THE current bubble in the banking sector and the fall-outs of the past two weeks have revealed a lot that is worth underlining about the Nigerian character and social relationships among the classes. We have seen the vulnerability of the rich middle class exposed, but even more so the sad fact that otherwise educated, respectable persons needed to be treated brutally, humiliated and ridiculed before they could do the right thing. It is with great amusement that I have followed the stories of how big men and women ran penitently to the offices of the EFCC to return the debts that they are owing the banks. Many of them have been singing like the canary, including tales that they never asked for any loan but the banks came and begged them to collect loans that they did not want. Being good citizens they took the billions that they were offered without any collateral. It is the kind of story that deserves the title of a cock and bull contrivance.

As at the last count, debtors have returned money in excess of N44 billion and several others have suddenly pledged their properties as collateral. The panic among the debtors in the face of threats by the EFCC that it will send some people to jail reinforces the impression that the only language most Nigerians understand is that of force. Equally sad is the manner in which some bank chiefs are openly triumphant about the plight of their colleagues who are now in EFCC detention. One bank Chairman, now a cheer leader for Lamido Sanusi, speaking at a London dinner on this matter (there they go again!) even indulged in the cheap antic of putting down the former CBN Governor, while praising the new man to high heavens. His bank is not one of the ten that have been audited.

But for me, the more telling part of the saga so far would seem to be the cynicism, if not the sadism of the poor. It is perhaps a fact of life that the poor love to see the rich cry; and so I have seen quite a number of persons thoroughly delighted by the humiliation of persons whose lifestyles they once looked upon with sheer envy. In one of those traffic hiccups the other day on the streets of Lagos, one SUV-driving guy had a problem with another motorist, and the two men, one driving a state of the art four-wheel car, the other, struggling with a rickety contraption that would not pass a roadworthiness test struck up an altercation, blocking traffic.

"You this rascal, are you crazy, are you blind, see how you have scratched my car."

"Oga take your time o. You can see that traffic is rough, is it my fault?"

"You scratched my car, you are saying is it your fault?"

"Oga, e relax now. Ha, ha, e ma wo man yi. Look, nobody should harrass me o. We know you people's secret. Sanusi has exposed your secret. You just go about disturbing people on the road. You think we don't know?"

"By the time I take you to the police station, you will know that I mean business."

"Oga, take me to police station. But the EFCC is looking for people like you. You go and borrow money to buy a fine car and then you won't allow poor people to rest. Go and report yourslef to the EFCC before they come looking for you. All you debtors pretending to be big men. Some of your mates don run comot from Nigeria sef."

"You are mad."

"What do you do for a living that you are riding this type of car? You think we don't know how you people get your money? Is it because I have refused to borrow money from the banks? Don't shakara me. If I like too, I will go and borrow one billion Naira, and become an overnight big man. In fact, I fit borrow money so tey, Forbes go put my name for list of richest men in the world."

Onlookers and eavesdroppers and other motorists who had been appealing to both men to take their cars off the road to allow the traffic to move, found the exchange rather amusing and we all didn't know when we cracked into laughter. There was no time or right occasion to take on the poor motorist, to let him know that it is not every rich man that is a debtor, and that in any case, there is nothing wrong in borrowing money as long as the borrower is willing to pay back and honour agreed terms of the contract. The job of a bank is that of financial intermediation, and so banks are set up to give credit and take deposits. But the poor, fully involved in the on-going story of the banks, don't seem to be impressed by such theory. I had tried to tell that same story at an eatery, but I had no audience.

One man, checking newspaper headlines again and again while waiting for his food, suddenly hissed and exclaimed that people have stolen his money just because they think they are big men. I looked at him, he didn't look like a man who will have a bank account. Whereas some of us had ordered assorted meat, and delicacies including Yar'çdua (the poor man's current Mama Put euphemism for snail), this guy could only manage the cheapest meat in the pot. I found myself at the joint by accident, but that is another story.

"I like what this Sanusi man is doing. He is helping us to get our money back. The money of drivers, tailors, security guards. To be a big man in this country, just borrow poor people's money and refuse to pay back, or carry other people's money and use it to do business. They say they are detaining people. They should shoot them."

"Ha ha, " I had said.

"Why not? Oga, why not? Abi you too borrow money?"

