In the primary school, our social studies taught us some principles. Some of those principles taught then still live freely and uncorrupted in our memory. Imagine your ability to remember and recite the English alphabets – A,B,C,D, etc, to Z – and, in the same way try to remember some of the things you were taught as a new secondary school student, then the university. Compare if you would be able to recall some things with the same ability with which you remember the English alphabets. Some are still fresh. Some have faded into your subconsciousness. Some have just returned to you like a flash while some are gone forever, not because you cannot bring them back but because they are no longer relevant.
I do not think there’s anywhere we were taught that the Supreme Court will respond to the criticism of an individual. Put differently, there was never a time our social studies teachers – as is the case with primary school; and government teachers whom we first encountered in secondary school – ever mentioned that sacred public institutions which are also some form of national monuments in their own rights, will descend into the arena with any individual. Or, were you taught – whether in passing or as a subject – that an institution such as the Supreme Court could engage a person or an individual because such individual held and aired opinions about it?
The government teachers and textbook writers often list functions of institutions that are considered worthy enough to be taught to malleable minds. Such institutions as the Supreme Court are high up there in our thoughts. The functions, activities or duties of the Supreme Court that were listed do not include responding to people when such people’s use diatribe on them. They cannot be seen to be rolling in the gutter with anyone or descend into the pit with groups. The Supreme Court might generally educate the nation or straighten some thoughts that are misunderstood or misconstrued. But it is unthinkable that such an institution will come all out for an individual and make public official statements on them. It’s simply unthinkable!
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) comes to mind too. We were taught that the Central Bank as an institution is high up there in a world of its own. It is saddled with distinct institutional functions that are purely Central Banks’ own. Central banks are wired to carry out duties that obviously separate them from our day-to-day banking institutions. Central banks are not for our run-of-the-mill banking activities but provide direction and regulation for those. In elementary economics which we were introduced to as secondary school students, it was taught that central banks are institutions that set fiscal standards and ensure that those standards are adhered to by all institutions that are meant to use them. I heard the phrase “Banker of last resort” first in one of our economics classes at Holy Ghost Secondary Technical School, Umuahia, in the mid 1980s. That attribute or, in other words, cognomen belongs only to the central bank. We were taught that central banks don’t carry out banking services for individuals like commercial banks. Rather, it is banker to government.
Back in the days, we hear people engage in hot arguments, on the streets and at playgrounds, on who was richer between our two main favourite Fuji music icons that held sway then, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Alhaji Kolawole Ayinla Kollington. The knockout argument from one of the parties came when someone dropped the bomb that Barrister was so rich that his money had to be taken to the central bank. We laughed at this argument but couldn’t rise against it because of our Barrister bias. But we knew quite well that the posturing negated what we were taught in our ordinary level economics. Such assertion was not written in O. A. Lawal’s ‘O Level’ economics textbooks. However, commercial banks come in many shades and sizes. It is commercial banks that are found nearly everywhere and they come in different beautiful colours. They also scramble for customers and hustle for deposits. The Central Bank, we were taught, does not entertain queues and does not engage in queasy customer interactions.
Going by the events around us today as a country, one is tempted to assume that our teachers were wrong. The current situation in our country has thrown all our teachers did and all the teachings by our textbooks to the dogs. Were we taught wrong by our teachers and textbooks? Social Studies, Government, Civics and, perhaps, Law: teachers and the textbooks…? Oh! How I loved my glossy and colourful Social Studies and Geography textbooks by N.P. Iloeje back in Holy Ghost, Umuahia. We learnt a lot from those books and from our teachers whom we revered. We were taught that some things and institutions are sacred, and we took these teachings as sacrosanct. There were hardly any questions from us.
However, as things stand in Nigeria today, would our children grow with our own kind of mindset with regards our national institutions? What would primary school pupils and secondary school students think of Nigeria’s Central Bank and the Supreme Court? Would they still believe that the CBN and Supreme Court are sacred institutions for the strengthening of our country? Millions of Nigerian children have never experienced three straight years without fuel scarcity, ASUU strike, power failure and calling the generator repair man. Now, Nigerian children will queue to make cash deposit at CBN while reading a press statement from the Supreme Court reacting to criticism from a Nigerian. The advent of the current administration in Nigeria led by Muhammadu Buhari has shifted many things normal from their normal positions, and with the barrage of explanations by sincere and insincere supporters of the government and its platform, APC, they have unwittingly blighted us for many years to come.
Our children who might not listen to the radio are connected to the Internet. Those with smart phones load them with data. They read many things on Twitter and watch many videos on YouTube and TikTok. If they are not, they would hear from people who do either of these. Therefore, our children must have heard or seen that Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State made a statewide broadcast, and that the governor directed the citizens of Kaduna to defy the directive of the CBN otherwise known as the Nigerian Reserve Bank, and the President and Commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari on the new policy on the Nigerian currency. Yes. El-Rufai appears ready to start his own central bank and print his own currency. If part of the duties of the Central Bank as banker to government is to help government to design monetary policy of the country, control credit and the money market, then Governor El-Rufai has carved a special niche for himself. This action by Governor El-Rufai is comfortably couched in the definition of treason.
There is anarchy already. We are already deep in it and many of us are regretting what brought us to this pass – hailers and wailers alike. The Supreme Court has been (and is still being) undermined. The citizens have been castrated and drained of financial blood via the cash-swap policy. The governors of the APC are rebelling against the president of the APC, and the country is expected to go into elections and a transition. So, “which way Nigeria?”
