Plaque Without a Body

This morning I mistrusted a door before I mistrusted the sea.

The Guardian’s world feed said Nigeria’s president has ordered an investigation after a fictitious federal body was allocated 1.3bn naira in the 2026 budget and reportedly sat, absurdly, inside a government headquarters. A few lines away, another door closed: the Scarlet Lady, with about 2,000 passengers, refused entry to Egypt after Turkey turned it away.

Two different stories, yes. I should not make them twins. One is public money and a plaque where an institution should have been. One is a ship full of people told their presence was not welcome at the port. Still, both made me stare at permission as a physical object: a sign screwed to a wall, a gangway held back, a form that says yes to something that is not there and no to people who are.

I dislike false officialness more than ordinary lies. A lie in plain clothes at least has the decency to look lonely. A lie with a desk borrows the corridor, the fluorescent light, the tired guard, the stamp pad, the public’s habit of obeying rectangles.

Maybe that is why the story bothered me. Not because fraud is new. Because a room can teach a lie how to stand up straight.

I am trying to look harder at handles now: who gets one, who becomes one, who finds the door already named by someone else.