Taxi Driver As President!
By Mamman Nasarawa    Sat Jan 7,2012

I have never voted in my life, partly out of choice and partly owing to the exigencies of my career.  Last year, I had a long argument with friends who tried to convince me that by refusing to vote I was abdicating my “civic responsibility”.  But in Nigeria, this argument was not persuasive enough to push me into going through all the rigours of registering for voting, with all the finger-printings, security photographing, and what have you, not to mention the long queues and debilitating tropical weather.  No other country has come up with a better word for this process than Nigeria, where it is called “capturing”. 

I refused to be “captured” by anybody, so I did not vote and honestly have no regrets.  Indeed, last week when I raised the issue of voting in the next election with one of the “priests of civic responsibility”, it appeared he had lost most of the fine punches in his argument.  Apparently, he has been mortified by the behaviour of the Senator he had voted for, now incommunicado because he has changed all the cell phone numbers which he used during his campaign.  My “captured” friend was carried away by the promises made by the Senator during the election campaigns.  I could not have been so naive, because I have a long memory.

I am old enough to remember the promises made by Nigerian politicians from the First Republic to date.  The promises and manner of presentation remained the same: “free education” which later changed to “qualitative education”; “free health-care”, which is now coming in a slightly more user- friendly mantra, “affordable health-care”; “tarred roads”, now repackage as “motorable roads”, etc.   

However, in some cases, the politicians don’t even bother coming up with a new slogan, even after failing to deliver the deliverables, like  “housing for all”; “full employment”; “subsidized loans”, among the Eldorado promised to Nigerian electorates.  You will realise that I refused to mention about the numerous promises to end our power black-out, and this is because I no longer have the appetite or strength to even mention it.  Honestly, I think this is a battle that my son should take up, probably when I am unable to maintain the diesel-run generator on which I spent half of my retirement benefit.

In a country where more than 90% of the citizens live on less than $1.5 a day, and a high percentage of the population are not educated, one can see the ease with which  the fallacious politicians keep manipulating the intelligence of the people through all sorts of electoral promises. 

Having spent a chunk of my life abroad, where every public expenditure must be backed by income in the form of taxation, loan, export, etc. the question I always ask those who want my vote on the promise of say, “free education”, is how much will this service cost and from where will the money come? No wonder, with such an intrusive question they always find me an awkward customer. 

Since they are neither intelligent nor honest enough to answer my question, why should they expect me to leave all I am doing and queue up to vote for them?  In all fairness to them, none of them even bothered coming to solicit for my vote in the last election, and I am not sure if I had seen any manifesto.  I usually don’t go into the issue of how badly they treat the electorates after robbing them of their votes, because I have always known our fate in the hands of our elected officials.  For example, it is only in Nigeria, I understand, that the President of the Senate does not use the commercial airport or aircrafts, even on his private trips.  Next time I see his motorcade on the way to the airport I shall follow him until I confirm this statement. 

You are free to ask me if I am getting crazy, but I am beginning to believe that Nigeria would not be worse off if it had no President, Minister of Finance or Governor of Central Bank, Inspector-General of Police, Minister of Works, etc.  After all, Nigerians are used to providing themselves with basic public services like electricity, water, security, roads, schools, etc. because governments at all levels have woefully failed in providing these services!  Recently, my son told me that his teacher said the number of churches and mosques in Nigeria is 10 times the number of schools and hospitals in the country.  “So, what do you want me to do”, I fired back angrily.  Realizing how uninterested I was in the subject, he changed the topic.  “Daddy, they said there is a hunter, who is now leading the police in the hunt for armed robbers in the country”.  Instead of taking up my frustration on the innocent lad, I realized that it was better for me to understand the import of the child’s message: things are not working well in the country, which is traceable mainly to lack of dedicated and focussed leadership.  Of course, you don’t engage a minor in this type of high-level political discussion.   

