Nigeria’s concept of VIPs

In other words, in Nigeria, VIPs are persons above the law- a piece of evidence that the country is not yet a democracy. This is because in a democracy, the rule of law according to A. V. Dicey, the scholar best known with the principle, presupposes that everyone is equal before the law. It was […]

In other words, in Nigeria, VIPs are persons above the law- a piece of evidence that the country is not yet a democracy. This is because in a democracy, the rule of law according to A. V. Dicey, the scholar best known with the principle, presupposes that everyone is equal before the law. It was this principle that immediately occurred to me a few days ago when I read media reports that the convoy of our former first lady, Patience Jonathan was stopped from taking her to the foot of ‘her’ aircraft on the tarmac of the Port Harcourt International Airport, by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). A report credited to FAAN’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Yakubu Dati, stated that the security officials who stopped the former first lady’s convoy from gaining access to the tarmac where her aircraft was parked were only abiding by international safety standards.
The statement by FAAN sought to refute the insinuation that Mrs. Jonathan was stopped on account of orders from above adding that the action was merely in line with the specific regulation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) which disallows people from driving on the tarmac to the foot of the aircraft. Of course, FAAN was being clever by half with such rationalization because we all know that the regulation it is relying upon does not apply to every Nigerian. Practically on a daily basis, we see many Nigerian VIPs who are too rich to travel by domestic flights being specially conveyed to their personal ones which litter our airports like motor parks. Even those who manage to fly with the ‘commoners’ are regularly seen being brought to the foot of a plane or taken from there in luxury vehicles while the rest of us go by the official buses to the arrival halls. Because the buses are sometimes unavailable, passengers are ‘permitted’ to walk all through the tarmac to board their flights, the ICAO regulation notwithstanding.  Going by the Nigerian meaning of VIPs, it would therefore be difficult to explain to a former first lady who still has a convoy that there is a regulation which disallows her to break a rule!
The argument that former President Goodluck Jonathan, in his recent trips from the same airport, had had to walk to the aircraft from the protocol lounge, in recognition of the said ICAO regulation will still not suffice because the man and his wife are not the same type of VIPs. How can we forget the recent history of how in her days in office as the first lady in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Mrs. Jonathan was also a Permanent Secretary in the Yenogoa based Bayelsa State Government? It is similarly difficult to just quickly erase from our memories that the lady often organized several ‘peace’ rallies in Abuja for which security operatives appropriated the collective freedom of all residents of the city. Several times, such operatives were strategically located to determine what roads to block at the expense of public liberty to establish the first lady’s importance. Other VIPs have always enjoyed such anti-people disposition in Nigeria. Indeed, the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999 came with the term ‘VIP Movement’-a term which refers to the keeping of the ordinary man at a standstill for longer than makes sense whenever the powerful is around. Its worst form was observed with air travels where flights can neither take-off nor land because certain big men and their spouses plan to also fly so many hours later. At its height, ‘Non-VIP’ passengers prayed daily for their flights not to crash while roving around in the sky to make room for easy and safe VIP movements.
State governors also contribute to the animal farm type of movements in Nigeria especially within the seat of power-Abuja. They all have offices and residential accommodation in the city where they actually spend more days than in their state capitals so as to appropriately monitor and personally take delivery of the monthly federal allocation. Unfortunately, it leaves Abuja residents with the dilemma of coping with 37 siren formations all whipping the people off the roads. Many privileged Nigerians listed in the ‘Order of Precedence Act’ are also part of this scheme which turns the ordinary citizen into an object rather than the subject of governance. An obvious piece of evidence that the feature is avoidable is the fact that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) who is the over-all head of one of the three arms of government is not part of it. Anyone can actually drive past him before realizing it was him. He is usually not even accompanied by a convoy let alone those who blow sirens ceaselessly to herald the movement of a Nigerian type of VIPs.
What this suggests is that the recklessness of a convoy has the tacit approval of its principal. Anyone who, like this writer, frequently travels on our highways may have come across some VIPs who probably have standing instructions to their convoys to avoid over speeding. To please their masters, such convoys move below the recommended speed of 100km but they add a new dimension of not allowing any vehicle to overtake them. Thus, they choose their preferred travelling mode which they impose on other road users by implementing a new speed limit for all.  There are therefore different types of VIPs in Nigeria who make life unbearable for the common man.
Will President Buhari be able to convert Nigeria into a country where ‘no man is oppressed’? That is probably part of the change some of us look up to as sanity gradual returns to our polity. Luckily, the President had said he would obey traffic regulations. We hope the pressures of office will not prevent him from knowing whenever his convoys decide to put him in the group of Nigeria’s VIPs.