Lines for Citizen Soje

Acts of extreme desperation hardly ever make the cut, not even in the most awful circumstances of life. From the standpoint of conventional social conduct – and not talking now the esoterics of clinical psychology – it is common knowledge that such acts are rarely well considered and thought through, and never correctly weighted against factual realities at play for individuals involved.

Nigeria presently waddles in a ‘Great Depression’ of sorts occasioned by the lingering downturn in the national economy. And history records that extreme acts of desperation – mainly suicides – resulted from the Wall Street crash of October 1929 and the American Great Depression that followed, lasting till the outbreak of the World War II in Europe. At the peak of that gloom, some 23,000 people reportedly committed suicide in a single year. You could well say the economic circumstance of Nigeria today bears some semblance with that Western experience. However, ours is a largely communalistic way of living where life’s concerns are customarily shared with kindred folk; and a shared burden, as they say, is half resolved. Hence, it marks a curious cultural trend that some citizens take the suicide plunge as exit strategy on their challenges.

But that is what we seem to be lately saddled with. Edward Soje of the Kogi State Civil Service was a recent victim of this curious cultural trend. The body of the 54-year-old civil servant was reported discovered penultimate Monday dangling on a tree behind the mammy market at Maigumeri Barracks of the Nigeria Army in Lokoja. He was suspected to have taken the noose barely 10 days after his wife of 17 years put a set of male triplets to bed in an Abuja private hospital. The couple had been childless before then.

Soje, a Grade Level 16 officer in the Kogi State Teaching Service Commission, was being owed salary arrears by the state government at the time he apparently took his life. Initial reports said he was owed 11 months, which the state government controverted and rather owned up to eight months of its indebtedness. But it was the sheer struggle for survival said to have preceded Soje’s self-impalement that is most heart rending. With his income from monthly salary on ice, he was said to have pawned his only car and a three-bedroom bungalow he was building at Otokiti area of Lokoja. According to reports, Soje sold the building, already at lintel level, at giveaway price of N1.5 million in April to meet urgent family needs.

And this tragic figure apparently gave it some hard, though twisted, thought before taking his fatal plunge. After the wife, who also works in one of the Federal ministries, was delivered of the triplets by Caesarean Section on October 7, he dutifully kept the new arrivals and mother company in the Abuja hospital until the eve of the naming ceremony. On October 13, Soje left for Lokoja where he cleaned out his bank account of the N30, 000 cash holding he had there and closed down the account. He then returned to the Abuja hospital where he handed in all the cash to his wife. The following day, he acted the blessed parent along with his wife as they hosted two pastors and few relations at the hospital to a brief naming ceremony for the triplets.

Apparently persuaded in his clouded reasoning that he had fulfilled all righteousness, Soje enacted the final lap of his fatal egress. He reportedly took leave from the hospital on the pretext he wanted to pick a few things from the wife’s apartment in Abuja, and to return shortly. But he apparently had no intention of returning, because it was later discovered he left a suicide note with his mobile set in the apartment before heading to the Kogi capital where his body was subsequently found in the noose. It was some four days later that relations, who had mounted a search for Soje after discovering his suicide note, found his body deposited in the morgue at Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja.

It was all part of the irrationality of extreme desperation that Soje didn’t find it consoling he was pencilled for imminent six-month back pay. But the Kogi government’s record for paying salaries is hardly consoling

Nothing, absolutely nothing, stands to reason in considerations that might have motivated Soje to incinerate his life. He was not being paid salaries by the Kogi government, but apparently not so his wife who is said to be an employee of the Federal Government. Not a few would consider him uncommonly lucky to have that alternative. And if he had hoped to cut out of responsibility for the newborns, you would wonder how he expected the wife alone to cope. Actually, many would shudder at his value sense regarding the rare and long awaited providential endowment with triplets, with some offering their very lives to be so endowed. And for a cultural context like ours, you could query his notion of the parental legacy being handed down.

But the Kogi State government as well has a huge moral burden in the fate that befell Citizen Soje. Responsible leadership demands that authority be exercised with acute sensitivity. But the Kogi government, like many others across the country, is quite notorious for fickle commitment to paying workers’ salaries. Thousands of civil servants are reportedly being owed between two and 21-month salary arrears by the Yahaya Bello government; and really, its attempt to deflect responsibility for Soje’s rash recourse fell short.

The government said Soje received his salary up till December 2016 when it was stopped, along with that for some others, “after proof emerged he falsified his age records.” Head of Service Deborah Ogunmola said the state governor eventually pardoned some categories of those affected, including Soje. “Pardoned members of staff were processed for reinstatement and payment in batches. Soje was in the September 2017 batch and he was aware of this fact…that he was listed to receive six months back pay,” she added, noting that this leaves only two months (August and September) outstanding.

It was obviously all part of the irrationality of extreme desperation that Soje didn’t find it consoling he was pencilled for imminent six-month back pay. But then, the Kogi government’s record for paying salaries is hardly consoling.

The government had in August announced half pay structure for workers to bring down the wage bill – maybe justifiably so in view of dwindling revenue – which workers rejected. In its exertion to shed some overhead, the government has undertaken interminable screening of workers during which salaries have been put on hold. Among others, it also introduced casualisation of service employment through a clocking system used to compute pay based on physical attendance. Many professional and labour unions, including academics in state tertiary institutions, are presently on strike for default on their remuneration and allowances.

But it is doubtful the challenge in Kogi is all about shortfall in revenue. Questions have been raised about transparency in the disbursement of those incomes that have been publicly acknowledged. Earlier on this year, Alfa Imam was removed as Speaker of the state House of Assembly and battered by invading thugs after he moved a motion for probe of the Paris Club refund to the state government. Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Ayuba Wabba noted in the aftermath that the incident represented “the height of intolerance, insensitivity and impunity, and a precursor to dictatorship and anarchy.”

Soje had no just cause to take the noose. But with better conscience on the part of Kogi government and other employers at ease with not paying salaries, the gloom on workers can be relieved. And like President Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have said at a recent meeting with them, how do state governors sleep when they fail to pay salaries?