Nigeria: A Global Village
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Vanguard (Lagos)
COLUMN
6 September 2008
Posted to the web 6 September 2008
Bisi Lawrence
For someone who has always enjoyed a good press, recent weeks must have brought unthinkable anguish to the roly-poly Stock Exchange boss, a lady who seemed to be in full control of her lot. From the peak of respectability, she plummeted almost to the depths of public opprobrium.
In just about the time it takes to narrate the unfortunate idea that made her the object of general censure, she had become the subject of severe editorial comment in the media, and a guest of the dreaded Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who laid hold on her travel papers for a little while.
Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyuike should have known that Americans have a particular aversion for aliens getting involved in any financial aspect of political elections, especially that of their President. Yet she allowed herself to commit such a shameful faux pas, in such an outrageous manner.
She obviously made light of the oft-repeated fact the world has become a global village, where the happenings in Shagamu or Warri, are now items of "breaking news" in Washington DC within minutes.
She also must have mis-read the mood of the populace of this nation towards boastful affluence. Gone are the days of the poor fawning before the loud voice of wealth, with the revelation of how billions of naira meant for the improvement of the lives of the common people disappeared into the bags of several "money men" of today.
We are no longer fazed by untold riches, the sources of which are indeed untold.
Well, at the end of day - as they say - we have been informed that no wrong-doing could be laid on the doorstep of whom someone, ungraciously I think, called an "Amazon". All she did, after all, was ask - not enforce - like-minded folks to donate some money to a worthy cause.
In feet, she later denied that it was directly for the cause beyond the nature of a distant promotion, if you know what that means. The total sum of money collected was at first estimated to be about 100 million naira. However, when the EFCC delved into the matter, it came up with about twenty-five per cent short of that amount. And seized it. Why?
We feel that if the lady was clean, so would be the money she collected. If she is set free why impound her money? I mean, what makes it proper to deprive her of the funds if they are not proceeds of a crime?
All in all, it seems to me like the verdict of a judge who says, "We find the accused not guilty - but he'd better not do it again," As your lordship pleases!
God grant President Umar Yar'Adua a safe and quick recovery. The efforts made and the ruse devised to keep his illness a secret failed woefully. The "knowing ones" have condemned it all with little sympathy for those who were struggling with an unusual affair of State.
This has been one of the rare occasions when the government had been called upon to manage the news of a President's indisposition on that scale.
All over the country, it is part of our culture not to "celebrate" the illness of important people. The feeling appears to be that the mere mention of poor health in connection with someone in a high place may mislead those who are in line of succession to harbour vain hopes.
The atmosphere becomes tense and may generate diverse passions among the people. Those whose welfare depends on the good health of the important man would naturally be subject to great anxiety. On the other hand, others who believe in prospering from a state of confusion, can become filled with suspicion and ill-intentions.
That is the basis upon which a conspiracy of silence was nurtured in our culture about making a "breaking news" of the ill-health of a monarch, or high chief, or even the head of a large household in the past.
Of course, in modern times, the walls have not only ears, but they also have lips that are open twenty-four hours a day. The demands of security as well as the dictates of good taste often clash in the touted right of the people to "know". The need to know is gradually receding in the face of the nagging desire to know... sometimes out of sheer morbid curiosity.
The necessity to know, as an improvement on the need, rides on the wings of modern information technology, as the drop of a pin becomes a deafening roar thousands of miles from source.
Relevant Links
Then add to that the imperatives of a Presidential system in which the concentration of power swirls around the motivation and movement of one individual, and we must all agree that the clamour for instant information about a Chief Executive's physical and mental condition is really in consonance with the state of the world we live in today.
|
Read comments. Write your own.
|
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Make allAfrica.com your home page
|
RSS Feed
Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >> | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