"Look at me, " another guy said, struggling with dollops of fufu, and dripping ewedu spilling onto his shirt, his mouth filled with meat, mucus lining his upper lip. I had to signal to the artisan who had dragged me to the place to let us hurry up. "I have been looking for money for more than two years, common N200, 000 to open a shop and start a small business but nobody will give me money. Nobody gives a poor man any loan in this country. Rich bankers lend rich men money and they steal among themselves. Anytime I hear anybody calling himself a millionaire or billionaire in this country, I will first ask how much of it belongs to the banks."

"And there is nothing they can do about us. Poor people also have a right to exist. I don't pity those bankers at all," someone else interjected.

The army of poor fellows soon took over the discussion. I listened.

"I hear where they are keeping those Managing Directors at the EFCC detention centre, there is no air conditioner and that they are refusing to eat EFCC food."

"Let them also have a taste of mosquito bite, and a feel of what poor people like us go through."

"I hear the EFCC bed is small like this."

"If they like let them sleep on the floor. They won't die. Are they not human beings."

"It is not easy for a big man to taste suffering."

"That is why we are better. There is no condition that the son of God cannot cope with. I have slept in police cell before. For two weeks. Wetin man go do? The thing is when suffering is too much, you actually begin to enjoy it."

"That is profound."

"I know what I am telling you. Don't worry, they will adjust"

"But we are all human beings. I don't want us to rejoice in another man's downfall. Nobody knows tomorrow."

"You are the one worrying yourself. Do you think if you are the one in trouble, any rich man will care about you? Look at my oga, the man is a contractor. He travelled out this week. I hope the man is not running away because he is owing the banks and they are looking for him. Because my oga is too sharp. Alagbari fun ra re. Ekun oko Madam. The man is a chronic debtor. Sometimes, he tries his tricks on me but I know how to catch him."

"My own oga is nice. He doesn't owe"

"You are lucky. Even when my oga carries a girl, he will be playing games, if the girl is not careful, my oga will bankrupt her business."

"This Sanusi man, I hear he is dealing with the bankers because he wants to discredit Soludo. You know Souldo took the job of the CBN Governor from his elder brother."

"His brother?"

"You don't know anything. Before Soludo became CBN Governor, the man there was a Sanusi. This is the Sanusi family fighting back."

At this point, I felt I should intervene in the discussion. The problem with certain classes of Nigerians is the confidence with which they peddle falsehood, not minding the damage that they do in the process. I looked for a gap in the conversation and jumped in. I tried to point out that the Sanusi they were referring to is not a relation of the present Lamido Sanusi. The Sanusi that was CBN Governor before Soludo, Joseph Oladele Sanusi hails from Ondo State, Lamido Sanusi is from Kano State. Joseph Sanusi is a Christian, Lamido Sanusi is a Moslem. And the issues involved in the current banking reform include corporate governance, fiduciary duties, and the safety of the financial sector and the national economy.

"&ga," one of the men retorted, "I don't care whether one Sanusi is related to another or not. And I don't want to know whether the man wants to hand over the banks to Moslems or foreigners. All I know is that all bankers are the same. They are in the business of taking other people's money and giving it to their friends as loan. The day I go to the bank to withdraw my small change that I have been saving and they tell me that there is no money, eh, something will happen that day."

"What will happen?"

"All I know is that something will happen. What Sanusi is doing will look like nothing."

I thought that I had had enough. The root of the angst among the lower classes is decipherable in the nature of the alienation of the social classes in Nigeria. The elite ever so self-besotted has not shown enough enlightenment in managing its affairs and resources. The poor seeing the rich wallowing in unmerited wealth are forever challenging the rich, and making the Nigerian society a difficult place for all classes. The poor blame the rich for their woes and in retaliation, they are quick to revolt. They are unhappy that while they are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, some people and their children seem to have more than enough. They are unable to transport themselves from one place to another without hardship and yet they see other people having a fleet of cars and even private jets.

They hear stories about stupendous wealth, about ordinary pets in rich homes having a better deal than human beings in poor quarters. They see the rich treating them with utter contempt, chasing them off the roads with siren-bearing vehicles and security patrols. When they work for the rich as domestic servants, they resent how poorly they are tretaed. And so when a rich man is arrested for mismanaging other people's money, or rich men and women rush to the EFCC to return billions of money that they have borrowed, the poor are forced to cry about the opportunities that they have missed. "I can't even boast of one thousand naira as I am sitting here, and one man is returning three billion Naira which he had borrowed and used to solve his problems." That was how one fellow put it all. In a free market, capitalist system, there will always be the rich and the poor, but a self-loving rich class can only protect itself by being enlightened enough to create conditions, and conduct itself also in a manner, that would discourage the rebellion of the poor.