However, recently after listening to a radio programme on leadership qualities, I came to realize that no other profession prepares its practitioners for the presidency of Nigeria more than taxi driving.  To begin with, membership of this profession is unquestionably one of the most liberal in Nigeria.  Its members can excel to their elastic limits depending on their hard work and God-given talent. 

It’s not like the ‘bureau de change”, where entrance and upward mobility is monopolized by the Hausa, or the spare-parts business, where you have to be an Igbo to survive the rough and tumble of the profession, or the legal profession where the average Yoruba has placed his destiny in it in Nigeria.  It is also, perhaps the only profession that has succeeded in breaking the North-South divide, without being enshrined in our Constitution. 

Furthermore, taxi driving in Nigeria is not a profession for the lily-livered; criss-crossing the country needs an undaunted mind, which will be an asset for the highest political office in the country.  By virtue of his profession, an average Nigerian taxi driver is likely to speak at least two or three languages, an attribute that would make the taxi-driver-president feel at home in every part of Nigeria.  Being a true nationalist, our taxi-driver-president would not allow himself to be identified with any particular hat – the ethnic trademark of Nigerian politicians!

The taxi-driver-president would be an action man, using the same instincts with which he used in picking up passengers with a just wink from them.  Taxi drivers are not only eagle-eyed, they also have an incredible memory.  Imagine how our taxi drivers navigate through our narrow streets, often without numbers, to drop and pick up passengers – without the use of GPS!  With this kind of computer memory, our taxi-driver-president would remember every project site for which money has been allocated in the budget.  This means the end of collecting money for non-performing projects, or even worse, non-existing ones.  Please, refresh your memory on the Elemelu Power Project Inquiry. 

For the past six months, 90% of the time of Nigeria’s top government functionaries has been spent on how to outwit their countrymen, in order to justify the proposed increase in the pump price of petroleum products in one of the biggest oil exporting countries in the world.  Please correct me, I am suffering from old age, probably that is why I can’t remember if the principal   architects of the price increase (Gang of Three) even solicited for anybody’s votes!    

The amount of money spent in consulting spin doctors to sweet-tongue Nigerians into accepting the increase is enough to start tackling some of the socio-economic problems afflicting the nation.  On this one, I can bet my last kobo that our taxi-driver-president would not be so merciless as to contemplate impoverishing further the Nigerian masses, by asking them to pay more for what God has given them freely. 

You can also rest assured that the president would not have any contact with the “Diasporians”, let alone consider them for sensitive ministerial appointments.  His logic would be a simple one: if they really love their nation, why make Onyibo land their place of abode?  If they think they can hoodwink this president with their power-point presentations of World Bank/IMF models, it would not take them long to realize that the president does not have time for “dogon turanci”.   At any rate, our popular president would not even understand the “Diasporian” accent - half reggae and half jazz!

National Security, is no doubt, one of the areas that the taxi-driver-president will perform very well, in other words, the most crippling psychological wound inflicted on the psyche of Nigerians right now.  For sure, his taxi driving experience equips him with incredible wherewithal for intelligence gathering.  Every Nigerian speaks loud and the higher the position in government the louder.  Those in the National Assembly are special bread; and that is why even when there is a black-out, they don’t miss the public address system. 

While our big men are good at talking aloud, our taxi drivers are even better in the arts of snooping.  However, to the average Nigerian when you talk of national security, what comes to mind is the issue of Boko Haram (BH), MEND and MOSSOP in that order and in another category the armed robbers, kidnappers and their marauding small cousins, the burglars.  Since these terrorists and miscreants use taxis quite a lot in their strategic planning, the taxi-driver-president will use his skills, experience and considerable goodwill from his constituency to win the fight against them. 

As for BH, the taxi-driver-president would tell the whole world that this is a local problem, so the Americans should rest in peace.  In Africa, when there is a fight in a family, distant neighbours are not called to intervene.  Anyway, the option of using “Babalawos” to catch the head of the BH has not even been tried, and these “Babalawos” if you don’t look for them, they don’t offer themselves. 

