Some three and a half decades ago, there was a beggar around the Amuwo-Odofin area – long before the area became this congested – who caught my attention. Dressed mostly in white, he stood apart from the rest. Unlike some others, his disability was obvious- a leg was amputated well above the knees and he didn’t have to exaggerate it. He just leaned elegantly on his crutches and gave his warm, toothy smile – I remember he had a gold tooth – at his numerous customers. I was one of them. You could say I was a cheerful giver because there was always a warm glow within me whenever I gave and our eyes connected. I don’t know what did it for me between his neatness, his charm and his calm acceptance of his fate, but I was hooked. This went on for years until a day of reckoning. A neighbor whose elder daughter had just gone abroad to meet her husband, made the new groom promise to set him up for his post retirement years. Part of this settlement was a bus loaded with electronic goods that arrived our shores after a few months. I was surprised to find that one of the prospective buyers for the bus was my disabled beggar. I was to find out he had many buses plying the streets. This man’s lot had improved considerably over the years, but he just couldn’t stop begging. He stood at the same lucrative spot almost everyday collecting easy money from passersby.

That man could be you and I. Our penchant for easy money has made many of us to become beggars although we would scoff at the word. The other day, I took refuge at a shed while waiting for a transaction to be completed at a busy market. Inside the shed were four middle aged men playing with their phones and seemingly killing time. Besides them was a pools betting operator. It turned out they were Local Government officials. They were discussing one ‘Alaye’ who had helped many people including about four people to ‘Japa’. They berated those who went to him with frivolous requests like wedding or naming ceremony, saying those ones had wasted their opportunity. I deduced that the ‘Alaye’ was a local champion of sorts, probably a grassroots politician or a Local Government chairman. Queueing before the likes of this ‘Alaye’ for stipends had become a way of life for people like my temporary hosts at the market. In return, they would pledge their total allegiance. They would not see themselves as beggars neither would it occur to them that the money being shared was a small percentage of what the ‘Alaye’ had cornered for himself from funds probably meant for projects. There are many ‘Alayes’ of different shapes and sizes in the country. They help to oil the wheel of politics. They also help in perpetuating corruption. Earlier, a zealous, able bodied man solicitously helped me park even when it was obvious I didn’t need his help. But I knew what ‘his help’ would attract at the end of my stay. He was not different from the army of youths who descend on you at event centers and even at places of worship asking to park you for a stipend. We indulge their nuisance value because they could be rude and violent. The government ignores them because they could be useful in politics as coercive counterweight to opposition. Yet, they would not see themselves as beggars.

The line between our entitlement culture and our begging culture is so thin that we cross it at will. For example, the neighbor who insisted that his son-in-law provide for his post retirement years must have felt entitled simply because he had given him a daughter as wife. A man who once told me his close friend didn’t do enough for him when he was a Minister despite making his son a PA and giving him a couple of contracts, was talking from the position of entitlement. The personnel Manager who fills a vacancy or the Admin Manager who gives out small contracts both expect ‘something’ as a matter of course. So is a secretary who drops a financial hint to your hearing as you wait to see the big boss. So does the clerk in Civil Service who lets you know of high transportation costs. The uniformed Policemen at the checkpoints who say ‘Your boys are here o’ do not see themselves as begging. They are merely using the language those in offices employ differently.

There is nothing altruistic in our country anymore. Each favour, whether it is from the very top, or the bottom of the ladder, expects its payback time. It is so bad those doing what is supposed to be in their line of duty, expect a payback. This beggarly attitude, ostensibly to make them cope with the hard times, is making many people live above their means. And more demands are therefore made just to maintain the standard the freebees have gotten for them. As a result, consciences are bought; ethics are compromised and the quality of deliverables goes down. This is what is happening in Nigeria, from government to the governed; from Police to the policed; from the rich to the poor. And because there is no credit without debit as the accountants very well know, the country bleeds. It is the country that is debited for all the credits that accrue to individuals through these beggarly attitudes.

We may not see ourselves as beggars in the hue of my disabled friend because we feel wholesome. But our disability is in the mind. The crutches propping us is therefore invisible. And like him, many do not know when to stop even when they have made quite a pile – we see it all around us. After all, it is an easy, unearned money. The corruption in the country will take a turn for the better when people feel priviledged to serve. When they can say ‘I am only doing my job’ and mean it. When the phrase ‘nothing for the boys’ leaves our consciousness. That is when merit and dignity will come back to our workplace. That is when competence will hover again on our horizon. That is when accountability will become an important password to higher public positions.

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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