While the phones still ring

The former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity used impeccable English to evade conveying the message that he is complaining because his phones no longer ring incessantly these days, as they did for four years from 2011 until last May. He did not say that he is suffering from a telephone […]

The former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity used impeccable English to evade conveying the message that he is complaining because his phones no longer ring incessantly these days, as they did for four years from 2011 until last May. He did not say that he is suffering from a telephone withdrawal syndrome. He wrote eloquently on telephone terror, especially these days when you could be reached with a mobile telephone in the bathroom, on the highway or in the village. What Abati did not say was that for a Nigerian politician, the only thing worse than the incessant ringing of the telephone is the incessant silence of the telephone.
Men and women, who are holding high public offices today, beware. Your phones are still ringing incessantly. Sometimes several of your phones will ring at the same time. Too many text messages are coming in. Many a Nigerian who gets elected or appointed to a powerful public office will change his phone number and will only share the new number with his new friends. This is necessary because with his changed station in life, his passions and interests have also changed. Still, new telephone numbers have a way of going round quickly and one must keep changing them in order to stay ahead. Some people who cannot find your current phone number will find your email address, your Facebook account or your Twitter handle. The lesson from Abati is that while your phones are still ringing, you should think about the day ahead when they will stop ringing and you should take steps to reduce the severity of the telephone withdrawal syndrome when it comes. 
In Nigeria, your tenure in high public office could end at a scheduled time or it could end suddenly. For example, unless in the unlikely case of impeachment, a president or a state governor knows that his term in office will end after four years or after eight years. Most of such bigwigs do not want their phones to stop ringing even eight years so they either seek a third term, as someone once did, or in the case of second term governors they seek other public offices. The ones on offer are president, vice president, senator, minister, ambassador or party chairman. In any of these posts your phones will continue to ring for many more years.
Things are not so predictable for an appointed public office holder such as a minister or commissioner because your tenure could came to a screeching halt without warning. It could be as bad as your wife knocking at the bathroom door to say she just heard on the radio that Oga President or Governor carried out “a minor cabinet reshuffle” and you are out. In preparation for such a day, one should from day one plan how to deal with the incessant phone calls and the demands that inevitably follow them.
The first group to worry about is relatives and old friends. Blood relatives are a fairly constant group that does not change with age or circumstance. It is dangerous for a politician to alienate this group by failing to answer its members’ phone calls because their testimony is decisive in the local community’s perception of a politician. If word spreads around that “even his blood relatives say he does not answer their phone calls” then you are finished in the eyes of most constituents.
The category called “friends” is a bit trickier. We are making and losing friends throughout our lives; sometimes due to disagreements, changing interests or sometimes simply due to distance. Yet, when you land in a powerful public office, a person that you have not seen or heard from for several decades could suddenly resurface and claim that he is your friend but that you are running away from him now because you have found riches.
Actually, in Nigeria at least, a man who is suddenly catapulted to high office finds it difficult to maintain close ties with his old friends because of the rapid change in interests that occurs. For example if, say, you are a university lecturer, the main topic of discussion with your friends is where to find relatively cheap black market fuel and when the Bursary Department is likely to pay excess workload allowance. If you suddenly become a minister, your interests could change rapidly. What you want to discuss now is not cheap fuel but whether a Mercedes 300 E Class is better than the latest model Lexus, or whether a house in Dubai is better than a seafront villa in Cape Town. It then becomes difficult to sit down with your old friends and talk because your interests and concerns are very different.
Abati warns that it is this group that says “I have called you repeatedly; you did not pick my calls. I hope you know that you will leave government one day!” That will certainly happen. Maybe a former president or governor may not have to return to the grassroots but a former legislator, commissioner, special adviser, special assistant or even a minister who did not hold a particularly “juicy” ministry is in danger of going back to live among such people when his phone is no longer ringing incessantly. The experience could be socially traumatic.
Reuben Abati was a media aide whose main duty could not be separated from answering phone calls. All categories of public officials need to answer their phone calls but perhaps to a lesser degree than a media aide’s. How often they do so, varies from one individual to another. Nigerian elite figures generally do not answer phone calls from unknown numbers. Their calculation is that the call is most likely coming from a poor constituent who is seeking financial help. In fact Nigerian elite figures do not answer calls from most of their listed numbers either, for the same reason.
Now, we used to read in books and novels in the olden days, prior to the coming of mobile phones even in the developed world, how when a person returns to his office, his secretary hands over to him a list of those who called while he was away and he immediately begins to call them back, according to the order in which they phoned. I don’t know if Europeans still return every missed phone call but for an elite figure in Nigeria, most phone calls are to be avoided.
The reason goes back to what Abati said, incessant demands for financial assistance. He listed many categories of people making such demands, from home folks to former associates to those who believe that you are holding the post on their behalf right down to those who say that “their brother gave you the opportunity, so you must give them their share.” All of that, too, derives from another thing Abati said, the widespread belief that Nigerian government at all levels is a thieving enterprise and every official must be loaded with cash. Well, I have news for Reuben Abati; even those of us who never held any kind of political office are not free from such demands. Certainly one cannot say to me, as he would say to a political office holder, that I am representing him as a newspaper reporter, or that they were the ones who put me in that position. But the demands are insistent all the same.
Abati wrote that after the 2015 presidential election “went as it did,” State House suddenly became a Ghost House and people who used to turn up every day to worship with the president in the chapel all disappeared. Abati’s phones soon became shrill and by May 29 they fell silent like museum pieces. That is a Nigerian politician’s worst nightmare. It is not possible to avoid it entirely but one can work to reduce the severity of this upcoming telephone withdrawal syndrome now, while the phones are still ringing.