The Nigerian media would for the first time, be treated with respect under the government of the taxi-driver-president.  Nigerian journalists have suffered under the colonialists, the military, and even the current democratic government.  I don’t know why every government in Nigeria wants to “koboko” journalists.  Our taxi-driver-president would remember the excellent relationship he had with newspaper vendors at all the motor-parks in the country. Having shared the same marketing space for a long time, understanding comes naturally.  In addition, in the rainy season the taxis are the only guaranteed means of transporting the heaps of newspapers from the various newspaper houses to the streets.  The taxi-driver-president knows that journalists are the godfathers of newspaper vendors, so he would give them due respect.  The media would be having it own “breath of fresh air”!

The First-Lady syndrome is one of the most unpopular innovations in our political arena since independence.  I can testify that Tafawa Balewa and General Buhari were not guilty of promoting this obnoxious institution and Flora Azikiwe, although a politician in her own right, she restrained herself mainly to being along her husband on his ceremonial duties.  Probably, one can trace the history of the First-Lady syndrome from Mrs Victoria (Bistoriya) Gowon; and since then the office has continued to grow out of control, with budgets sometimes far beyond what some ministries get.  I am pretty confident that the taxi-drive-president would not foist his wife on our nation, which is good, even though the Nigerian press would miss the opportunity of making their wicked round of jokes on the First Lady. 

Of all such jokes recently making the rounds was the one in which the First Lady was quoted as saying, “Ojukwu is a great man, he died but his manhood lives on”!  If I can remember the advice given by the media to our First Ladies, there is no reason why our taxi-driver-president would not.  The First Ladies were given three options: (i) Learn to speak good English; (ii) Speak in mother-tongue; or (iii) Keep quiet.  Choosing the third option, would be the natural choice of the First Lady of our Taxi-Driver President, because she knows that there is virtue in silence.

It’s known all over the world that corruption is Nigeria’s biggest problem, and take this out, Nigeria would be on the moon in 10 years’ time.  Problem is conventional Nigerian politicians cannot fight this vice because the transmission mechanism for power in the country is well oiled with corruption.  This is where the taxi-driver-president has the advantage; he is fresh and uncontaminated.   He is, therefore, more likely to give EFCC a free hand to do its job, and can you imagine how this singular action will sanitize Nigeria?

Not that the taxi-driver-president will not steal, but going by his background, you can say at worst he would be a rat – not the baboon which our politicians have turned themselves into.  If the politicians had limited themselves to pinching public treasury like their counterparts do in the rest of the world, 90% of us would not be living in penury.  However, their motto is, “Live and Let Die”. 

Under the taxi-driver-president, you can be sure that the Nigeria Police will do their work efficiently, because in his first week in office, he will weed out all the N20 bribe-takers.  After many years of taxi driving, our president will have the names of all the rogue-policemen, and Road Safety Corps officers, whose daily bread is bribe.  As for the “Yellow Fever”, don’t even mind looking for them!

One of the main complaints against our politicians is their inability to sit down and work.  Some argue that if they were to sit down and work for long hours, what time would they have to spend the stupendous amount of money they make?  Probably this is where our taxi-driver-president doesn’t need any orientation, because by his previous job has trained him to sit and work at least 12 hours a day, seven-day week.  His dedication to duty is such that even without a brake he will still drive! 

Just before completing this piece, there was breaking news that the price of fuel has been increased by more than 100%, in spite of all the hues and cries by the Nigerian public.  The “Gang of Three” is prepared to suck more blood than the children of the Burmese vampire generals who couldn’t increase the price of fuel in their country by more than 34%!

So, I will continue with my dream that one day, our nation, Nigeria, would get a taxi-driver-president.  And then we shall all be taxiing off to cover the distance we have lost in more than 50 years! 

Mamman Nasarawa,

Kano.