Feeding Fat On Nigeria’s Chaos: Why Every Nigerian Is An Opportunist –By Matthew Ma

“All kinds of people exist in the country at various levels. There are the consummate liars whose ageless ability to describe white as black has retained their relevance in the corridors of power. We have professional sycophants who will lick any boot worn by a kingmaker or influencer in order to keep their high-paying job. There are perennial underachievers who, while incompetent at everything, are proficient at manipulating the levers of power to maintain their positions. There are serial opportunists for whom survival is the game, no matter who has what baggage. Then, we have the heinous hypocrites who say one thing and do another while putting the system under crushing pressure. These are the current types of people in Nigeria.”

Nigeria, since independence, has been a country decorated with many instances of opportunism in all its regions and at different times. Amidst these opportunisms, some opportunists took advantage of the commotion in the country to feed themselves fat until today. Opportunistic moments are frequent and operate in every state of the country. They engage in several markets, including trafficking, smuggling, corruption, money laundering, fraud, oil bunkering, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, and car theft. Their networks vary in size. For example, Nigerian human trafficking networks are notorious, most of those engaged in sex trafficking and domestic exploitation. Opportunist networks also engage in labor trafficking. For example, they exploit children in domestic servitude, street vending, mining, and farming all across Nigeria. Other forms of opportunism include prevalent baby factories, the recruitment of women and girls for prostitution, and widespread forced domestic workers. Opportunist networks operating in the north are involved in transnational sexual and labor trafficking to Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. The opportunist involved in these criminal enterprises may also go into politics. Recently, there has been cases of embezzlement and bribery scandals involving high-level officials of the Nigerian government.

Nigerians are opportunistic and governed by opportunistic leaders who have consistently encouraged consumerism against the ideology of productivity and manufacturing. For example, opportunists took over the June 12 issue and made the loudest noise. Many Nigerians fed on Nigeria during the June 12 crisis, the same way political opportunists today feed on the chaos in Nigeria. Nigerians are too quick to forget. Many of those parading themselves today as heroes of democracy were dining with the enemies of democracy who annulled the June 12 election. They struggled vigorously to make sure the government maintained the annulment. They said and did despicable things for political gain and profit. But none of them remember. They now organize lectures and seminars on democracy and the resistance to military rule. They are receiving credit as lovers of democracy against those who fought for our freedom. If you would like a list of these villains-turned-heroes, please get a copy of Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, The Last 100 Days of Abacha. You will marvel at the conduct of the sycophants who have become latter-day saints of the democratic era. As bad as Nigeria is today, some opportunists are saying it shall be well! They are saying Nigeria has never had it better. Really? Should I go into the details? Time will not permit. We know what we are going through in our various locations. One obvious thing is that Nigeria has not been this bad. Some are saying this is the best time in Nigeria. What a pity! Whatever we may say, from my standpoint, we are heading to anarchy, and the earlier we realize this, the better for us.
On May 26, 2023, the federal government attempted to unveil the proposed national carrier, Nigeria Air. According to an invitation from the Ministry of Aviation, the government fixed the unveiling ceremony at the Nigerian Air Operations Center at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja. Two days before the unveiling ceremony, the minister of aviation, Hadi Sirika, said the aircraft for the proposed national carrier would arrive in the country and start operations before May 29, when his tenure would lapse. Sirika said the National aircraft would be unveiled in Nigeria’s colors (green and white) to fulfill all the promises made by the administration in the aviation sector. However, while Nigerians were expecting that the unveiling of the airline would be historic, there was uncertainty over its arrival as promised by Sirika after an unverified video emerged claiming that the federal government had taken delivery of the national carrier. In the video, the aircraft was parked at an airport along with other planes, one of which had Ethiopian flag colors. The clip did not give verifiable details on the aircraft’s location or the exact airport where it was parked. However, a few days after the unveiling of the national carrier, the House of Representatives declared the launch of Nigeria Air a fraud. The House Committee on Aviation made this issue known after the main stakeholders in the deal between the Federal Government and Ethiopian Airlines denied knowledge of the launch. The Ministry of Aviation claimed the government had unveiled Nigeria Air but had not launched it. The committee dismissed the launch as an attempt to divert the lawmakers’ attention. Members of the committee were shocked when NAMA disclosed that the aircraft bearing Nigerian colors was on a chartered flight to Nigeria. Other stakeholders who confirmed the disclosure noted that a chartered flight could be painted in any color and with any inscription.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed the opportunistic nature of Nigerians. In a video by a Nigerian dancer, choreographer, and fitness coach, Kafayat Oluwatoyin, she said that Nigerians deal with themselves. In her words, we are heartless people, especially those in the market selling perishable items. According to her, a basket of ginger now costs N5000, up from N1000, due to greedy Nigerians that make massive profits by crooked means. Some questions need answers: How has COVID-19 raised the price of bush meat? How does it affect garri made from cassava uprooted on the farm? How does it affect local food items in our village markets? Clothe designers, shoe repair specialists, and automobile repair specialists have all increased their charges for delivered services in the name of COVID-19. The prodigal intention toward life has pushed innocent sellers to do what is wrong to amass wealth. It is amusing to think of how this idea came to be. It is sad and pathetic to say that most of the inhabitants of Nigeria are kleptomaniacs whose desires for more know no bounds. In fact, it will be astutely apt and painful to state that an average Nigerian is greedy and wants to maneuver his ways to quicken wealth accumulation. This idea is an evil trend we must curtail if we want this country to progress.

