Alagi Saidy-Barrow: Dilemma Of A Minister

I sat in my office staring at the emptiness before me; a lonely battle between my conscience and impenitence raging within me. I serve at the mercy of the President. He can fire me any day he so pleases. Any sign of untamed disobedience from me and I will be out the door, banished to the dustbin of the foreign ministry where unwanted people go to die a slow and embarrassing career change.

I cannot afford to be fired by the President. It’s not even that I need the money or salary of a minister. No it is not about the money for many of us. Some of us had other jobs that paid much more money. But no matter how rich one is in a foreign land, being rich among your own feels far better. Some of us have careers we can go back to. But no career, International or otherwise, compares to the prestige of being a minister in my home country.

No matter how much honor one gets from foreigners, it is no match to the honor from one’s own people. So it is definitely not simply about the money even though I don’t turn down my salary. It is about the prestige.

The prestige that comes with being a minister. It is about the pride of being called a minister. You see, in my country, titles mean everything! A man is only as worthy as the title he bears. And apart from president and Vice President, there is no higher title than Honorable Minister! Money alone cannot get that title.

And so I sat in my office thinking and staring at the nothingness before me. Yes, I can leave and go back to… but go back to what? Go back to what I was doing? No one knew who I was in my home country until I became a minister. I was a nobody except to a few in my circle. Will the money of a non-minister afford the new lifestyle I live now? How about the various projects I have lined up at my ministry? How about the international connections I have managed to make mine? If I leave, my honor and prestige as a minister leaves with me. I become an ex or a former.

There is nothing prestigious about being an ex ESPECIALLY if you have been fired. I will become a nobody. I will go from having someone following me around to protect and serve me, and having security at my home, to being a nobody again. I remember meeting a once powerful minister of years gone by. I remember seeing him in his car with his driver. The ex-minister was trying to replicate a lifestyle he once enjoyed but neither the car nor his demeanor, commanded any prestige or honor. I walked in and all attention shifted to me. There is no better feeling than having your fellow man worship you. That is the damage that colonialism has done to the psyche of the African elite.

I know deep down in my heart that I should yield to my conscience in its battle with impenitence. I know very well that I should yield to my mind and not succumb to the dictates of unbridled desire. But I think of life as an ordinary man in my country. Being a nobody. All I will have left is a ruptured title of “honorable” which begins to sound hollow and hollower as the years go by. I am treated with deference now. Everywhere I go, people rise up to greet me, extending their hands so far out that I barely lift a hand. The best seats are reserved for me. I have the best of all that an accomplished man of my country can dream of. And to keep it, all I have to do is sell my conscience and line up to celebrate a broken promise with uncommon elan. Promises have long since stopped meaning anything. We have since accepted the promise of clothing from those with no clothing to offer in the first place (African proverb).

I sat there thinking of the people I serve. Or rather, the people that serve me. For though I work for them, they can only dream of the life I live. I see them lined up at my door daily, waiting for me to see them.

The humility they portray as my secretary leads them into my spacious office is a prideful moment to behold. Those whom I don’t want to see, I tell my secretary to inform them that I am in a meeting and will not be available the rest of the day.

Siding with the desires of the people on how they want to be governed is what my conscience dictates. But the prestige, honor, money and life I live is at the mercy of a single man. The people pay me but I don’t work for them. I wish to be with the people. To be their champion. To be their voice. To be loved by them. To do what is right by the people. I desire that. But I equally desire the honor and prestige of being a minister. The two desires don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, prevailing conditions make them so and I am caught in a dilemma. The dilemma of a minister!

I sat there thinking, staring into the abyss….