I have been mourning my friend and colleague of 48 years, Peter Ajayi, since his demise about five weeks ago but I still cannot get over the fact that I will not see his smiling face again.
Peter was such a good-natured man, he hardly ever wore a frown – at the worst he would banish all expressions from his face.
It was not as if we met every day.
In the past few years we met probably once in three months, but each meeting lasted several hours or, if we had free time, it would go on for two or three days, beginning from lunch time over steaming plates of amala – the favourite yam flour dish of the Yoruba people of Nigeria’s south-west – and ending after supper of fresh fish pepper soup and dessert of the world-famous Guinness dark brew.
All that time the subject of our passionate discussions never changed.
It was the state of the Nigerian nation.
‘Nothing under the tongue’
Along with another journalist colleague, Felix Adenaike – they were hardly ever seen apart in public – we would review governance and the blinding speed of the growth of corruption in all facets of life in our beloved country.
Those were very private sessions at which nothing was kept under the tongue.
I travelled about 300km (185 miles) from Lagos on some of the worst roads in Nigeria to attend Peter’s funeral in Ido-Osi, Ekiti State.
The guest list included present and former state governors and such other politically relevant personalities. I wondered how they felt travelling those roads in their gleaming jeeps and SUVs , but that is for another day.
Peter was a decent man. He worked hard and envied none.
He was the only Nigerian I knew who served as chairman of a bank for three years but came out without taking one kobo of the bank’s funds.
Twelve days after Peter’s funeral something tragic befell another friend.
Naval officer, ex-military state governor, deputy national chairman of Nigeria’s ruling party, PDP, close collaborator of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and “Lagos Boy” Bode George was convicted and jailed for corruption while in office as chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority.
While watching a TV report of the judgement proceedings my sympathy for a disgraced friend dried up.
Hundreds of people were brought from within and outside Lagos, provided same-design dresses and paid to sing the praise of the accused persons outside the court.
I thought this could happen only in a thoroughly depraved society.
‘Nigerian mentality’
Elsewhere the citizens would shun and politically ostracise anyone accused of stealing public funds until they prove their innocence.
The Bode George drama was not peculiar. It happens whenever any public officer who has stolen enough money to pay hirelings is brought to court. They drum, dance and eulogise the accused as if to intimidate the court.
I still do not understand the mentality of the Nigerian.
Petty thieves are lynched in market places but fat-cheeked officials who bleed the public treasury dry as celebrated like heroes.
Some say it is because of poverty, but I would think that public anger would be vented on criminally minded officials who created that poverty.
The only people worth celebrating are the Peter Ajayis in our midst – and that while they are alive.
By Sola Odunfa