The other day in church, a Priest recounted an experience he had as a young Seminarian. Although it happened many years ago, it was an experience that has obviously stayed with him and has probably helped in shaping his priesthood. He had come to visit his parents in Lagos from his seminary in Ibadan during an Open Day. For reasons, many of us who had once stayed in a boarding school can identify with, he felt reluctant to leave home. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours until he found himself running late. He then wished he could grow wings and fly because he knew the punishment awaiting late comers – again, many of us can identify with this. He sat in front of a commercial bus and begged the driver to step on the gas. The driver, being young and daring, obliged. They sped merrily along until the first check point. The driver fumbled for some change and he was passed. The Seminarian in his anxiety, however felt the process took too long and he requested for ‘the settlement money’. He thus became the ‘conductor’ and ‘settler’ at other check points. The contradiction in a Seminarian bribing Police Officers on the road never crossed his mind all this while. All he thought about was the exigency of the moment – again, many can identify with this in our journey of life.

All went well and he began to feel he could beat the clock. They were nearing the final check point after all. Then he saw a longer than usual queue ahead and his anxiety returned. When it got to their turn, he offered the usual ‘egunje’. The inspecting Officer refused and insisted on seeing the vehicle papers. He increased the amount. The Officer still refused and instead, ordered them to pack. Everyone was upset including the colleagues of the Officer who felt he was being unnecessarily officious while denying them due gratification. Everyone grumbled, loudly. But the Officer stood his ground unperturbed. It turned out the papers were not complete and this led to a longer wait with their anger dissolving into pleas. At the end, the Seminarian was late and was duly punished. But he learnt a more important lesson in the narrative of a Police Officer who insisted on due process and a man of God who tried to circumvent the process. This Priest might have forgotten many of the things he learnt at the seminary to date but he has not forgotten what he learnt on that day. The day the practicality of Christianity, or simply being a good Citizen, was played out in a most unlikely place, by a most unlikely person.

How many of us can identify with this story? How many of us have not allowed the exigencies of the times to blunt our sense of what is proper? What is upright? Many of us have dulled our conscience as a result of where we work and what we do. Many of us prefer to swim with the current because it is convenient and besides, ‘everybody is doing it’. Worse, many of us, like the colleagues of this Police Officer, are actually impatient and often antagonistic towards those who try to do the right thing. ‘His own is too much’ we often say to that one person in our office, our estate, our family, who dares to swim against the current by insisting on the proper process no matter how long it takes. It is lonely, vulnerable and dangerous to insist on swimming against the current in Nigeria just as it is easy to doubt one’s sanity where everybody else is mad. But that is what the Holy Book expects of us when it asks us to be sheep among wolves. But hypocrites that we are, we prefer to be wolves in sheep clothing. Or sheep when people are watching and wolves when it is just us.

There were probably a few politicians in church as this Priest was expatiating on the theme of being sheep among wolves and in the process, described politicians as wolves among sheep; ravenous wolves devouring any form of sacredness, of uprightness in the polity. My gaze however, went to a particular politician who was sitting not too far from me. He has been a Parliamentarian, a Minister and a two term Governor. He is now one of the moving spirits of the new coalition. Just as he was one of the moving spirits of the current party in power. I wondered what must be going through his mind. Can he in honesty claim to have kept his head when all politicians around him were losing theirs? Has he always tried to do the proper thing if it meant swimming against the current? Could his over two decades of being engaged by different government hierarchies be said to be in service to his community, his State, his country and to humanity? Or were they in search of power, relevance and self-gratification? Unfortunately, I see him, as many in that coalition, as villains who are now pretending to be victims; wolves who now want the rest of us to see them as sheep.

Nigeria does need a new mainstream political party. Urgently. But it has to be based on ideology. It has to be made of people who genuinely want to fight the corrupt system. It has to be driven by patriotism and a steadfast desire to lift people out of poverty. It has to be a movement of people who are ready to give merit its place and not another ‘emilokan’. The economic interest of the country must take precedence over sectional and private interests. Many in this coalition have had their chance and fluffed it. They have moved from party to party with nothing but power and relevance as their motivation. They are like the proverbial old wine in a new skin; neither the skin, nor the wine is compatible. They are in the main, wolves in sheep clothing with no difference between them and those currently in power. None of those who now claim to be fighting for the masses left power until they found themselves out of favour. None tried to change the system from within. For them to now say ‘we are hungry’ is mocking the rest of us.

I tried to avoid eye contact with this politician so I didn’t look his way. But I guess he must have squirmed in his seat a bit during the homily if he had any conscience left. No one who has been in power in any shape or form in the last two decades can absolve himself from the rot the country is wallowing in. None should therefore aspire to lead the new party the country seeks.

• Adetiba is a veteran journalist and public affairs commentator