The sensational report, the other day, that, three Nigerian lawmakers engaged in sexual misconduct while participating in a leadership exchange program in the USA is, true or not, most embarrassing to their person, the institution of the National Assembly and the entire country. In a naming and shaming letter sent to House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle said Samuel Ikon (PDP- Akwa Ibom) and Mark Gbillah (APC-Benue) “allegedly requested hotel parking attendants to assist them to solicit prostitutes” while, Mohammed Gololo (APC- Bauchi), “allegedly grabbed a housekeeper in his hotel room and solicited her for sex.” The three lawmakers, who have now been banned from travelling to the US, were part of a 10-man delegation to the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) sponsored by the US State Department, which held last April 7-13, 2016. This blight on the toga of Nigeria is indeed lamentable, signposting as it does; the moral bankruptcy and a certain lack of character by Nigerian public officials; a challenge all Nigerians must confront.
The details of the alleged incident – both the US embassy version, and the rambling denial of the three indicted sexual predators, including Mark Gbillah’s account – are in the public domain and need no re-telling, not the least for the reason that the whole episode is so unedifying. The men have denied the accusation of course as expected, claiming their innocence. Gbillah in a belated and tepid protest letter, even demanded video-taped proof and threatened legal action against the US embassy for defamation of character. The House leadership has, as it should, set up a committee to investigate the allegations. So, pending the outcome of the investigation, the jury is still out on where the truth lies. But however it turns out; this is indeed a sordid affair.
Far from being a public image boost to Nigeria’s tragic international reputation, this depravity presents yet another embarrassing score-card for a nation enmeshed in the thralldom of deficient public morality. The tragedy of the three indicted lawmakers signals the tragedy of leadership at all levels in Nigeria. Because no one can give what he does not have, only good leaders make good legislators; only good leadership can produce good governance. Alas, in Nigeria today, most persons who run for, or are leveraged by godfathers into, or who simply muscle their way into public offices are comprehensively unfit. The nation has lost its moral compass with dishonorable people in power. All these add up to a national tragedy in which hapless Nigerians are victims and by which Nigeria has largely stood still, since the return to democracy in 1999.
Fundamentally, it is another pointer to the much vilified but unaddressed corruption in the country; and it is unfortunate that Nigeria keeps featuring in the news for all the wrong reasons. Honestly, there’s something about the allure of power combined with the full blush of public office that breeds what is notorious about the libido of Nigerian elected officials: their marked propensity for going big and bad while blowing it in totally spectacular fashion. How else to explain that these (Dis)Honorable lawmakers could not go without sex even for a week.
The incident is more than a personal embarrassment for the lecherous lawmakers; it is now a Nigerian affair because the men were representatives of Nigeria in a foreign land. It is sad then that we are not in the news for some great achievement but for so demeaning an act as sexual misconduct. What is unclear is why. Is sex so fundamentally important to Nigerian politicians that they see it as exerting their influence? Have sexual escapades by politicians and people in authority positions become an equal opportunity perk of office – men do this because they can?
Nigerian politicians are amongst the most perverted sex predators in the world. They have little or no respect for women, whom they objectify as just “another skirt” and an acquisition challenge. Men in high public office are renowned for making passes at their female staffers including married women. These men with small minds have value-systems that go no further than the circumference of their genitals. They even use the number of wives and mistresses -some young enough to be their grand-daughters- as a cacophonous instrument to celebrate status. Some women anchor their careers on their ability to seduce and sleep with the high and the mighty within the corridors of power, while others, usually married women succumb to the sex predators since refusal sounds a career-ending death knell. In civilized countries, this is called sexual harassment which is a criminal offence. However, the peculiar Nigerian name for this phenomenon is “bottom power.” This is insane and should compel pity!
The three he-goat lawmakers took their phallocentric antiques to America because it is standard acceptable conduct in Nigeria, where acts of marital infidelity are condoned even at the highest level of government. From the president, right down to governors, few, if any top Nigerian official travels abroad without a mistress, euphemistically called “hand luggage” The obnoxious practice is so endemic to have attracted special budgetary appropriation called “Man-no-be-wood” to cater to mistresses, prostitutes and female companions during such trips. Little surprise Nigerian delegations to any international event are often bloated.
Given the way our empty-headed politicians brag and drop names indiscriminately about the number of women they have slept with, it is obvious that the three lascivious lawmakers would have preferred white prostitutes, if only to boast to their colleagues that they have slept with a white woman. While it is obvious that the US State Department wanted to avoid any diplomatic ruckus over the incident, the US authorities did a great disservice to Nigerians by allowing the lechers to return home. The public embarrassment from the name-and-shame letter to the House Speaker is not enough punishment. They should have been arrested and charged in a US court to set an example for others who see themselves as untouchables above the law.
And here is the point: a public official at any level must possess the integrity and self-restraint appropriate to leadership including, the capacity to responsibly manage his or her sexual cravings. Nigeria obviously scored a top mark in international notoriety, with this incident, but the three disgraced lawmakers, it must frankly be stated, did what many others do all the time. Mohammed Gololo, Samuel Ikon and Mark Gbillah must take responsibility for digging and falling into their own graves with their libidos. Their conduct was disgraceful and devoid of any perfunctory exaggeration. They are an embarrassment to the National Assembly and a disgrace to Nigeria. They should resign or be expelled from the House of Representatives. They have shown Nigeria in very bad light; impugned their individual integrity and brought opprobrium upon the nation. Needless reassuring Americans and the international community that Nigerians are not all like those three he-goat lawmakers.
