The denigration of DSS won’t save the country by Adeola Akinremi

Hard as this might seem, Nigerians are their own enemies. I don’t know what to call it: National self-determination or national sycophant service?

We are truly not prepared yet to see institutions replace individual’s might and that will continue to haunt us from one government to another.

Clearly, the default narrative about our institutions is in the negative. The critical government departments like the police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Department of State Services have been condemned into the rubbish can, just because we have personal interest in who should lead any of the agencies.

Yes, once the person on the seat is not our tribesman, stooge or partner, we are quick to discredit the agency, even in the face of truth.

And now that the traditional media is struggling to catch up with the new wave of social media, this weakness has given way to falsehood, and delicately without ombudsman too.

Increasingly, those who have personal fight have resorted to using the web to peddle bile in the name freedom and sadly a few national news media with lazy editors now co-tow with such agenda leaving decency out of reporting and throwing the country into calculated chaos and international infamy.

The moral of the story is this: The DSS report claimed the acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, lacks “integrity” to run the organization with strong evidence provided, and some Nigerians turned the secret police report on its head calling it a “witch-hunt.”

And though Magu himself couldn’t defend most part of the report, especially the one to the attorney general, which is now leaked to the media, he continues to serve with arrogance. What more, President Muhammadu Buhari, who appointed him looks the other way.

Much of the time, when the EFCC comes out with a report about an investigation we call it media trial, especially if the person at the center of the storm is a breadwinner to many associates. Why can’t we see beyond individual for once and respect the institution?

Now, in the midst of the current confusion and fallacies flying around, even those who should be temperate in their responses are gulled into disbelieving the truth. They are misled and bamboozled with fables. That happens too frequently, because we treat our institutions with a closed mind. Nothing good can come out of them.

When it is our National Assembly, everyone inside the green and white building is called a “thief” without fact. The idea that Senator Dino Melaye and the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Saraki were once “heroes,” to many people who wanted the Goodluck Jonathan administration to fall makes it gibberish from sick soul to hear the latest rendition about our institution such as the Senate being a tale of tragedy and den of robbers. It has always been the rhythm once there is a political clash. We just can’t see beyond our nose in all matters of judgment.

We are quick to build scandals around any institution once the politics of its leader is at variance with our personal agenda, but the message we are passing to the international community is that we are a nation without decorum, where individual might is placed above institutions.

For those rushing to facebook and twitter without verifying the truth and descending into rubbishing our institutions, such idea will only frustrate our collective desire for a better Nigeria, where institutions are strong and independent of any interference.

However distressing the behaviour of a single individual might be against national interest, the institution shouldn’t become a target as the case has been recently with the DSS, EFCC and the Senate. There’s a great risk to doing that. The institution is weakened further and that impacts on our democracy.

Even with the America democracy with which we now patterned our own democracy, building their institutions took such a careful, consistent and considerably long time, but once in place they are respected and the country continues to be bigger than one individual.

To heed the word of America’s former president, Barack Obama, that we “don’t need strong men, but strong institutions,” will make us see a better future than the charade that we presently find our country.

The question remaining unanswered is whether Magu, the director of the DSS, Lawal Daura, Saraki and others in their ilk—all of who by design are from the same political party— are worth sacrificing our institutions for, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they have undermined processes at those institutions.

Well, a repeat of some lines in John F Kennedy’s famous inaugural address as the 35th American President will serve a notice of caution to the democratic capitalists and political traders across the country that “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

And for my brothers and sisters across the divide of individualism, country first or party line, in our hands, will rest the final success or failure of Nigeria.