LITTLE ENDS: Mr Babangida's temporary victory

We are in the silly season of convenient amnesia on the part of past and present plunderers of our nation.

Recently, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan railed against corruption. A man who now boasts an inexplicable fortune after a short stint as governor, and whose wife is yet to be cleared of allegations of money laundering, goes to church to preach against corruption. Conveniently, he forgot about his wife.

I was too shocked by the Vice President's audacity and galling mockery of our sensibilities to be able to write a column about it. NEXT columnist, Okey Ndibe, was able to overcome his own shock and did a rigorous and timely riposte.

You can always rely on Ibrahim Babangida to enter the field of convenient amnesia with fanfare. Never one to miss an opportunity to flaunt his temporary victory over the memory of Nigeria, the former dictator elected the occasion of the Olikoye Ransome Kuti memorial lecture held recently in Abeokuta to lament the appalling state of the nation's health sector.

Hear him: "If by now those who are highly placed to develop medical facilities in the country find it very convenient to go on medical examination overseas, then something is fundamentally wrong. The nation's hospitals and medical institutions should be better equipped in human and material resources, adding that in doing so, life expectancy of most Nigerians would increase."

No, dear reader, you are not dreaming. You are not hallucinating. That is Ibrahim Babangida in his own words. The words of a man who still frequents the medical resorts of Monaco in his private jet! The words of a man speaking even as his brother in Aso Rock, Umaru Yar'Adua, a veteran of German and Saudi hospitals, authorized the treatment of Saminu Turaki in Germany at public expense.

The words of a man who, in eight years of vengeful plundering of Nigeria, was able to build a hilltop mansion in Minna but, perhaps, couldn't find land to build a state-of-the-art medical centre in the whole of Niger State. When was the last time any member of Babangida's immediate family treated toothache in Nigeria? We want to know.

And what next? Tony Anenih will find an opportune moment to lament the state of our roads? Femi Fani-Kayode will wail over the state of our aviation industry? Tafa Balogun will bemoan the condition of the police?

After all, Babangida has spent the greater part of his stepping-aside life out of office lecturing Nigerians on democracy and good governance. And, wait for this: "what do we call this system?"

That question came from Professor Omo Omoruyi. He was contributing his own quota to convenient amnesia by asking members of some internet discussion groups what to call a system he helped create and serviced so selflessly under Babangida.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is either delivering peace in the Congo or ushering in democracy in South Africa, wielding convenient amnesia about his role as the butcher of Odi and Zaki Biam, and the worst rapist of democracy ever to bestride the Nigerian nation-space.

These scenarios raise fundamental questions. What kind of psychology is at work when past and present traducers of our nation invade the space of public discourse with convenient amnesia, suddenly having all the answers to all the questions their class has been completely clueless about since October 1, 1960?

When the Vice President hee-haws about corruption, when Babangida grumbles about the collapse of the health sector, is it cynicism at work? Arrogance? Ignorance? Or plain sadism? Are these characters of such trifling intellectual capacity that they are unable to see themselves in the mirror of our national misfortunes?

Convenient amnesia is enabled by the contradictions inherent in the expansion and democratisation of the space of public discourse, as evidenced by the expansion of the print media. Too many significant newspapers are owned by servicers of convenient amnesia. This situation is not peculiar to Nigeria.

Our handicap lies in public apathy and fatalism. To the extent that the likes of James Ibori, Gbenga Daniel, Orji Uzor Kalu, and Nduka Obaigbena are key players in determining modes of access to public discourse in the print media, the convenient amnesia of the most recidivist members of the ruling class will always be serviced.

Someday, we may wake up to news that the Abacha family, in collaboration with the Kano state government, is launching a Sani Abacha National Centre for Democracy and Good Governance. Convenient amnesia has an overactive imagination.