In my twenty years of life in civilization, I've only
experienced salary delay by a few hours once. This
happened so long ago - I believe it was in 1998 - that
the details are now a tad hazy in my memory. On
payday, the computers go to work automatically at
midnight, crediting your account. You wake up to your
salary. It is clockwork. It is not something you are
conscious of - as routine as the oxygen you breathe
every second.
Even in civilization, accidents happen. On that day in
1998, we woke up to no pay. I was a PhD student at
the University of British Columbia. I was fully funded. I
was on a Killam doctoral fellowship, one of the most
prestigious doctoral scholarships in Canada. However, I
was still supplementing it with all sorts of campus odd
jobs that I have written about here. To wake up to no
pay was a disaster.
Civilization kicked in. All affected salary earners started
to receive hourly apologies and updates on what was
being done about the situation. Not general public
announcements. Individual emails and phone calls from
apologetic officials. There was a number to call if you
needed more information. Some apologetic official
picked up the phone if you called the number.
The salary delay lasted about half a day due to a
computer glitch. I must have received about three
emails and three phone calls from officials apologizing
to me and reassuring me that all was being done to
resolve the issue and all was being done to ensure that
it didn't happen again.
Then came another shocker to my system. I received
another email that psychological counseling was being
provided if I needed help to cope with the trauma
caused by a half-day salary delay.
This is how every salary earner was treated that day by
a penitent system that had failed them for half a day.
We were entitled to an apology. We got loads of it. We
were entitled to the humility of officials who
understood that our right to our pay for work done had
been violated. We got that humility. We were entitled
to explanations and the idea of somebody taking
responsibility for the failure, we got it. We were
entitled to reassurance that all would be done to
prevent a repeat, we got it. Above all, we were entitled
to officials who understood that none of these things
was a privilege, we got that too.
I hope you understand what dignity means now. Which
Nigerian state Governor and their political and media
aides have ever personally apologized to you via email
or phone for all these salary delays? Which Federal
ministry, parastatal or agency, has ever apologized to
you personally for salary delays or outright non-
payment?
Ok, let me not do aseju by expecting personal
apologies in a 17th-century body politic. Have you ever
encountered a collective apology to the work force?
Take a look again at the statement issued by Governor
Ayade and his media aide to the workers of Cross River
yesterday. It is so rude, so haughty, so arrogant, so
condescending that I am still beside myself with rage
this morning.
Governor Ayade - bless his soul - has been so
magnanimous to pay December salaries. No apologies.
No explanations for months of unpaid wages. Nothing.
Next time any state Governor's aide comes out with
this sort of rubbish, I encourage you to take a coconut
and crack it on his head. We have to stop taking this
nonsense from them. Just who the heck do these
people in government think they are? Enough of your
dehumanization by hubristic Nigerian officials.
Yet, this is the attitude of Nigerian officials in every
LGA, every state, every Federal institution. The
pabambari of this congenital arrogance of course
resides in Aso Rock as an institution. No apologies for
anything. In fact, any transaction they have with you is
a privilege they are conferring on you. This is a rape of
your human essence. You are being denuded, stripped
of your dignity.
If you want to determine how terrible a number the
Nigerian state and her officials have done on you,
pause and see how you process the information I have
shared with you here about your dignity. Do you think
that you deserve the treatment I got from officials
when my salary was delayed for half a day in 1998 or
do you think it is the idealistic and utopian rant of a
disconnected diasporan who doesn't understand our
realities, who doesn't know it, who doesn't get it?
The mental damage that Nigerian officials are doing to
you and your children is great.
Remember, "our realities", is a discursive subterfuge
that Nigerian officials use to dumb you down and
further dehumanize you by normalizing a culture of
mediocrity, lowered, and diminished expectations in
your psyche. They make you feel that dignity is fit only
for oyinbo people. They make you believe that Rome
was not built in a day and that we too shall get there
some day - maybe in 200 years.
Yet, it takes them only a few minutes to compose a
bullcrap statement or a tweet or a Facebook update,
telling you that his Excellency is so good and great
that he has bestowed your December salary on you.
The time they spend writing this sort of rubbish can
also be spent apologizing to you for salary delays.
Remember: every time a political aide announces
salaries in their usual arrogant tone, devoid of humility
and with no apologies, and you feel good about it, that
is your human dignity in a casket.
It works for them.
It shouldn't work for you.