The real struggle shouldn't just be about what people do but what they convince themselves to be truth.

Chuks tells:

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A somewhat stressful afternoon it had been for me last Thursday as I trudged my way back home from the Driver's License office. I had just finished the registration process and had finally been handed my long-awaited driver’s license. I stared intermittently at what I had in my palms as I walked; a cream-colored rectangular piece of customized paper sitting slightly asymmetrical in a transparent lamina. At one of the brief glances, I imagined what it must have felt to be suppressed between those sheets. Not so much the state of the paper being in-between as the process of getting it to stay in. As I wandered this short isle of reverie, I was drawn to a few hours before. At the place of lamination, the stout avuncular figure who was seated by the laminating machine had wearily requested for the license, which I acquiescently handed over. Slipping it between the folded lamina, he had slid the mix effortlessly into the machine. Shortly after, it came out; a transparent plastic-like cover now over the bare paper I had given him. I wouldn't claim to know the exact specifics to heat requirements for lamination—if any—but just as the license now felt a bit safer and less gullible to the destructive elements, I could imagine it had to go through a fair amount of heat. And this was quite obvious as I could still feel the fading heat from the laminate within my palms.

In the moment, I recalled the young lady who had collected my registration papers, scowling as she did. She had told me that I needed to drop some cash, which was to serve as some sort of gate pass for the signature of the officer in charge of the capture. I had smiled wryly but told her that I did not have much on me and that I couldn’t really cough up a reasonable amount of money. Prior to that moment, She had been engaged in some private conversations with her clients  (the ones before me) on several occasions but I hadn’t considered peeking through their exchanges. Apparently, it had to be about this.

“Mr Chuks, you gats shake body o, or else oga no go respond to your documents today. Except say you wan come back tomorrow.” she had said afterwards, her eyes gazing impassively.

I felt somewhat slighted at the comment basically because this was the same lady that had collected an extra two thousand naira when I came for the first part of the registration months before. I had considered that her due for processing my work then, even though I thought I was overcharged, but I sure didn’t want to yield to her advances of getting more this time. There were two finely crafted wooden benches stretched just outside the office’s  entrance. I was seated on one of them and among a pool of enrollees in an agonizingly slow queue, and I had been there since 7am that morning. It was 1:15pm and I was already hungry and languid from waiting on my butt.

“Madam, Oga gatz shake body o. I know say this una bench fine but I no come here to con clean am abeg.”  The only reply I could muster as I tried to pacify the budding tension.

Receiving my reply, she smirked and moved on to her next client who looked a tad younger than myself and the lad gave her a similar response. She then moved on to the third person and the much advanced man quickly produced his documents, cunningly slipping in some 500 naira notes. She queried him quietly and, although not very clearly, I could make out the “1.5” from his response. Quite the unconventional comment from a middle-aged man by the way. He had handed her a thousand and five hundred naira alongside his  registration documents it would seem. Apparently, the plan was to do the same for everyone queued, effectively pushing the unresponsive clients who were ahead to the base, and that would mean coming back the next day for the capture as we only had a few hours left before close.Receiving my reply, she smirked and moved on to her next client who looked a tad younger than myself and the lad gave her a similar response. She then moved on to the third person and the much advanced man quickly produced his documents, cunningly slipping in some 500 naira notes. She queried him quietly and, although not very clearly, I could make out the “1.5” from his response. Quite the unconventional comment from a middle-aged man by the way. He had handed her a thousand and five hundred naira alongside his  registration documents it would seem. Apparently, the plan was to do the same for everyone queued, effectively pushing the unresponsive clients who were ahead to the base, and that would mean coming back the next day for the capture as we only had a few hours left before close.

I shook my head in disgust, feeling hard done by. I thought of how long I’d had to wait that day until it was my turn. It was a difficult one to swallow but I really didn’t see myself returning to that office the next day. Not if I still had a chance.

Eventually, I got the capture done after I had to, in a rush of blood, go withdraw a thousand naira from a nearby ATM to pay the incentive. But she didn’t care. Nobody did. She moaned, and afterwards, grudgingly took my form to the ‘oga’ to sign. Sardonically, I came to the realization that I had to pay a bribe to get a license I had already paid for. 

"  A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.  "

                                                       Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.                                                                                 

So I was struck with the question of whether there really was any difference between myself and the man on the third space. Yes, he had given the inducement of his own accord, and right away too, in what seemed quite premeditated because he wanted an expedient case. I, on the other hand, paid because I couldn’t help it, or so I thought. Still I paid, just like he did. For some reason I was bitter. I had done something I was strongly against. Had succumbed under pressure. My dignity smeared again by the acidic content of another’s character. My pride torn to a thousand shreds.

In an alternative reality, I may have decided on a more drastic but dignified approach: caused a scene, so that they know the sheer disgust I felt and maybe wait for the intervention of a higher officer, as it's sometimes just a case of ignorance on their part; Write a formal complaint to any body or hierarchy within the organizational space that could act; submit a petition or maybe even return to try the next day. It may have been a miserly 1000 naira but it was MY 1000 naira and it clearly wasn’t part of their job description to collect it—well not until they made it so. I could have done at least one of these but I didn’t. I may have caused an uproar loud enough to quench subsequent extortions in that office, maybe. But I didn’t try. I yielded to the system. Like the license paper, I had gone through heat, but unlike it, I had emerged tainted.

The argument of choosing between doing that which is necessary as against that which is right would now linger even further for me. I may have ordinarily opined on picking the latter over the former, but that day, I had favored the former instead.

In hindsight, I realize the real struggle there wasn’t just that I paid a bribe of some sort, but that like many other victims, I had convinced myself it was a matter of necessity. I’d like to think I had combated this vice nobly, that I’m somehow the hero of this story, it’s my story after all. Sadly, I hadn't fought with the level of valiance worthy enough to earn that title this time. I’d do well, nonetheless, to remind myself the story isn’t over just yet, not while I possess breadth. Twists and turns are known to be constant peculiarities of some of the best stories. And so I’ll keep my chin up, and while at it, wax lyrical in the good ol’ mantra of the Nigerian student; The Struggle continues.