“We don Close” – Eurocentrism in Corporate Nigeria
“Welcome Massa!” the gateman shouted, flinging the gates open and offering an awkward salute as the chauffeur-driven car of the white expatriate approached us. I thought I had time-travelled back to colonial Nigeria – a time before my birth. Was I hearing, nay seeing things?
Some time earlier, I had been ordered to step out of my chauffeur-driven car and present myself in person for security clearance. I had been negotiating with the security chief for a quarter of an hour to grant me access into the building to keep my appointment with a group of government officials. For some bizarre reason, my name was not on the visitors register and not even entreaties from the secretary over the telephone was sufficient to get me through the iron curtain. The meeting I was to chair would start in a few minutes and it did not seem like I was making much headway, so I asked the erring secretary of my associate to kindly act as my escort since the oversight had been hers.
“Doesn’t he need security clearance?” I asked irritably while I waited for my escort, knowing the answer even before I spoke. “Can you not see he is a WHITE man? He must have important business here today”, the security officer replied looking at me as if I had lost my marbles for questioning the wisdom of waiving security protocol for a strange white man. Entering the building half an hour after my arrival amidst effusive apologies from my associate and his secretary who escorted me into the building, we walked past the expatriate visitor in the corridor trying to talk his way into an office without an appointment in a thick pidgin-English accent. I did a double-take as the security official insisted he needed to return to the gate, be properly screened and return with a visitor’s tag indicating the department to which he was heading before he would be allowed in.
“Oga no dey” (The Boss is not here), “We don close” (We are closed). “At 11 a.m.?” I asked incredulously. I have heard every kind of excuse from gate-men who believe their job is to keep out the vagrant black guests and let in the all-important white expatriate ones regardless of mission. This is Nigeria in year 2010 – the reflection of a giant dwarfed by imprints of a time gone by. 50 years post-independence but still in the vice-grip of mental colonization, many Nigerians consider white to be right and anything with a foreign address as ostensibly better qualified than its local counterpart. Business Executives bypass seasoned professionals who studied locally to hire poorly qualified persons who speak in contrived foreign accents, holding a two-bit diploma from Corner-shop Academy that they acquired while in transit at La Guardia airport in New York. Construction contract tenders are awarded to start-up Engineering companies with a foreign contact address headed by the white CEO who has a degree in Art Appreciation. How to get past it? “You have to think like the gate-men”, my husband said to me. Frustrated business owners have wizened up to this reality. Have a degree from MIT? No good. Hire an East European artisan to be the face of your multi-million Naira business or be doomed to negotiate forever at the gate. Mentally colonized Nigerians don’t care what shade of white the contender is. Corporate Nigeria is not the only victim. Schools, Property firms and Restaurants now hire EERPs – expatriate external relations personnel – to front for their companies. It does not matter if your EERP is off-white, pink, yellow, tinged blue or red, once he carries considerably paler skin, you are a-go! Can’t afford an expatriate? Hire an albino. He’ll get your company past the gate-keepers faster than your 10-page resume can. Just in case he does not make it past the first security gate, teach your EERP to interject: ‘Cheers, mate’ into every sentence and they’ll be waving that long elusive contract at you in no time!