Just as we started experiencing some calmness on the nationwide tension created by the #EndSARS protests, an ugly aftermath left Nigerians bewildered. This eventuality was the hijacking of the nationwide demonstrations by hoodlums who perpetrated violence, arson, and looting. Some of the targeted places, which caught the imagination of many Nigerians, were the warehouses where State governments kept COVID-19 relief materials donated by the private sector for disbursement to residents during the lockdown. The fact that the relief materials, meant for distribution during the first half of the year, were still available in October cast doubt on the transparency and accountability of the governments. When Nigeria recorded its index cases of COVID-19, the federal government declared a lockdown as the number of cases grew exponentially over several weeks. The COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown lasted for about three months, bringing untold hardship, suffering, and hunger to Nigerians, which afterward necessitated the financial interventions of the private sector. Alongside the N500 billion stimulus package allocated by the federal government to cushion the impact of the outbreak, the private sector has formed a Coalition Against COVID-19 to assist the government in its fight against the coronavirus disease in the country. They raised more than 26 billion naira and purchased relief supplies. These food items were delivered to state governments for onward distribution to their residents. But not many Nigerians could remember how much the distributions of relief materials went across the States as the country began heaving a sigh of relief following the gradual reduction of COVID-19 cases. Hence, we did not hear much about the relief materials until the events in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests. But the outcome of the protests led to the discovery and looting of COVID-19 warehouses, first in the Satellite area of Lagos State. Shortly after the #ENDSARS protests, hooligans attacked a warehouse storing COVID-19 palliatives in the Mazamaza neighborhood of Oriade Local Council Development Area, Lagos State. Immediately after the hoodlums gained access to the warehouse, they reportedly began looting the COVID-19 palliatives, leaving the warehouse around Monkey Village a shadow of itself. The same scenario played out that same week when hoodlums broke into COVID-19 warehouses in Osun, Kwara, Ekiti, and Cross River states. Like wildfire, COVID-19 warehouses in the northern regions of Plateau, Bauchi, and Kaduna States, as well as those in Rivers and Delta states in the South-South, soon became victims of the wanton looting, with the attendant loss of lives in some cases. Only a few States, like Niger, were lucky, as the government foiled the attempts by some youths to gain access to the warehouses. In Benue, nothing happened because the COVID-19 palliatives meant for the people were seen in a Kano market with the name Benue on it. However, many Nigerians questioned why some state governors allegedly refused to distribute the relief materials amid the biting hunger and suffering of the people. The incident came as many residents as possible across the state said aid never reached their area.

Amidst the widespread misery and currency scarcity that the Naira swap policy created for Nigerians, some Nigerians used this as an opportunity to acquire more wealth. At first, several people believed it was a good policy that would yield better benefits. But in a twist of fate and political gymnastics, the key operators in this melodrama have succeeded in convincing these Nigerians that the policy was, after all, not a good one; or that it was a good policy poorly conceived and equally poorly implemented. After several weeks or even two months of its implementation, several Nigerians started asking for the real gains of the currency redesign exercise. Many things went wrong with it. First, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) told us that the money redesign was not a money exchange program where, if you returned N200,000 of your old naira bills, you would expect to get the same amount back in the new notes. We accepted that in good faith. Never did we imagine the kind of drama that would unfold. For example, after we obeyed and turned in all our money to our banks, the bank closed its doors against us. They turned their backs on their customers both at their physical locations and on electronic platforms. Accessing our money from the bank became a complex job in Nigeria at that time. In fact, we had a banking system without funds. I saw men and women undressing naked in banking halls to protest their inability to access money. Some women removed their wrappers and lay near ATMs, waiting for the machines to dispense cash. For instance, I saw a branch manager lecturing a crowd of customers that he did not know whether authorities would deliver money to his branch that day. According to him, the issue of withdrawing money had become a top secret in the banking system. Meanwhile, the customer’s numbers had reached up to 300.

