When Lie Is Not Politics

A father once saw it as a point of duty to continually
indoctrinate his children: “in your life, you should know that if at any point somebody arrest you with the Police, you should know that the person is capable, and can do anything, to take your life”.
Impliedly, such person should forever be seen as an enemy. The children grew up with this notion. Years later, haven grown up and imbibed the notion, the same man invited the Police to arrest one of his sons, who, according to him, had become grossly disrespectful.
Well equipped with this notion, the son now saw his father as everything but a father. The acrimony that grew between father and son from then, would better be imagined. It could not be truly resolved till the father passed on years later.
This is what Nigerian politics has become: lies, lies and more lies!
Lies have been so instituted in the psyche and politics of Nigeria that one begins to wonder why the country should be in the current recession, even after being blessed with such sense of institutionalisation.
It really beats one’s imagination that a phenomenon as feckless as lying can thrive so much in a society that prefers to be seen and known as one hell-bent on fighting corruption, all in the name of politics. And this is merely putting it mildly!
Take the Police, for instance. Anyone can go and tell any kind of lie against another, or allege one form of criminality or the other against another for whatever reason. As long as you can fuel their car, or ensure transportation they would spring to action.
Arrests will be made as fast as the complainant wants it. But when it becomes obvious that such arrests were made on false accusation, the victim cannot easily work out of detention, not without parting with money, the amount of which will depend on how much the accused is worth, in  the the name of bail, depending also on the alleged crime (lie) leveled against the person.
Yes, the Police high authorities will always tell you “bail is free”, but that is also part of the instituted lie. If you’re not ready to play ball, the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of your matter will never be available, and until he comes from whatever assignment, oftentimes phantom, the victim of a heineous lie can remain in detention for days, weeks,  months or years, depending on the gravity of the lie, which is often given more dressing by the Police.
Worst still, while not willing to play ball is viewed as an aberration, the Police will do little or nothing to the one who had sent them on false errand that had infringed on the fundamental rights of the victim. Unless the victim of such lie is buoyant enough to seek redress, which also attracts steep price.
Politicians in Nigeria also thrive on telling blatant lies, which could qualify as slander. Ironically, it is flimsily dismissed as propaganda, and it’s business as usual. Thus lies and counter lies have become the order of Nigerian politics.
The higher the lier by societal standard, the more believability it attracts, even when the lie is as obvious as a top politician claiming that his people so much love him, when in actual fact he cannot freely step on his home soil, more due to attrocities he may have committed against his people, or misrepresentation.
In all of the various forms of lies told by acclaimed top politicians, or government officials, most of which are intended to misinform the populace towards accomplishing their selfish personal or party interest, at the detriment of society, it is esoterically viewed as normal.
“Politics”, they call it.
This is perhaps why top government functionaries or politicians can accuse each other of various forms of crimes in the media, and nothing will be done by relevant authorities to genuinely investigate the allegations and bring them to book for either being guilty or telling lies.
Lies, regarded as being synonymous with Nigerian politics, has become a major form of corruption flagrantly exihibited by politicians and duly instituted in the psyche of the Nigerian populace to the point that truth is an aberration.
The extent to which lies could be allowed to be taken seriouly is therefore one major battle the “change” mantra of the present government need to address, even in the face of a people’s freedom to say what they have to say.
After all, one man’s freedom to throw his punch should rightly end where another man’s right begins to defend his nose.
If Nigeria’s leaders truly want a better Nigeria, they must, as a matter of priority, first tackle the issue of lying: to start with, they would need not to lie about various sections of the country’s constitution that is engraved, as it were, to perpetrate sectionalism, ethnicity, religious acrimony, and outright laziness.
Then, privileged Nigerians would also need to be encouraged to build a society based on truth by ensuring that every one lie told by a representative of a people, at whatever level, that is not in the genuine interest of the people so represented, should be treated as a criminal offence.
The obvious question in the present circumstances would be what qualifies as “genuine interest of the people”. But this can  no doubt be resolved, if truth can truly be given a place in all spheres of the Nigerian politic, especially in the spirit of change.

Soibi Max-Alalibo