And so, it has come to deductions and reductions. It has come to the comical and the hilarious. A colleague sent this new-fangled note to my mail box. It got me rocking with laughter. But it got me almost spontaneously wondering in sombre sobriety. It is the legendary Nigerian wit at work. Somebody has decided to make a caricature of a national shame. The convoluted bribery allegation between Farouk Lawan and oil magnate Femi Otedola has been reduced to a side-splitting, rib-cracking comic.

Both men have shamelessly bandied different versions of the same story since the bribe-for-clearance scam broke. Both have been gawky in their narratives of what really transpired. First, Otedola claimed he called Lawan’s bluff when the smooth-talking lawmaker approached him for a bribe to yank off the names of his companies from the inglorious list of companies that collected forex but did not import fuel. He had claimed that his companies were not involved in fuel importation but in diesel which was not covered by the Petroleum Subsidy Fund. Then he twisted the story to read that he offered Lawan bribe as demanded to nail the long-throat lawmaker.

Not to be outdone, Lawan also told different versions of the same story in a manner suggestive of an inebriated mind. I did not collect any money from Otedola, he first said. Then, he switched: I collected money, not bribe, to implicate Otedola. At the end, Nigerians are confused. Their tales are full of gaps and nobody could connect the lines. For instance, if it was a sting operation as Otedola claimed, why was Lawan not arrested right there with his ‘loot’? Why did Otedola wait a good 40 days and 40 nights before reaching for his megaphone to announce the bung? And why did Lawan not alert the police immediately he collected the mega bucks from Otedola? Otedola’s story is full of inconsistencies as is Lawan’s.

Didn’t both men start crying when one party reneged on paying the balance of $2.4 million and the other party insisted on having it, having delivered his own part of the deal? So, what happened to the balance that was said to be stacked in the belly of Otedola’s aircraft waiting for a certain TJ to collect on behalf of Lawan. Did TJ eventually show up at the airport to pick the balance and if so, why was he not arrested? Arranging $2.4 million dollars cash would involve the bank, can somebody adduce evidence of the bank transaction and processes that put together such amount?

There is something absolutely whimsical about both men and their claims. They are as surreal and spooky as their cock-and-bull tales. Both men should come clean with Nigerians. The police and the EFCC too have not helped matters. Their approach to the matter does not inspire any confidence in their ability to come to a probable terminus. At the end, both men, as always, win; Nigerians lose. Such is our lot and this is what qualifies us as the scam capital of the world.

But no matter, even if they share all the dollars, spike the subsidy report and hold a retreat to celebrate their loot, they cannot kill the ingenious Nigerian spirit. It is a spirit that can never be subdued. Nigerians are reputed to be the happiest people on earth. It is not a slight, it is a testimony to our collective spirit to make light of our multitude of national woes. The ‘banknote’ on this page profoundly evidences that ingenuity. A new currency called Faroukas issued by 419 Subsidy Bank and signed by Corruption Headquarters. What the creator of this masterpiece did not tell us is that Six Hundred and Twenty Thousand Faroukas is equivalent to One Otedollar (F620,000 = O$1) and that such currency is only tenable in the dream Republic of Otelawa, a small crime-riddled island on the precincts of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a shame.