Nigeria: When crocodiles eat their eggs

Dr. Promise Adiele

By Promise Adiele

We can rightly argue that traditional, cultural components such as proverbs constitute distinguishing factors in African literature. Among African writers, Chinua Achebe and Ola Rotimi effulgently deploy these traditional cultural materials in their oeuvre to the extent that it forms part of the general aesthetics in their creative repertoire. Nobody marches Achebe in the use of proverbs. Accordingly, the illustrious man of letters submits that “proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.” While Achebe captures the Igbo philosophical system through the constant use of proverbs, Rotimi revalidates the Yoruba mysteries of existence through the ideological deployment of proverbs in his works. The title of today’s essay is from Rotimi’s Play The gods Are Not to Blame. It is a proverb that sums up the harrowing inclinations of those who, out of greed and desire for self-enrichment, destroy what they are mandated to protect. The full proverb is “when crocodiles eat their own eggs, what will they not do to the flesh of a frog”. There is a parallel between the crocodiles that eat their eggs and Nigeria’s military personnel, police officers, civil servants, and politicians – those who liquidate the country’s patrimony, mindlessly sullying the exchequer for gain.

Ola Rotimi’s The gods are not to blame

Hitherto, Abba Kyari was a celebrated Assistant Commissioner of Police in Nigeria. He won many private and government awards. Consequently, Nigerians poured accolades on him, eulogizing his emergence as a breath of fresh air in the Nigerian Police Force besmirched by infamy. Immediately, he earned himself the sobriquet ‘Supercop.’ We cannot, in all honesty, and responsibility, deny that Kyari did not deserve the appellation ‘supercop’. That is because he led his team as the head of the police Intelligent Response Team (IRT) to burst many robbery gangs, uncovered kidnap dens, becoming a nightmare for criminals. In fact, many Nigerians suggested that he should become the Inspector General of Police. Such was the disarming façade of his rising profile that hypnotized millions of people. But unfortunately, Kyari is alleged to have fed fat on gross, filthy lucre, deeply immersed in the deft manoeuvre of the laws he was supposed to defend and protect.

Abba Kyari’s bubble burst when Nigeria’s newsreel bled with reports of his involvement with celebrated internet fraudster Ramon Abbas popularly known as Hushpuppi. It violates the positive byways of the cognitive process to imagine that a man who pretends to fight crime and criminals, among them internet fraudsters, is himself hand-in-gloves with an internet fraud kingpin. Kyari was fighting crime with crime. Recently, news broke that the same Kyari, who ought to be serving a suspension following his criminal complicities in internet fraud activities, was directly involved in drug trading while carrying out official duties as a police officer. Can the Inspector General of Police explain to Nigerians how a supposedly suspended officer in his command turned up to carry out official assignments, using his office to perpetrate crime? Nemesis, that cosmological principle of inexorable retribution, caught up with Kyari. He was declared wanted and subsequently arrested by officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. (NDLEA) If indeed a gatekeeper of the law is also a kingpin of crime, it goes to show the abysmal levels the headships of some of our public agencies have fallen.

Abba Kyari

While I acknowledge that there are a few honest police officers in Nigeria, one can argue that kidnapping, robbery, and drug trading has blossomed due to the involvement of some criminal police elements in the country. A colleague of mine observed that if Nigerian police officers do not collude with criminals, the crime rate in Nigeria will nosedive considerably. Closely monitor all the police chiefs in Nigeria, their stupendous wealth, ostentatious lifestyles, and obscene display of same, then you would know that crocodiles can indeed eat their eggs. But the challenge is not that these crocodiles can eat their eggs. The big challenge is – if these crocodiles eat their eggs, what will they not do to the flesh of frogs? Imagine that the law did not catch up with Kyari then he went all the way to become Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, what would happen? Our collective imagination as to what would happen to the body of a frog in the presence of a crocodile that just ate its egg should flourish, breaking all known boundaries of a fecund mind. Is this not the reason why Nigeria is in the doldrums? What is the moral capacity of those who hold public offices, the controllers of power levers and implementers of our laws?

Abuse of offices in terms of financial misappropriation, no matter how small, seems to be the order of the day in Nigeria. The muse immediately reminds me of the exalted offices of judges in Nigeria. While I concede that there are honest, incorruptible judges in Nigeria, there are also corrupt, depraved judges steeped in the perversion of the judicial process for self-enrichment. With such judges in Nigeria, thieves, kidnappers, drug lords, plunderers of the electoral process and other reprobate knaves will inevitably flourish in the country.

It lacerates my heart to think of a celebrated army officer, the late General Aminu Kano Maude, who hailed from Kano State. While he was alive, he served in the Army Finance corps. However, reports allege that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently seized properties across the country worth 10.9 billion naira belonging to the former army officer. It is heart rendering because the late army officer was in charge of army finance and had control of funds to procure weapons to fight insurgency in the country. It is unconscionable that while Boko Haram slaughtered many army officers that engaged them with an inferior armoury, someone sat on the funds meant to equip the army, buying sophisticated weapons to obliterate insurgency. It may be possible that few top military officers responsible for procuring arms and ammunition to fight Boko Haram are the reasons why the terrorist sect is undefeated. Why are some Nigerian army generals so profligately wealthy? Reports allege that some of them have houses in Dubai and other cities worldwide. Imagine for one second that the late Aminu Kano Maude did not die and EFCC did not discover his financial treachery, then he retires, becomes a politician, and occupies a leadership position? If crocs eat their eggs, what they will do to the flesh of a frog is better imagined.

Properties-seized-from-General-Aminu-Kano-Maude

The above narrative seems to describe the mindset of many people in leadership positions. Abuse of offices in terms of financial misappropriation, no matter how small, seems to be the order of the day in Nigeria. The muse immediately reminds me of the exalted offices of judges in Nigeria. While I concede that there are honest, incorruptible judges in Nigeria, there are also corrupt, depraved judges steeped in the perversion of the judicial process for self-enrichment. With such judges in Nigeria, thieves, kidnappers, drug lords, plunderers of the electoral process and other reprobate knaves will inevitably flourish in the country. Why would a judge be so rich as to have properties across the world? What is the take-home pay of a regular judge in Nigeria? The activities of some criminal judges in the country have contributed to voter-apathy during elections. The electorate believes and rightly so that courts and judges in Nigeria hold all the aces to all the elective political positions, therefore, it is purpose defeating voting in elections.

As the 2023 elections approach, I look around and see people, our political gladiators, many of them with a stinking, fetid background in public offices jostling for different political offices. If crocodiles can eat their eggs, your guess is as good as mine. Many of the politicians positioned to become new tenants in Aso Rock liquidated their state’s treasury as governors. But because they were not caught or apprehended, today, they are smooth–talking messiahs who want to finally destroy the flesh of frogs after eating their eggs. Mr Next President of Nigeria, kindly show us your scorecard as a former governor, ex-civil servant, former police/army officer, and let us scrutinize them dispassionately. Mr Next Governor, show us what you did in your last term and last position as a public servant. What was your bank account balance before your last office and what is it now? After destroying your eggs, do you want to perfect your heist dexterity by submerging the entire country? Nigerians are not stupid or are they?

Promise Adiele PhD

Mountain Top University

Promee01@yahoo.com