Meanwhile, some people were already saying that the point-of-sale (POS) industry was the leading beneficiary of the policy. Let us put this statement in the correct perspective. The moment money was scarce, POS operators became Commander-in-chief. This notion explains why POS operators suddenly became so powerful, charging as much as N4000 for a transfer of only N10,000. If we can make so much profit with POS, why are our Kenyan brothers and sisters not doing the same? In East Africa, for instance, M-PESA, the revolutionary online money platform, has been a household name for decades. It has straddled the POS space there, making electronic money transfers an everyday affair. Shortly before I left Nairobi in 2007, M-PESA, which means mobile money, was launched as an alternative to receiving and sending money in that country. Launched by Safaricom, the biggest telecom company in Kenya, it runs on the same mobile telephones Nigerians have. But the difference between our forced mobile (or cashless) money policy and what has happened in Kenya is too wide to imagine. So, the question is, why do we have to pass through pain for the POS industry to grow? What has happened to the concept of planning in Nigeria? Why were ordinary Nigerians made to pass through the furnace of hardship? Many things went wrong with this policy. Hence, the designers and implementers must share the blame in full. Those who smiled away with their economic rent during this policy were opportunists, while the silent majority cringed as they became excluded from the mainstream economy. The beneficiaries were gatekeepers who could dictate prices or conditions for services rendered. This concept explains why POS operators have suddenly become so powerful that Nigerians are starting to say that the fear of POS operators is the beginning of wisdom. While the naira redesign program is a monetary policy, it needs contributions and support from all to succeed. In subsequent years, it will become the subject of many academic research projects to put its shortcomings into proper perspective. One conclusion from such studies will be that this naira redesign is an example of a policy failure and its implementation. But this idea is what happens when wrong policies create artificial scarcity. The corrupt benefit from it while leaving out the voiceless majority.

What is most surprising about the current developments in our country, however, is how most keen observers have heaped the blame for the glaring failure to address the country’s numerous challenges only on the presidency. The National Assembly in any society governed under democratic rules is the fortress of democracy. We expect them to light the way for the two other arms of the government and the populace to follow. However, the National Assembly in our country has not been leading by example in many respects. On national security matters, the National Assembly has several times paid lip service to the desperate need for a lasting solution. In fact, from what we see, the National Assembly has been playing the ostrich, typical of their opportunistic attitude. Whenever and wherever they get the opportunity, they climb the hill and either lecture all of us on what we are not doing right or single out a scapegoat for their punches. For instance, the fuel subsidy removal is an acute challenge not because the policy itself is bad but because it is difficult to sell even to those who are fully aware of the benefit of the case. And the simple truth of the matter is that it is a part of human nature to be resistant to change, especially in the rising price of any good. No person anywhere in the world enthusiastically welcomes an increase in the price of any commodity, no matter how justifiable the argument for any such rise may be. And for us in Nigeria in particular, where we have grown to have a sense of entitlement to cheap petroleum products, the argument for subsidy removal is particularly challenging to sell by any salesman whose part it is to sell it. Right or wrong, many Nigerians have come to believe that if any goods should go for next to nothing in our country, those commodities should be petroleum products because, to our thinking, crude oil is a gift of nature to our country. Hence, it should be extremely cheap.

Given this reality, the attitude adopted by some members of the National Assembly on the subsidy issue is not good enough for the nation. Since the announcement was made on May 29 that the government will remove fuel subsidies, some members of the National Assembly have been acting funny, trying to distance themselves from the government’s position. Some National Assembly members make public statements about subsidy removal that sound as if they do not belong to the government. As a humble patriot looking in from the outside, I think this attitude is wrong. The impression some of us have is that some clever members of the National Assembly want the president to take the criticism while they will look good as a people who care more for the poor masses of Nigeria. Government is a collective thing. Although it has arms and tiers for smooth administration, the categorization and divisions do not suggest that when benefits come, only the higher-level arm of the government that initiated the policy that would benefit from it. This period is not a time to stretch our fingers to accuse one another or be a spectator at a cover stand. The subsidy issue is at the heart of our desire to progress as a people. For instance, if we remove subsidies and can save a trillion Naira a year, we will be in a better position to develop our socioeconomic infrastructures in a state of dilapidation nationwide. If the policy has shortcomings, I think it is a national issue that requires careful and rational handling devoid of political theatricals designed to impress voters. This type of national challenge requires all representatives to participate. This notion is a matter that, in an established democracy, it will require calls for a bi-partisan approach.

