First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
Asking people to define stealing is no different from asking them all to pose on quick sand for a group photograph. Everyone is reluctant to respond and when they eventually do, they sink into a self-contradicting mode. For some, what is left behind after the ‘acquisition’ determines if a theft has occurred. For instance in a warehouse containing two million mangoes, the worker who pockets five for the kids has not stolen. What he took will barely be missed. This logic is applied to unlawfully ‘taking’ from rich individuals, corporations and governments. If di change plenti den mek poor man chop im own. Notin spoil. Hence, illegal downloading of movies and music is alright because they (the corporations) are making billions anyway. Pirate copies abound of any product you can think of. The pirates feel they are making cheaper products available to the masses and the masses love cheaper products. Let di big men dem buy dia originals.
Surely this is wrong for we all know what stealing is. People everywhere will give a definition fit for the occasion but their attitudes betray them. For some, ‘taking’ it before someone else is being sharp. It was destined to go anyway, so no burden of conscience there. Dat is the auditory anaesthetic statement applied liberally in Naija. Everybody dey chop, so yu too chop up and neva dull up. Finally, what the ‘taker’ does with what has been taken affects how some define his actions. If some of the gains are repatriated into sections of the community, then the individual becomes a proud son of the soil and his people will not call him a thief but a hero. He buys the local monarch a big car, ‘settles’ the area boys, buys a chieftaincy title and all is well. Di man don try for us well well o.
Before striking, people do a quick cost-benefit analysis in which they compare the risks of being caught and the nature of punitive actions that might be meted out versus the pleasure they would derive from satisfying their greed or yielding to temptation. Where institutions make stealing easy, then people steal. Such institutions have an unwritten code by which business is done. All stakeholders are ‘settled’ and you keep what you have ‘taken’.
A pre-emptive kola nut can be served to local powers that be to make sure that the law is not enforced on an unwilling citizen. People respect institutions and role models. If these institutions turn a blind retina in the face of stealing then the thief is empowered to carry on with his illegal tendencies. It is my humble opinion that nobody is born a thief and even though harsh societal pressures i.e. penury or intense ambition can make some individuals take what is lawfully not theirs by way of purchase or inheritance, it is the institutions of family, community, law enforcement agencies and law courts that shape the individual in his formation. They all affect the calculations of his personal risk benefit ratio i.e. to steal or not to steal.
So much has been written about Naija’s stolen government money. How it has hampered development and denied a generation the infrastructure needed to thrive. If society stops lauding people who have stolen government money and if the police becomes effective in arresting fraud suspects, then that will bring a change to how people look at stealing. For instance, a man on a monthly salary of N500K a month should be embarrassed to pose with a car worth millions in front of his mansion in a glossy magazine especially when he has no other means of livelihood save his salary. If community leaders steal and flaunt the proceeds in the full view of the next generation, then the future becomes dark.
Make what you may of this but Fela’s song ‘Authority Stealing’ (1980) insinuated that it was wrong to use the position of power accorded by a white collared job or high powered political post to steal funds. Authority stealing pass armed robbery.
In recent times we have heard songs like ‘Yahozee’, ‘Maga Don Pay’ and ‘I Go Chop Your Dollar’, all obtuse references to advance fee fraud perpetrated via the internet. If music is a barometer of public sensibilities, then one could assert that the era of the beautification of area boy and area thief is really upon us.
Seems everyone complains about politicians stealing money and natural resources in Africa (yes o. Not just cash but crude oil, gold , diamonds and even yams have all been stolen from mother earth), yet we laugh when we are blood relatives of these same thieves. Sontin muss touch mai hand. In the same vein, any relative with an opportunity to chop, who doesn’t on account of moral principles becomes the village fool. Principles count for nothing when cash is involved. See yua chance and take am.
Alas the wind of change has descended on Nigeria and hopefully fantastically corrupt people will be driven into extinction. Stealing is still trendy in some quarters but not for very long. A New dawn is here. Second bass jare.
