Why Should Nigerian Presidents Not Be Jumping Molues? -By Jimanze Ego-Alowes

Too often Nigerians bother themselves with exotic and self-imposed ailments. One typical example is the beef over the luxury lifestyles of the nation’s pastors, or as some say, pastorpreneurs. There are, for instance, reports of many amongst them cruising in self or church purchased private jets. Of course you don’t fly on private jets without an expansive lifestyle to match this. So, these men, or properly, merchants of God, are the nearest you have to Indian maharajas under our African sun and in our modern times.

But one has to concede them a thing or two. They are at it as private citizens or merchants, Dangotes in cassocks, if you like. Institutionally, no citizen is required to be a member of their congregation. The point, therefore, is that their conjecture of having found a way to heaven is just that – a conjecture. Their real genius in the matter is that they are commoditising this touted “private discovery” of making it to heaven.

In other words, making eternity or hitting paradise is just a product category. And their pulpits are thus forms of market stalls or aisles where these products – of making heaven, arriving paradise etc. – are displayed. Like lawyers say, the fact of the display is only “an invitation to offer.” That is, you are not forced to purchase and even your offer to purchase may be refused by these holy men and hawkers of Jesus, etc. That is for all practical reasons; going to heaven, making paradise, etc. is just another product like coca cola, Mercedes Benz, etc.

This is where the many too many fall into error. They just don’t know that all religions, whether it is Islam or Christianity or babalawoism are all artefacts, are all products, or if you like, brands. That is a promise, as ace advert men are wont to describe brands. The only distinguishing line is that while a Mercedes Benz car is largely a material brand, religions are their cultural and psychological equivalents. Of course, there is nothing otherworldly in this. We consult and pay our psychologists and trend or future watchers a kobo or more on need. So, paying your pastor or imam, either by tithe or zakat is essentially a business transaction concluded.

More interestingly, you cannot in truth charge your pastor or imam for failing to deliver on his brand promise. First of all, heaven or paradise is too far away to be attested to as reality. Second of all, even if it is not, there is what marketers call buyers’ remorse. You can purchase an item at your local Shoprite, say, only to return home and feel the item is worse than shit. Well, as the law goes, the joke is on you. Caveat emptor.

Even worse, you can purchase, say, a fizzy drink or cigarette and like it, but for all practical purposes, as the surgeon general tells, it is hazardous to your health. However, you still feel high. Why? Because a cigarette killing you slowly is psychologically cool and welcome to your soul. That is, death by cigarettes, for many, is better than roughing it out in Nigeria. Nigeria is a miracle hell, one wag proclaimed. Ahiazuwa.

All these long lines are to hint at a market or capitalist axiom; it is that a product need not do you any good. In fact, a product you purchased can kill you – perhaps happily for you. There is little else cigarettes do. And the fact that cigarettes sell more than bottled water is a hint to the preferences of the Nigerian consumer. We are all more elated to buy what will kill us happily than what will heal us painfully.

This last point is the spring of the second genius of pastors and imams. They know that men prefer sweet daydreams to vanilla realities. So they market you hot dreams, not wet reality.

And they have been so successful at it. So successful that they run around in private jets and live it out in Banana Islands. The moral is that nobody should envy them. Selling the gospel is not a restricted market. The best revenge you can give a David Oyedepo for living large and near his bankers is to open a gospel shop. The best revenge you can give the sultan or emir is to instigate a successful revolution of puritising Islam and bequeathing eternal power to your sons and relations.

Immediately we all come to knowledge on this, then it is preposterous to ask pastors to lower their greed levels or to ask of emirs to live like paupers. They are not in the market – religions are markets and market products – to deliver their services to you. Just like producers and hawkers of Mercedes Benz, coca cola etc., these pastors and imams are in it for themselves primarily. If they are successful it shows, private jets and all.

On the matter of their personal, not congregational successes, you have an option. The best you can do – on having buyers’ remorse – is to quit, not to whine and be stuck to the same church or mosque.

Understanding that churches and mosques are businesses, whatever else they claim to be, should lead you to “opening and shining your eyes.” In other words, it won’t be too odd to recall Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Archibishop na miliki, Pope na enjoyment, Imam na gbaladu, eya eya.

Thus, our real beef should be with government officials, our appointed servants, who live in unearned, unexplainable and even sinful luxury. And their list is long. It includes, local government mayors to presidents.

First of all, these government men and their women are not operating in a market or a competitive performance reward environment. In other words, politicians are not private citizen entrepreneurs and should live no larger than common citizens. So the question is indicated. In Nigeria, how do the common citizens commute the distances, for instance? The answer is by molue, literally and metaphorically.

This is the point. Since politicians are representatives – repeat, representatives, that is lookalikes of the peoples, which is what representatives mean by the way – they should one and all be hopping the molue like the rest of the common populace. And this is even more so since there are no records of substantial or any achievement by legions of these politicians – military or civilian – since 1970. So, on what basis are our leaders living it out on our expenses, on our sweat as Arab Sheikhs? If the dudes in Dubai are princes of luxury, at least Dubai is a cut of paradise under the Arabian sun.

But in Nigeria, what the hell do you have? There is no water, no road, no hospital, “no nothing”, yet these Nigerian government “pickins” who should be jumping molues are flying it up in private jets. The other day, for instance, the daughter of a president had the escalated audacity to fly in luxury when she should be riding the molue. Believe it, if she is granted the next chance, she would hop into an Air Force Alpha fighter jet just to go hunting for new lovers. Boy, things happen.

It is really a scandal that our leaders and family should be living like gods, while we live like hell mates, in a Nigeria that is an earthen prefecture of Hades. Today, only undertakers are in paradise in Nigeria. And the lead men of these morticians and undertakers are the Nigerian leaders.

To tidy up here, one can say in justice. The Nigerian who gives up on his right to question why presidents, governors etc. live like kings and is asking why pastors live like princes, is a barbarian. He has no understanding of the distinctions of governments and markets or in fact of modernity.

Oh boy, next time you jump the molue, just look around if your local government major, your state governor, president and their other householders are about the same ride. If no, then start an ash-tag, #PresidentsMustGoOnMolues. Ahiazuwa.

A developmental economist and newspaper columnist, Jimanze Ego-Alowes writes from Lagos.