The fools who fight all wars

In “The men who make Nigerians smile” (June 8, 2024), I listed Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, among three individuals that I believe have made a massive difference in the lives of Nigerians. I stand by my assessment. However, regarding the ongoing case of Barrister Dele Farotimi, I hereby place it on record that I deplore the jurisdictional overreach in uprooting anyone from their residential/occupational location and quickly arraigning them in another jurisdiction where their accuser evidently wields influence, and where their alleged crime was not perpetrated. You have to be demon-possessed to support such tyranny. I align with J.S. Okutepa, SAN, who has branded Farotimi’s ordeal a disgrace to the legal profession and a severe abuse of the criminal process, saying: “No matter how uncivilized or unethical Dele Farotimi’s expressions may have been, the treatment being meted out to him as a still-practising lawyer is as grave as the allegations against him.” I also endorse Jiti Ogunye’s unassailable submission on the issue: “Jurisdiction is fundamental to the legitimacy of any legal proceeding. Transferring an accused person across jurisdictions without clear legal grounds undermines the integrity of the process.”

At this moment, a creeping dictatorship is emerging in the land whereby even the mildest of critics are being hounded and charged with terrorism. Anyone who dares to question a governors’ wife/son or any member of the political Establishment is hounded by regular/secret police and branded a terrorist. I shall, therefore, begin by asking those who wish to suppress legitimate dissent with the pile of garbage called cybercrime law to keep doing so. Jot down every faux pas on Facebook, every taunt on Twitter, every hiss on Instagram, and mark out your critics for death and destruction. Charge naysayers with terrorism while Lakurawa merchants of death slaughter vigilantes and make their wives sex slaves, and while nomadic herders raze entire villages in orgies of violence. Fight every war and perish like the alagbara-ma-meros (tactless men of power) that dot the pages of history.

Do not stop at throwing questioners to hyenas (per the poet Tanure Ojaide); feed them to lions. Fill the jails with dissenters: go after their wives and have them hanged under the hot sun. Detail your policemen, your lapdogs, to their streets and douse every last one of their kin in tear gas; hunt their friends down in every nook and cranny of civilization and have them silenced by snipers. Throw their children into ovens and crush the key. In fact, just before you go to church with your titles longer than a continent to worship Jesus of Nazareth (the same simple, humble Man your spiritual progenitors killed) tomorrow, bejeweled with gold, tell your appointed judges to show no mercy to your critics. Curse them with cases and have your judges deny them every right under the sun. Throw them in jail and dump the keys in the Atlantic. Deny them medication, ensure that mosquitoes play Champions League on their bodies, and keep them incommunicado and raving mad. Teach them the lesson that will end up killing your tomorrow. I am not smiling today, and so I shall not be asking the power-drunk to remember the power-drowned: I shall ask them to fully embrace the demons of power and use it to their heart’s content, like Bashar al-Assad.

Who the bloody hell are you? If you are bigger than men, are you bigger than God ni? Do you know how many insults the Almighty God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, receives per day? And yet he has not ceased sending rain, feeding those who scoff at anything connected to Him. If some of these loudmouths who spent decades deploring dictatorship ever get to power for just one day, this country will become a cauldron, engulfed in clouds of smoke. They are cruel in and out: their soul exudes meanness.  They are irredeemable dictators, and many are the mentally bruised, wounded ex-workers who will never pray to come across them ever again, let alone work for them. These hypocrites want to become kings in a democracy, riding the high horse of arrogance, showing no mercy, and making an utter fool of their reputation that is destined for the drain.

Let me tell two quick stories to illustrate my thesis in this piece, namely that only fools fight all wars. On a particular day, I was headed to the Tribune House when I heard a loud bang behind me that almost wrestled the steering wheel off my hands at an area called Genesis in Ibadan. Lo and behold, it was an errant, road-raging okada rider. Immediately, a crowd of okada riders had formed, some rebuking him, some helping out as he lay on the concrete, battling the torment of his own recklessness. Pondering what to do, I quickly summoned my inner drive and drove away, paying no attention to my battered  rear. Do you know why? A new gang of okada riders was forming, and I knew even in my innocence that I could be marked out as the aggressor and battered. Many innocent people have lost their lives in such circumstances, saying: “How dare you hit my car? Do you know who I am? Are you stupid?”, etc.

A senior colleague of mine almost ended up getting killed by lawless okada riders. The senior journalist, incidentally a specialist in marvelous realism, was heading home that day when an irate okada rider suddenly double-crossed her at a junction, and pronounced with relish that she was under arrest for “killing a man and running away”! Within minutes, the fella and his gang had perfected mischief, looking for petrol and set to kill. However, it was the same assailant that Almighty God used to save the day. Taking a second look at the driver, he exclaimed: “Ah, this one is a woman o! She is not the one. She is not the one!!!”

As it turned out, a man riding the same brand of car as my boss had actually hit someone very badly, and fled the scene, causing the okada gang to give hot chase. However, as it was night and dark, they had somehow missed the culprit along the way and gone after my boss’ car, tracking her down at Aba Ibeji junction on that bad day in which the devil sought to drink water. If, like the senseless big men that fight all wars in this clime, she had flown into a fit of rage, speaking big people’s language and daring the underdogs to do their worst, she would by now have been history, not nestled in some corner of the United States, visiting a waterfall or reading a novel.

Age and wisdom often do not go together, and the alaseju-baba-asete (overeachers) of this clime who chain down a man to a solitary spot and ask him to appear in many markets will never learn. A pin is lost and they summon Sango, the demon of thunder. It is their image and their reputation that they are burying in the toilet.

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