America’s President Barack Obama was in Cuba recently. He came out of the car and held his own umbrella under the rain among other dignitaries. I took note of the message this image sent across the globe. World’s foremost leader doesn’t take himself so seriously to the point of considering it demeaning to hold his own umbrella. Around the same time, Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, went to Russia; he carried his own luggage into the Kremlin. The same Kerry had abandoned his official car to ride a bicycle for fitness purposes months back; that time, I had wondered on this page if status-conscious Nigerian public officers didn’t snigger, asking themselves what a foreign affairs minister was doing on a bicycle. Like Nigerian public officers would have done, the host in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin, had joked, asking Kerry if the economic downturn in the US was the reason he carried his own luggage. Of course, Putin can’t understand what simplicity means, living without nursing a bloated ego. He’s used to portraying himself as more than an ordinary human being, consumed with the task of constantly sending out images of a strongman, a superhuman of some sort. When I come across humans who make out that they are something more than mere humans, I laugh in my mind at a joke.
There are several angles to my view on public service, on the way a public servant in the mould of Obama should conduct himself. Foremost is my concern that Nigerian public officers take themselves too seriously, and a major fallout is the looting of public funds that they engage in. Rather than serve the public with the funds in their care, they loot. Public officers here steal with so much tenacity that one’s left baffled; it’s all part of their efforts to store away so much that no one will say they lack when they depart from office. It’s about maintaining an image, illusion of self-importance, the need to have resources to nurse the ego of being a big man. Feeling self-important is okay if it’s not sustained with looted public funds. The public officer who’s fastidious about maintaining a public image cannot laugh at himself, of course. I mean he can’t see himself as a person who can make mistakes, accept his humble condition in or out of office, and be generally unfussy.
Someone writes that the day one’s really free is when one learns to laugh at oneself. I make effort to work on this. I need to, being ever serious as a life spent constantly writing demands. I notice that each time I have reasons to laugh at myself in my private moments, I involuntarily call myself, “Uncle Tunji”. The reader can’t get the full nuance of me laughing at myself over something I have done or said, and calling myself Uncle Tunji in the process. Incidentally, even my sister, the novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who, with laughter on her face, had tagged me “Uncle Tunji” at the time I attended her literary workshop a few years back, would routinely follow up with a comment that never failed to make my classmates burst into laughter. There was a day she called me, “Headmaster”. It was because I was too serious with everything, and my mien during class interactions could pass for that of a school headmaster who expected pupils not to be casual in anything. I’ve been making effort to relax ever since, and my finding something about myself to laugh at is part of the effort. The point I’m making is that it’s good to learn to acknowledge the human aspect to us, and live accordingly no matter the office we occupy and whatever may be our condition. Whoever does won’t misbehave; he won’t loot public funds in expectation of a tomorrow that he may not even see.
I’m amused when I see Nigerian public officers taking themselves so seriously, going about as though they are gods. The annoying thing is that at the root of what gives them this confidence is the illegality they use access to power to perpetrate. They also have easy access to public funds with which they live large. The amount of money public figures shared during the 2015 general election out of the funds meant to purchase arms to combat Boko Haram insurgency was a case in point. Those who got a share served as political warlords in their parts of the country during the elections, naturally. It was also alleged that a former Chief of Defence Staff regularly collected funds allocated monthly for the routine administration of the Nigerian armed forces but he expended it on acquisition of personal property. It was said this practice had been on long before he arrived office. Bosses of other government agencies do the same; they take as much public funds as they can, move out, and resurface in their communities as political leaders. When they get political offices, they start another round of looting. It’s a vicious cycle. When people have access to power and funds they don’t sweat to acquire, they’ll carry themselves more than they really are.
Compare this to the American situation where Obama has had to publicly explain how his family raises funds to send his first daughter to college. The other time when Obama shuttled in Asia, the media calculated how much the trip cost the public. Questions were asked if it had been worth it. No American president would imagine he’s some god under such a condition. At campaign rallies, Donald Trump had perfected saying the opposite of what decent Republican Party politicians like Jeb Bush would say. Everyone says Trump will be a disaster in the White House. I find this amusing. It’s because checks and balances in the American system are such that lawmakers can turn a Trump presidency into a nightmare for him. Yes, the president of the US is powerful; but he is to the extent that other arms of government choose not to bark. When this (and the fact that an extra dollar expended on frivolity is criticised by everyone) is remembered by any US president, he won’t fantasise he’s more than any other human being; instead he takes his job more seriously.
I’m convinced that no person should take himself seriously; rather it’s what he does he should take seriously. For a public officer, what he does is what impacts, defines him in the minds of people who, as a result, respect him even to the point of lionising him. As for the person concerned, he’s as human as the people he serves and he should recognise it. But here, I refer only to people who are willing to serve, as opposed to those who want to be served, or serve their own pockets.
I also think how seriously a public officer takes himself, rather than what he does, is reflected in what he permits sycophants around him to do. The other day, President Muhammadu Buhari dissociated himself from a group that had rolled out drums to celebrate his administration. He was busy with serious state business and he didn’t need the distraction of such sycophants, the President had stated. Note that public officers in the past had encouraged such sycophants who made stupendous wealth for themselves in the process. Also, places where a public officer shows up indicate whether he takes himself seriously, or he takes what he does seriously. A few days before the President made his disclaimer, I had picked up a printed material at a business centre; on it was the programme prepared by another group that claimed it supported the President. The group wanted to hold an event as part of its supposed effort to draw support for the President. Donations were expected, of course, as indicated in the programme. The group listed almost all the state governors in the north as being ready to attend the event. The programme was scheduled to take place in Kaduna State.
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