How dishonesty is ruining lives and businesses in Nigeria -

Nigeria is, increasingly, evolving into a society where values of hard work, honesty and integrity have been badly eroded and, largely, no longer count. The country is, consistently, becoming a loathsome society where people are more interested in the outcome than the process.

Today, people are cutting corners, thwarting entrepreneurial ventures of others by exhibiting dishonest attitude in business dealings. It has become increasingly difficult to entrust others with the responsibility of running some businesses while the owner is not involved in the day-to-day running of such a venture.

Many people are known to have died suddenly as a result of heartache occasioned by the ruins brought upon the business they set up with their life savings.

All these are hugely reflected in the rabid quest to get rich quick which has neither age nor gender bias. They are also seen in the murderous pursuit of power by political gladiators who go for it at all cost, believe, unrepentantly, that the end justifies the means.

At the lower, but by no means saner, level, are artisans and sundry workers who provide small but important day-to-day or month-to-month services to the people as builders, mechanics, tailors or fashion-designers, estate agents/landlords, contractors, and even professionals, particularly lawyers.

Every one of these workers and service providers is out to profit from people’s loss and also to gain from their pain. They are brazen, abrasive, bragging, ungodly and so ply their trade without conscience and fear of possible consequences or repercussion.

Cases abound of how these so-called workers have caused their “victims” to pay more than 100 per cent for the services they provide or cause damage of enormous proportions such as building collapse, vehicle engine knock, death of clients and other heart-rending stories of incidents traced to them.

Tony Ubiechie is a short, garrulous, smart imp reputable as a plumber within his area of influence at a moderate housing estate in a Lagos suburb. Ubiechie comes in as plumber but, pronto, he appoints himself a contractor ready to handle every aspect of a building including electrical fittings and roofing.

Perhaps, Ubiechie would have made a good teacher, but that was a road not taken. He explains a tiny process over and over again with a ludicrous and irritating admixture of his heavily accented local Igbo dialect and street English Language, gyrating and swearing to no god in particular in the process.

Ubiechie was introduced to Martins Almona, a non-resident landlord at the estate, by another landlord. Almona, a very strict, uncompromising middle-aged public servant, was not comfortable with this local champion, especially for his ‘too much talk’ which he interpreted as tactics for defrauding and cheating.

But Almona’s wife, Evelyn, who saw ingenuity and professionalism in Ubiechie’s antics, persuaded her husband to take him in and so, surreptitiously, Ubiechie became the contractor for all the plumbing, bricklaying, tiling, welding and other finishing work in their modest stand-alone house.

Almost on daily basis, Ubiechie would call, asking after “madam and umu-aka” (the children). He would follow that up with a report of a discovery of an aspect of the house that needed urgent attention, else the rains would come and cause damage to the entire structure which, in his assessment, is defective.

So, Ubiechie and Almona worked together until the tiling stage. An estimate of material quantity was made on per square metre basis. But no sooner had the work started with Ubechie’s sub-contractors than the estimate started to snowball, increasing the cost to an unimaginable level.

Almona gave out money for additional procurement. Ubiechie went to the market, gleefully, as usual. He thought he was smart, but his client, this time, reasoned ahead of him. Instead of 50 cartons of tiles, he was given money to buy, he bought 40, not knowing that a suspicious Almona was at the site waiting for him.

He got the shock of his life when he arrived at the site with his 40 cartons only to see Almona waiting and ordering the off-loaders to pack the cartons at a designated place to enable him to take stock. Dazed, confused, prancing up and down without any direction in mind, Ubiechie gathered himself together and walked up to Almona and told him what he did, but not without trying to impress by saying he did so to ‘save’ cost and avoid waste.

Everything came to a head when Ubiechie, not done, went ahead and negotiated on behalf of Almona the cost of ‘interlocking’ his compound with a subcontractor. But Almona who no longer trusted him insisted to see ‘his worker’ first before work would commence. Ubiechie showed up on a Saturday morning with a shy, soft-spoken but mean-looking young man.

As though no discussion had been held on what was to be done and for how much, Almona opened a fresh discussion with the workman. A whopping N50,000 was cut off from Ubechie’s price. He was mad, became uncomfortable to the embarrassment of everybody including the landlord who introduced him abnitio. Almona pretended as if nothing strange had happened, but Ubiechie could not withstand the shame and guilt.

So, he left, started subsequently to distance himself from the site until he finally stopped coming to a site he had supervised for over a year. All the outstanding work he would have done and the pay-off money Almona owed him, he has forfeited to greed, avarice and lack of conscience.

Ubiechie’s story is not different from that of Oladele Oludayo, a young motor mechanic who had a thriving job with a multinational vehicle assembling company but had to leave his job because he wanted to be on his own. Brilliant idea because, according to him, the time he used to work for the company for meagre pay, was enough for him to make his so-called salary 20 times over in a month.

Many did not understand what Dayo, as he was commonly called, meant. Dayo was a fraudster who fed fat on the blood of his ‘customers’ (vehicle owners). In fairness to him, Dayo was very proficient in his trade. He could tell the fault of a car just from the sound. But he was an evil genius.

Dayo and Okezie Chinwendu have been working together and relating well as ‘customers’. Because Dayo was a good mechanic, Okezie had to introduce him to Godwin, another friend, who used the same type of car with him. And that was how Godwin became Dayo’s ‘ATM’.

Each time Godwin’s car had a problem, he would rush to Dayo’s shop in Agege, Lagos. Committedly, Dayo would work on Godwin’s car, preferring to change any part of the car that had a problem along with the associated parts.

Unknown to both Godwin and Okezie, Dayo had been fleecing them. But the day came when Godwin decided to go to the market to buy shock-absorbers by himself. For two sets of absorbers that Dayo had been buying N52,000, Godwin paid N26,000; and for a powering steering pump which Dayo bought once for him at N45,000, he paid only N15,000. And the die was cast.

When Godwin brought these parts for Dayo to use for him, Dayo did not only take offence but also called Okezie, querying why he had to reveal these ‘secrets’ to “our friend”. He refused to fix the parts for Godwin and that was how they parted ways.