We need a united and common front of all the arms and operators of the government because it is not the problem of the Executive Branch alone. It requires collaboration from all angles. Given that the expected benefits will not profit only the Executive branch, the process of how to get those positive results should also not be the challenge of only the Executive Branch. The benefits will accrue to all Nigerians regardless of class, party, region, or religion. The Executive Branch needs support because the subsidy issue did not happen in one administration. It is a problem created and sustained by successive administrations, which has become a challenge to address since the government is a continuum. Rather than chastise the presidency, we need to thank him for having the courage of a lion to take a step that many of his predecessors had balked at because of the enormous political costs involved. In fact, by choosing to take this action, the president is telling Nigerians that he does not want to look good in the eyes of simple-minded folks but wants the best for us, even if that step will bring temporary pains in the short run. His hope and the hope of those who understand is that the measure will leave enduring benefits in Nigeria in the long run. The president is saying he wants to be a nationalist and not a populist politician. Sometimes, when this issue happens, many nationalist decisions are not necessarily popular. Given the challenges in our nation, no one needs to play the opportunist, no matter how slight. Efforts not to lose support from my constituency should not blind members of the National Assembly to the merits of subsidy removal. The politics of opportunism should not be at the detriment of the survival of our country itself. These times call for rational thinkers and not emotional politicians. Our leaders across the various tiers of government need to come together and reason out how best to sell the idea to the people and not for each person to play politics that looks so much like an opportunistic game of blame dodging. In the end, such politics may consume the polity itself.

We are opportunistic people who wait for opportunities of averse to artificial scarcity of essential products as fuel to engage in the evil black markets whereby we will hike the ordinary purchasing price to over one thousand percent higher than the market rate in other economies where things work. Because we also have opportunistic persons in the government, these agents of darkness who engage in black market hawking of fuel in the streets of major towns and cities during periods of artificial scarcity allow it to happen with these criminal tendencies. This example might be why successive administrations and officials of the corrupt Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have successfully killed the four existing crude oil refineries. This notion is the same lazy attitude of our leaders and people toward consumerism rather than encouraging policies and programs that will grow our domestic manufacturing sector. The hard fact we need to know in Nigeria is that no nation ever survives if we raise opportunism, consumerism, greed, and avarice to the level of national ideology. It is ridiculous for a government to stand by and watches helplessly as ordinary people are shortchanged and exposed to the danger of increased economic hardship and grinding poverty. We are so opportunistic that we are not even ashamed to patronize toothpicks and matchboxes to light our stoves that are all but imported from nations that were on this same economic ranking as us only about three decades ago, like Indonesia and Malaysia.

The question is, why are Nigerians opportunists? The average Nigerian is a natural opportunist. For example, the way we rationalize issues that secure our interests without recourse to religious or moral principles is dreadfully astounding. The average Nigerian is bound to become soulless, cold, indifferent, ridiculous, and highly calculating if he is to make a profit from a situation without thinking about the broad implications of his actions. Hence, all kinds of people exist in the country at various levels. There are the consummate liars whose ageless ability to describe white as black has retained their relevance in the corridors of power. We have professional sycophants who will lick any boot worn by a kingmaker or influencer in order to keep their high-paying job. There are perennial underachievers who, while incompetent at everything, are proficient at manipulating the levers of power to maintain their positions. There are serial opportunists for whom survival is the game, no matter who has what baggage. Then, we have the heinous hypocrites who say one thing and do another while putting the system under crushing pressure. Because they lack vision, discretion, and wisdom, they put the country under enormous pressure. The result has been a chilling destruction of the core values of a nation, which now threaten to disintegrate the country. Today, Nigerians have a startling philosophy of opportunism. Hence, for several Nigerians, the way to go is whichever way the wind of opportunism blows.

Rev. Ma, S.J, is a Jesuit Catholic priest and PhD candidate in public and social policy at St. Louis University in the state of Missouri, USA.