Nigerians just like to trivialize issues
unnecessarily. Frankly, it's annoying. Okay, I am annoyed. I don vex. Shey una
happy now?
I have been following arguments on Ogbeni
Ganduje's empowerment of the Mai Shai people in Kano. There has been some very
powerful advocacy for the economy and the economics of Mai Shayism.
Those sympathetic to Ganduje's gesture have
made seductive and persuasive submissions in favour of the legitimacy of the
Mai Shai as a cornerstone of the informal and SME sectors, especially in the
North.
I've been reading and following the arguments
and wondering: who exactly is quarreling with with any of these submissions?
Who exactly is saying that Mai Shayism is not a legitimate pillar of the
informal economy that should be encouraged? Who exactly is saying that the Mai
Shai is not running an SME? Why do people like to set up a submission that
nobody is making and spend two days demolishing it?
I even have a cultural stake in the Mai Shai
stuff. I am a Professor of Literature and Culture. Think of what the barber
shop represents in African American history and culture. The Mai Shai's stall
is a cultural environment. It is a space of street culture and discourse. It is
a space of critical agency for the people. It is not just about tea, bread, and
eggs.
Here is the trouble with Ganduje. The next
time you hear the word, "empowerment", from any Nigerian politician
and his aides, line them up in public and crack coconuts on their empowerment
heads.
Empowerment competes with another word,
ultramodern, for the position of the most abused, most bastardized word in
Nigeria's postcolonial history. Empowerment is what replaced another famous
word, "miscellaneous", in Nigeria's infamous imaginary of corruption.
When I was growing up,
"miscellaneous", was your father's house of many mansions inside
which you dumped every imaginable and unimaginable corruption detail in a
budget or in an invoice heading. The life of three generations of Nigerians was
mortgaged under "miscellaneous" in budget items by the destroyers of
Nigeria.
Then, the UN, NGOS, and other international
agencies began to "empower" all over the global south. We hijacked
the word and the concept, completely ignorant of the meaning, and began to
replace "miscellaneous" with "empowerment" in every
actuation of corruption in our national life.
Funny enough, the global instances who donated
that register to us are moving away from it. It is actually now a pejorative
term which connotes arrogance on the part of the "empowerer" and
denies the "empoweree" critical agency.
In Nigeria, it has stuck. Every Governor,
every Minister, every Rep, every Senator - and their wives - will steal
billions, spend a few thousands or millions buying food items or domestic
appliances or ero alota or sewing machines, line up women and children and
farmers and traders, line up journalists, cut a ribbon, and declare
empowerment!
The sociological impact of this nonsense has
been immense. Nigeria is paying an immense price. Empowerment is the opium of
the people. It is the way we legitimize an ad hoc culture and philosophy in our
national life. If you want to account for Nigeria's laziness and apathy to
21st-century solutions to anything, study the culture of empowerment. We reach
out for ad hoc solutions every time to every imaginable problem. And we absolve
the oppressor of his responsibilities while clapping for him.
No light in the villages? No problem. Mr
Governor will buy a few generators and distribute as empowerment. We clap and
absolve him of the need for 21st-century solutions.
No light in our police stations? No worries.
While the Inspector-General is busy on the amorous front, Ambode will empower
his boys in Lagos with I better pass my neighbour. We clap and move on.
No potable water in the villages? No problem.
Mr Governor will dig a borehole. His wife will buy 3 million sachets of pure
water and distribute to women and traders to empower them. We clap and absolve
them of the need for 21st-century durable and sustainable solutions.
No health facilities and no health insurance
and no drugs in the hospitals? No problem. The Governor or his wife will pay an
unscheduled visit to a hospital tomorrow and pick up the medical bills of every
patient on admission in order to empower them. We clap and absolve him of his
responsibility to deliver 21st-century health facilities and healthcare
delivery system.
Some say there are street vendors too in obodo
oyibo. Absolutely! Especially hot dog vendors with street stalls. However, it
would be crazy for the Premier of Ontario to go and buy patties, hot dogs,
burger buns, and stalls, line up a few hundred street vendors, distribute the
goodies and say she is empowering their business.
No, Madam Premier, you can't do that. That's
not how we roll in civilization. Leave such an irresponsible approach to human
capital development to the 17th-century folks in Nigeria. You and your
administration must go and fashion out policies, sound economic policies, that
would empower the businesses of these people. What, for instance, are you doing
to guarantee their access to micro-credit and sundry micro-finance? That is one
way to ensure that their capital base will be enhanced and you won't have to
give them fish. Madam Premier, you can't just dig your hands into public funds,
buy hot dogs, and distribute them to street hot dog vendors in Ottawa as
empowerment.
Because we are an ad hoc people with an ad hoc
mentality, we never think of what happens after empowerment. A few years ago,
maybe one year into Ogbeni's tenure in Osun, I recall Semiu Okanlawon gleefully
posting photos of his Oga's empowerment materials in one village. We clapped
and moved on.
Up until last year, my broda, Baaroyin Kayode Odunaro, was inundating Facebook with
photos of empowerment materials donated to constituents by his Senator boss
till I took my irritated ass and went after him with koboko. After the ero
alota and sewing machines, what next? We clap and absolve the Senator and the
Governor of their responsibility to really empower people with durable and
sustainable solutions.
Two years ago, Commonsense Tweetnator, Ben
Murray-Bruce, made a show of riding okada to his constituency to distribute
rice, ajinomoto, exercise books, and other empowerment materials. What next? He
has since retreated to Twitter and forgotten his constituents.
Once the Mai Shais of Kano are done with this
largesse, I hope they do not think that Ganduje owes them any responsibility
for social and economic policies that could really help them. He has provided
an ad hoc solution.
By now, he has moved on. He is probably
thinking of the next demographic to empower. What about the market porters in
Kano? I won't be surprised to hear that he has sent a delegation to Samuel
Ortom in Benue to study the immediate and remote strategies of distributing
wheelbarrows to porters as empowerment.
He will steal N1 billion, spend a N100 million
on wheelbarrows...
We clap.
We move on.
Ad hoc people, ad hoc country.
