S(H)IBBOLETH: The goat fed by many

Government property is nobody’s property. So, let us continue to use it as we like. “Abi gofment na ya papa?” Now that we have climbed that tree that is not very easy to climb, why shouldn’t we pluck and fill the bag? Why shouldn’t we tell government property that government is wear-and-tear so that when someone else comes on board, he or she would have the excuse to start from the beginning? In the spirit of true democracy, I put it to you disgruntled critics that it is already an unwritten law that every new president of the republic, vice-president, senator, member of the House of Representatives, minister, and all other government functionaries assuming office have to have fresh furnishings of car and house and office, given that previous tenants left their ineradicable body odours in and on that government property. New government, new government property.

The department of Government staff quarters is frowning as it reads this article. It cannot remember when the grass on the lawns was cut last, when the hedges were last trimmed, and when the building last tasted paint. The servants that occupy government staff quarters are too civil and too civilized to keep the environment clean.

Like the goat fed by many, the department of government quarters is starving. Its occupants think it does not belong to them and so do not think they have any obligation to use the facilities properly, not to talk of making any repairs (after all, they pay their rent!).

The Igbo saying, “Ebe onye bi ka o na-awachi” (It is where one lives that one repairs) is only for those who prefer to eat their words with stale palm oil. If not so, they would have known that the landlord does not believe that a repair repays. After all, how can privatization happen if decay is not allowed to take place in the first place?

Make una use gofment house anyhow o jare! Sebi, you government workers have already bought your own parcels of land and are saving every Kobo to build your own houses which you can afford to keep neat and tidy? Interestingly, your children have, for the sake of posterity, left enough wonderful graffiti on the walls of the buildings in government quarters. Isn’t that patriotic enough?

As for rebranding your attitude to that government car? Let us flog that official car very well, after all, if it breaks down, we repair it with government money and even get a cut from the repairs. We repair government cars with government money and thus repair our pockets. Or should I have said “repay our pockets?” Mr. Auto-parts Dealer is asking how much he should write on the receipt he is issuing for the sale of spark plugs and a distributor cap. Hmmm, let me think. Should I ask him to write fifty-three thousand Naira, just a difference of forty-something thousand Naira only? Chicken change. Let him write one hundred thousand Naira. The auditor likes round figures.

Let us flog this government car sufficiently to make it enter and make robust the next budget. The car gives trouble. Too many repairs. Better to scrap it or sell it as boarded item, to a relative or friend willing to play ball. That done, then there is space for another car to come in. Government car goes, government car comes, government worker remains till retirement age.

“Oh Toyota Hilux pickup van, you are welcome to the hard life of police work”, says Prado Jeep. “You see, we have been here with oga Peugeot since the days of Abacha.

You think say dat ya air-conditioner go work forever? You think say that your rear light go dey blink and do shakara forever? You think say all those ya leather seats go sidon like dat ? Make person hear word! You go get pink eye, bleeding nose, and a little dislocation very soon. Something wey person dey use dey look like person wey dey use am. If you no understand me, na because you be gofment property true true!” I am sorry for government property, so sorry.

If they cannot steal it, they ruin it. If they cannot ruin it, it is because they have other plans, and probably a plan within a plan. Government property is helpless mainly because they say government is nobody. I am very sorry for government property in a country like Nigeria where there is little or no interest in monitoring conditions, its destination, or its destiny.

Government property is an important protagonist in our long, national epic and needs to be immortalized.

Shouldn’t we have a statue called “Government Property” just as we have a statue called “Unknown Soldier”?