invited her to social functions and, if she arrived five hours late, you stopped proceedings to “recognize her presence”. Yet, you nominated her for every manner of society award. Yet, she was on the high table at every event.
Let Dasuki, Metuh, Oronsaye or any member of the 2015-2016 class of theft and corruption indictees appear at any social function in Nigeria today, you will stop proceedings to “recognize their presence.” How can you run a jungle society like this and expect those with criminal proclivities among us in the Diaspora not to run home to steal from you and add to your problems?
Where thieves feel valued and recognized in the context of societal mores and mentality, no level of leadership or institutional enhancement will work.
We have to have a collective vision of the social good and develop attitudes of collective hostility to any citizen who does anything injurious to it. Such an attitude is the raw material that leadership and institutions could use.
The day you develop the courage to stop recognizing the presence of known thieves in your public and social ceremonies, we would have started our long journey to civilization.
PREMIUM TIMES
END
LAWLESSNESS; THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA.
A yoruba proverb says that ‘Ilu ti ko si ofin ko is ese’. Nigeria is one country in the world were lawlessness is the order of the day. Were laws are bent, broken, disregarded, disobeyed and ignored with flagrant impunity! From top to bottom, leaders to followers, old and young, male and female. Lawlessness has become our culture, our way of life, our modus operandi! In fact a law abiding person in Nigeria is viewed as a foolish person, an Holier than thou, a looser! Our lawlessness has no limits. It ranges from a danfo driver who decides to stop in the middle of the road to pick passengers, to a passenger who insist a danfo driver must stop for him right at a place of his convenience rather than a bus stop. Our lawlessness includes; political office holders, top civil servants, top police & military officers, who drive against traffic, without any care in the world (after all they are the law). Ministers who organise recruitment exercise for the sake of extorting Nigerian youth, thereafter causing their deaths. Ministers who buy bulletproof cars that were not appropriated for in the budget. CBN governors that give out public funds to their kins men without following due process. Policemen who demand for bribes in dollars. VIO who stops a brand new car for road worthiness certificate while ignoring smoking trucks & rundown danfo buses. An educated illiterate with a masters degree who does not stop when the traffic light turns red. The mechanics & traders who ply their trades on the pedestrian side walk. The death wish citizens who dash across the expressway right beneath the pedestrian bridge. The telephone network operators who provides substandard service without being sanctioned. The electricity company that issue bills, remove wires & terrorise consumers without providing a single second of electricity for months! The road maintenance agency that does shoddy repair jobs using political contractors. The member of the house of representative that collects bribe to help cover up fuel subsidy scandals and still remains in the house untouchable! The lecturer that sell handouts to students by fire by force and deliberately fail female students just to have his way with them. The police commissioner who blocks the entrance to a governor’s house. The members of the house of assembly who use the maze freely on one another. The boat operator that overloads his vessel for profit causing it to capsize & kill innocent people. The JTF officers that collaborate with & provide security for crude oil thieves. The pension director that pockets billions of pensioners’ funds & still roams freely. Hm! This is just to mention a few. This lawlessness, the mother of impunity has eaten so deep into our morality, that we do things without any conscience. We care less whose Ox is gored! Ours is a country where senators marry under aged girls, where militants abduct hundreds of secondary school girls and we are all left helpless!
The irony of all this is that, Nigerians, when abroad obey the laws of those foreign lands to the letter. What then is the problem with us obeying our own laws. My believe is that every Nigerian is suspicious of his neighbor. Since the end of the civil war and the long encroachment of the military in our polity, Nigerians have come to believe that if they obey laws they do so at their own peril, since those at the helms of affairs are the leading law breakers. The Illegal military governments enriched themselves & their cohorts illegally, leaving the honest people in abject poverty. Thus fueling the syndrome of ‘if u can’t beat them, join them’ thereby leading to wide spread corruption, lawlessness & total impunity in every fabric of our national life!!!
Solution now is for us all to retrace our steps and do the right things, by first and foremost rewriting our constitution, organizing a true peoples national conference, where we will delete laws that promote stealing (e.g immunity clause), promulgate life imprisonment for corruption. Decentralize governance, let regions control their resources & taxes and contribute to the center. Rearrange the constitution, honestly & truthfully to serve the interest of the people, and not the interest of the rulers.
Pius, you have convicted this woman before she even got arraigned.