The other foot of Dambazau’s shoes

I don’t understand what the National Security and Civil Defence Corps is trying to say about the public shining of the shoes of Minister of Interior Abdulraham Dambazau. It should have covered its head in shame. Or just kept quiet, if it really wanted to help the boss. Unfortunately, the corps issued a statement, which, quite frankly, is the equivalent of selling a rope to hang the boss.

I thought that after the “Oga at the top” saga during which a senior official could not remember the website of the corps on a live TV programme, the corps would have taken itself a little more seriously. To say that shining Dambazau’s shoes in public was a “mark of respect,” leaves you wondering if the corps has any idea at all as to why it is in existence.

You cannot watch the video of the poor fellow hunched over Dambazau’s shoes, and scrambling from one leg to the other to polish the big man’s shoes while the programme was on and not laugh, cry and get mad.

Except you’re Dambazau. What was he thinking? That he was at a village meeting? Or that he is entitled to a shoeshine, a make-up artist and maybe a smile therapist to lessen the discomfort of public office? Exactly what was he thinking as that man crouched over his shoes?

I’m particularly disappointed because Dambazau once told a story that moved me. It was the story of how former President Goodluck Jonathan fired him as Chief of Army Staff.

During his screening at the Senate last October, he recalled that he was on a foreign mission to rally support for the fight against Boko Haram when he received the news that he had been sacked. Yet here was a man who, as army chief, could have seized power without much difficulty when the ill health of former President Umaru Yar’Adua left a vacuum.

What apparently surprised Dambazau the most was not his sack, but what led to it. That was the untold story.

Jonathan had been informed that Dambazau was planning to overthrow him and had been warned not to review the October 1 Independence Day parade that year. The former president obviously believed the talebearers and wielded the axe.

It’s disheartening that an accomplished soldier whose professional career was disrupted on a whim now thinks that the country should polish his shoes in his second coming. If we let this go unremarked, who knows, the next security official could be his footrest.

Yet, I think beyond Dambazau, we should each look in the mirror. The Dambazau incident was a regrettable public display of what goes on in many of our homes and offices, daily – a reflection of the cruel use of power to exploit the weak and vulnerable.

There are women who treat their house help like slaves. They swear that that is the only language they understand. There are car owners who treat their drivers like dirt. They insist that such treatment not only works, it’s the only way to keep drivers sensible.

And there are bosses who make their staff eat straight out of their hands and house owners who use their gatekeepers callously.

It’s only a matter of time before these closet Dambazaus happen in public; and we know they happen and will continue to happen, perhaps in less repugnant forms.

I have been on the queue many times at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, when half a dozen assistants of some big man cut the line, one carrying the big man’s briefcase, another carrying his phone bag and the others generally throwing their weight around on his behalf. If you have never been run off the road before by the convoy of some very important person, then you’re lucky.

Even after repeated promises by Inspectors-General of Police to withdraw policemen from private menial jobs, nearly 155,000 of them or roughly 50 per cent of the entire police force is still running errands for Nigerian big men, expatriates, their wives and mistresses.

A warning by President Muhammadu Buhari to the police high command to stop this practice, or at least minimise it, appears to have gone unheeded.

I have it said before that it’s a cultural thing – that, in a culture marked by sycophancy and servility, sticking out one’s shoes for an assistant to shine in public is only, as we have been told, “a mark of respect.”

The Japanese or Chinese bow fulsomely “as a mark of respect.” But it is improbable that the average Japanese or Chinese will shine the shoes of any government official at a public function and creating a public spectacle to boot.

I think the rampant and sickening cases of big man worship we’re seeing today are a reflection of the increasing material poverty and widening gap between the rich and poor.

The poor, bereft of self-esteem, think the only way to claw back any hope of a decent future is by groveling; the rich, in charge of the mule and the field, are too far-gone in their vainglory to feel any embarrassment.

And the cycle continues, sustained by the fervent hope on the part of today’s oppressed that it’s only a matter of time before they will also get their own chance to do Dambazau.

For too long, Nigeria has shined the shoes of its big men and women. Service is the exact opposite.

Ishiekwene is the managing director/editor-in-chief of The Interview and member of the board of the Paris-based Global Editors Network