What point was the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, trying to make when he responded to the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who had described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt” and as “possibly one of the two most corrupt countries in the world” (along with Afghanistan)? Shehu’s swift comeback to this diplomatic gaffe was to suggest that Cameron was working with an “old snapshot” of Nigeria, that things had changed since the coming of Buhari.
This is a rather disappointing response from Nigeria, one that does not add any sauce to the power dynamics at play here. The suggestion of an “old Nigeria” (decimated by the Peoples Democratic Party) vs. a “new Nigeria” (currently being recreated by President Muhammadu Buhari) is a rather tepid argument and smacks of an over-eagerness to please.
If there is indeed a new portrait of Nigeria being sketched, it is being created with the same analogue technology that made the “old snapshot” and getting on this familiar path to counter Cameron is nugatory and frankly, boring.
First, rather than the ineffectual riposte to Cameron, I think Nigeria owes him a measure of gratitude for this self-revelation. The joke Cameron was making in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Queen Elizabeth II, and Commons Speaker, John Bercow, might seem like a momentary indiscretion but the British are usually too self-guardedly polite for one not to think Cameron was speaking out of an overwhelming abundance of his heart.
As the interaction in the video showed, Cameron was making a cynic joke about Nigeria but he was also mocking us. A UK government spokesperson has responded to the video saying Cameron was quite aware there were multiple cameras in the room. That means he just could care less how Nigerians might feel about his disrespectfulness. Or perhaps he does not rank Nigeria that high on the list of countries Britain owes diplomatic consideration. Well, can Nigeria at least learn a lesson from this and in future be more selective about taking the country’s troubles to powerful “white men”? While the over-amplification of Nigeria’s problems by these figures of power may be useful for the Nigerian government to crush political opposition at home and at the same time provide an advanced alibi for their impending shortcomings, they have unquantifiable adverse effects on Nigeria.
For the past one year, we have been inundated with stories of corruption in Nigeria carried out under previous administrations. These tales, a lot of them repetitive and unsubstantiated, are regularly trafficked abroad by current leaders who seem to be seeking international sympathy. Can they now see from Cameron that once our backs are turned, our problems are not their priority?
The way Bercow asked if the Nigerian delegation to the anti-corruption summit were travelling at their own expense suggested that he regarded us as some kind of nuisance. Yet, they will not cease to invite Third World countries to such occasions because their presence is quite useful to headline summits around anti-corruption. The problems of corruption faced by countries like Nigeria are tailor-made to fit stereotypic perception of western countries who like to imagine that primitive accumulation of resources is a Third World affair. This is cynicism writ large; making countries like Nigeria a foil for the order that exists in the western world. That way, the corruption that exists in western societies can- comparatively- seem benign, placing Britain in the moral position to rescue “helpless” societies like Nigeria. Never mind that Britain is an equally dodgy country, one that has received millions of pounds of money stolen from poorer countries like Nigeria. Let us also not forget that a lot of stolen monies from the Third World are harboured by tax havens linked to the UK. If the Panama Papers scandal that broke last month taught us anything, it is that these “Oyinbo” people are not born incorruptible, and that they will equally exploit a loose system for corrupt gains. What is different about them is the level of impunity each country can tolerate before snapping.
Buhari’s keynote address at the Thursday summit is entitled, “Why we must tackle corruption together” and if his antecedents are anything to go by, it is almost certain he will spend the bulk of the time talking about the systematic pillage of Nigeria and why countries like Britain have a moral responsibility to help us. He is less likely to hold up a mirror to Britain, for them to see that corruption is not a native of Nigeria and that Cameron’s laughing at Nigeria for her past indiscretion is a thin shroud for his country’s contributions to the plunder of nations. What is equally unlikely to come up in that gathering is Britain or countries in the EU obsessing about the corruption in their own countries. They will rather see the corruption in Nigeria and Afghanistan, and flex their intellectual muscles in those (mis)directions. I do not intend to discount the benefits derivable from soliciting international cooperation to resolve corruption problems, but the way the men dissected Nigeria in that brief video underscores their attitude.
So, Shehu should have given a more poignant response or let the issue slide instead of putting up the futile effort of dividing Nigeria into old and new portions, a desperate effort to portray the current government as a new ideological child. How does Shehu honestly claim a break from the past when the same old issues, the same old actors, and the same uninspiring reflexes that ruined the past government have largely characterised this “new” government? President Buhari’s administration may be new if we tolled the dates he was elected and sworn in, but in the real sense of it, this government subsists on the same old order. Buhari’s aides should stop spinning the annoying yarn that we are in a new era; it suggests a lack of reflectivity on their part.
I do understand why Shehu thinks showing off Buhari’s anti-corruption effort is the best response but neither Cameron nor Nigerians — who have gone from an immediate post-election high to the valley of despair as they witness the inglorious return of recurring problems — are confused about the state of affairs. In the past one year, Nigeria has indeed been taking strides in fighting corruption but there is nothing that has been done so far that is quite different from what we have witnessed in the past. For the most part, anti-corruption efforts can be summarised in two words: public trials. Since Buhari was sworn in, we have been plagued by endless inventory of unnamed people who stole humungous amounts such that the shock effect has largely evaporated, replaced by a scorching contempt of an ineffectual system that allows corruption thrive.
Finally, I think the time has come for Buhari’s people to stop deceiving themselves that the man is better than the people he represents. In the video, the Archbishop of Canterbury interjects at some point to say that Nigeria’s “current President” is not corrupt. Buhari’s spokesperson predictably latches onto this testimony as a further proof that the man is not touched by the corruption sewage in which most of his countrymen swim. There are at least two problems with this line of thought. One is that it is patronising and Buhari’s band of self-righteous supporters who cannot see beyond themselves seem to think it is commendable. Two, the idea that a president is better than the people he leads is a wrong-headed one and should no longer be promoted. Buhari represents Nigeria and the persistent effort to place him on a higher moral pedestal than the rest of the nation is warped thinking. Buhari derives his legitimacy as President from Nigeria and Nigerians and trying to dissociate him from their moral filth is hypocritical and perverse reasoning.
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