Reporting News and Opinions
The ancient Roman statesman Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia after she became embroiled in a scandal, despite there being no proof of wrongdoing on her part. His explanation has echoed through the centuries: “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”
The roadside collector may be the visible face of the system, but the real question is who controls the pyramid, who receives the proceeds and what political interests protect it.
ITV’s Lucy Watson helpfully translated the subtext for the rest of us: “This is not a developing, third-world nation; this is Europe!” The unthinkable, you see, is only unthinkable when it happens to the right people. When it happens elsewhere, it is merely Tuesday.
A nation’s mind dies when it can no longer recognise irony even when the irony is wearing agbada, boarding a presidential jet, and lecturing the rest of us about sacrifice. No previous assemblage of Nigerian power-brokers has democratised this particular form of intellectual blindness quite as thoroughly as the APC under first Buhari and now Tinubu.
Nigeria has not been short of constitutional provisions. It has been short of the political will to make those provisions effective.
