Intoxication Of Power

By Akin Owolabi

Much heed has been taken of Lord Acton’s assertion of 1887 that: power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Not much heed is accorded the by-product of the corruption by power – intoxication. It is sheer intoxication that propels a man to flaunt his power to the chagrin of persons of lower cadre.

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah, the immediate past Minister of Aviation, was said to have keyed properly into the prosecution of her boss’ transformation agenda until something went wrong. It got into her head to dip her fingers into the public till to purchase two BMW bullet-proof cars for an outrageous sum of $1.6 million. The actual cost of the two cars was put at below $600,000, leaving a whopping difference of $1 million. If the purchase had passed through the appropriate channels, or due process followed, the hardwares would have been procured at such cost and there would have been no eyebrows raised.

If Stella had not given in to the allure to dispense public funds, she would have still been in the corridors of power where the trickles of money are in multiples of hundreds and thousands of millions of the local currency. President Goodluck Jonathan had to drop the lady when the din of her financial recklessness was deafening. Yet, Oduah is not the only public figure caught in the web of squandermania; not the only one dwelling in the realm where the power to fritter away public funds is a passion.

Next in the line of power drunkenness is yet another pretty lady (Oloju ede, as the Yoruba would classify her in respect of her bright, bulging eyes), Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum Resources. This smashing beauty – not that Oduah is less pretty – is believed to have spent a couple tens of billions of local currency on jetting around and outside Nigeria in chartered aircraft. A return trip to London was put at N137 million while the bird itself cost billions to service over a period of two years.

Undisputedly, Diezani is presiding over the juiciest portfolio in view of Nigeria’s near-total dependence on petroleum resources, and there is no doubt that such dizzying politico-economic height would tend to corrupt proportionately. Ten billion naira on aircraft services, to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is ‘chicken change’. But it is colossal to 163 million Nigerians, a majority of whose lot could individually be drastically transformed with 0.000001 per cent (N100,000) of the squandered sum.

A corporation at ease when it comes to accounting for tens of billions in hard currency, where the income is in trillions of naira and daily loss to local and international thieving syndicates is whopping, the only people who could be pissed rather scandalised are the poverty-ridden Nigerians who constitute more than 99 per cent of the population.

And the truth is that there is much poverty in the land. The committal of N137 million to a one-trip fancy of a power drunk element in an environment where a single digit millions could be spent is extremely insensitive and verges on arrogance of power. In all of this, one very simple fact stands out: Those in power and their co-travellers are behaving to type. Nowhere is the English nobleman Lord Acton’s assertion no more apt than what we are currently witnessing in our land. Everywhere, you perceive the arrant display of the opulence of power with its suffusing arrogance.

The fact remains that the two politicians only acted well written scripts of some faceless public servants who would have egged their bosses to revel in utter luxury.

NNPC has said that chartering aircraft was not alien to the worldwide oil industry, that the vexed plane charter was not Diezani’s project, and that it should be held responsible. This is true in every sense. The petroleum ministry is not designed to freight its minister on chartered wings even on state matters. The minister was however jetting in and out of the country for personal, rather frivolous, matters. How can an individual, accompanied by two or three aides – though we have many of them today on the pulpit and the industry – be psychologically contented sitting in an aircraft designed to convey a few dozens. This is quaint vanity. Is the world not suffused with airlines with classy commercial aircraft in which any individual, public or private, could jet around the world?

There was this quaint business lady with a fetish love for chartered flight even within short distances. One trip to Ilorin, Kwara State, terminated her life and love for air travel. The wife of another stupendously rich tycoon cum politician suffered so much shock when she learnt the private jet in which she and her husband were travelling to northern Nigeria was having difficulty in the air. Though the plane did not crash, she died shortly afterward as a result of the severe jolt.

If Nigerians were offered the unique opportunity to pillory Diezani over her frivolity and gallivanting, 90 per cent would be tempted to tear her to pieces. But wait a little. Who is the person in power that is not bitten by the arrogance bug? Who is that one not reeling in the stupor of power intoxication? No one in the world is free. The case of the two ladies is a matter of proportion.

Who were the state governors before they waltzed their way to the number one citizen position in their respective states? They were ordinary citizens but on getting to the top harnessed all the paraphernalia of that high station. Jonathan was a lecturer before climbing very fast on the ladder of luck to the presidency. He is today riding high as the appropriator of authoritative values in Nigeria. We see Jonathan who as a lecturer could hardly part with N1000 now able to dole out billions of taxpayers’ money without blinking an eye.

Local government chairmen are not left out. Even the Federal legislators harness to the full the constitutional powers to stupendously enrich themselves. They can today afford the luxury of casting the first stone while they themselves are much as guilty. It is unthinkable for any clean person to assume political office and exit untainted just as it would a man cast into a lions’ den to return unscathed.

We need not search for further reasons public officers go on treasury looting binge. They do so to sustain the lifestyle their new status confers on them. Blame them?

—Akin Owolabi

…Published in TheNEWS magazine