JÀLÈ JÀIYÉ
JÀLÈ JÀIYÉ Steal—and live the good life The soldier steals— not always for hunger, not merely to keep death from the cooking pot. He steals to pack wife and children into the peace of Canada, far from the checkpoints where he once collected the price of passage. The General builds plazas from the wages of war, raises mansions upon the graves of boys he sent into battle, and finances the sculpting of a new body for his latest heartthrob. Everyone must jàiyé. Everyone must enjoy. The civil servant steals— a little from pensions, a little from contracts, a little from files that will not move until their palms are greased. He wants a house in his hometown, another in Abuja, and one more in London— a shelter against the day his own country finally collapses upon him. He must satisfy the golden tastes of four wives and keep twenty children in private schools, because the public schools whose funds he swallowed are no longer fit for his own blood. Everyone must jàiyé. Everyone must enj...
