While many of our idle rich people have for long stopped
celebrating their birthdays in Nigeria, preferring to transport their friends
and associates to some choice destinations abroad, the new craze in town is
that the wedding ceremonies of their children and wards also no longer hold in
our country: It is now a Dubai affair!
Ordinarily, wedding ceremonies are religious cum traditional
affairs between two individuals and two families who would invite their
relations and well wishers to share in the joy of the day. And it is usually
held, in most cultures in our country, at the location where the parents of the
bride reside or the community they hail from. But because of the corruption of
our values and all that we once held dear, wedding ceremonies are now being
exported to countries that have nothing to do with the family of either the
bride or the groom.
The latest of such happened recently between the son of one
of our subsidy billionaires and the daughter of a top civil servant. Even when
the parents on both sides are Nigerians who have done well for themselves here,
they did not consider our country good enough for their children to tie the
nuptial knot. The father of the groom had to spend a scandalous amount of money
ferrying no fewer than 20 senators, numerous House of Representatives members,
many bankers and politicians of all hues to Dubai in the United Arab Emirate
for the obscene wedding that has now put the career of the bride’s father in
serious jeopardy.
For sure, there is no law that prevents anybody from taking
the wedding of his children to the moon. But there is something immoral about
Nigerians who make cheap money here and would not even allow our people to
share in the crumbs. Because by their offshore wedding ceremonies, they are
cutting off the local event planners, the caterers, the musicians, the
photographers and the poor people who ordinarily mill around such events to
take home reception leftovers. Beyond all these is the image problems they create
for our country.
When people associate Nigeria with corruption, it is not
that other countries are immune from such sordid practices but rather because
here, people flaunt ill-gotten wealth. And with no tax man after them, they can
afford to advertise their debauchery since the money they spend is not worked
for and no one is putting them to task on how they come about such humongous
wealth. Yet we are talking about people who don’t employ beyond drivers, cooks,
gardeners, stewards etc.--domestic staff who only minister to their personal
indulgences. For instance, I cannot imagine that Alhaji Aliko Dangote will buy
flight tickets for about a thousand people to go to Dubai, just for the wedding
of any of his children. He won’t do that because he knows the value of every
kobo which he works for while he is also conscious of the fact that thousands
of families depend on him. But when you can get billions of Naira without
sweat, you can as well decide to hold burial ceremonies in Alaska to feed your
vanity!
Interestingly, President Goodluck Jonathan last week alluded
to the debasement of values in our society. Represented by the Minister of
Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Amal Pepple, at the official kick-off
of the National Christian Campaign on Social Transformation, the president
said: “The whole society has failed, that is one reason we have incidents of
cultism, armed robbery, murder, ritual killing, drugs, sale of babies,
kidnapping and sexual immorality. Indeed, we have lost our moral values and
principle; so much has gone wrong in our family life, schools, churches and
society in general.”
Such is the level of decay that when someone recently gave
me details of the private jets owners, I just could not place many of the
names. When I sought to know what many of them do for a living, the standard
response was, “he is into oil”, which essentially means they are mostly rent
seekers who prey on the lack of transparency in our oil and gas industry. It is
therefore understandable that they will be taking their birthdays, wedding
celebrations and even the naming ceremonies of their children to Dubai. But no
society can develop when you have, as Nigeria evidently does, a preponderance
of people with such warped values in critical positions in both the private and
public sectors.
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