Who is
ready, to tell the truth about the state of our nation and the security of
lives and property of our nationals? And who are those that have lied to us
over the years that things are getting better as we speed towards anarchy, a
situation rapidly evolving in most parts of our Nation?
One
particular morning last week, my phone rang at 5 a.m. It was the voice of a
very nervous gentleman who informed me that the police forced their way in a
no-knock, no warrant, slam-slam process into his father’s bedroom, found him
sleeping naked in the heat at about 4 am, carried him away into their van
without saying a word, or allowing him to dress up. The wife who was awakened
by the commotion rushed into the van with a cloth wrapper to cover her
husband’s nakedness.
The man so rudely and humiliatingly abducted is the
99-year-old Iyase (the Prime Minister) of my town, Akwukwu Igbo in Delta State.
The Iyase who is partially blind sat bewildered in the van as it drove off
making two more stops where the violent human grab of the sleeping was again
and again executed on two other unsuspecting men in their early 80s. The trio
who was now in the company of some rough-neck police as captives began the
relatively long drive to Asaba in all of 25 minutes.
Jibunoh |
Having
listened to this tale in great shock and growing trepidation about the welfare
of the men from my town, I asked Odiaka, the narrator and son of the Iyase to
find out the police unit that carried out the operation and possibly the
station where they were taken to. I put a call to the Divisional Police Officer
in my town to inquire what was going on. To my surprise, he appeared ignorant
of this operation. In a few hours, Odiaka got back to me with details of the
location of the police station where the men were being held. Additionally, he
informed me that this particular police unit had received and acted upon a
petition from the Obi of Akwukwu-Igbo stating that a cultist group headed by
the Iyase was planning to dethrone him as the Obi and had also threatened to
burn down his Palace. After some phone calls, and against the advice of my
lawyer, I decided to visit the police station to see the Iyase and hear from
him and also to find out how his health was holding up considering his age.
At the
police station, I learnt that the son had provided a T-Shirt, a cap, and
slippers for his father. The other two seniors, Uncle Nick, a retired ASP who
is the Secretory of Ogbe-Onihe Quarters of my town, and Chief Ochili-Ozua also
from Ogbe-Onihe had been better clothed than the Iyase when they were whisked
away from their sleep. Uncle Nick was in his pajamas, with the chief in a
T-shirt and a boxer but no footwear. I suggested that I need to take them out
for breakfast and to have them medically checked out, but the Iyase would not
have any of those. He insisted that he be taken back to his bed where he was so
forcibly removed. I chatted with them for a while more before seeking audience
with the O.C. Police unaware that I was tearing up.
The O.C. was
so shocked to see the Desert Warrior he had known cry openly, but at this stage
I was no longer in control of my emotions. I explained to him, in a face-saving
manner, that the last time I cried like this was in the Sahara Desert during my
second solo expedition some decades ago. At that point and place in time, my
car was stuck in an inconspicuous sand dune. My initial attempts to extricate
the car were unsuccessful. Being hundreds of kilometres from any help I thought
I was going to stay there and die. So, I cried for a while. Strangely though,
that cry must have calmed my tensed and panic-stricken nerves for I then
methodically proceeded to dig out the tires, ensuring there were no sand wedges
on either side of the tires to enable me to rock the car back and forth to gain
traction.
Telling this
story excited the O.C. of the police station and it changed my mood a bit, but
all I wanted from the police was to let these men go. I had always sought to
make friends with the police because of the immense responsibility they carry
in maintaining Law and Order in a lawless nation. I had in some ways abhorred
the system that has reduced them to Highway beggars in tattered uniforms. The
conditions under which the police operate reminded me of an article I wrote
many years ago and published in my recent book ‘How Little We Are’ under the
title, Policing (or Lack of) and Nigeria.
How far down
can we go before something is done to check the level of policing in our
country Nigeria?
If they are not sufficiently trained and equipped to carry out
their functions, how then do we expect them to solve complicated cases? Who is
the policeman that will go undercover today to solve a case? How many cases of
corruption have the police, EFCC or ICPC successfully unearthed, investigated,
and prosecuted? How many people have our courts and judges put away for
corruption? We live as if individually we rewrite our own laws as we journey
through life. We still see laws as those produced by the colonial masters to
punish us. Hence, we must beg and bribe our way through the police and the law
courts when we cannot bully our way through.
Nigeria is a
country with laws, some well written. We also have the ability to make good and
well-researched laws.
A good number of our laws came from the military who
structured them in such manners to ensure their indefinite participation in the
affairs of the nation. Principally, all laws were made to protect the
citizenry, big or small, young or old, poor or rich. If that is the case, one
may ask; why are we perceived as one of the most lawless nations of the world
and fantastically corrupt?
I have
travelled and lived in most parts of Nigeria, and I have observed that those
that make the laws, those that wrote the constitution and made the decrees, and
those whose duty it is to enforce the laws are the same people that mostly and
wantonly flout the laws. The consequences of this include the fact that
Nigerians respect the lawmakers but not the laws; they fear the law enforcement
agencies but pay very little regard to the laws they are trying to enforce. In
the main, and as a consequence of our cultures, Nigerians are easy to govern.
Regrettably, though, we have become lawless because of the impunity of the
lawbreakers in high places. If we were really law-abiding, and the enforcers
could do their jobs with integrity and fairness, while the leaders embark on a
modicum of good governance, there would be very little talk about
restructuring, sovereign national conference, or state policing. Let it be
known that the killers in our judicial processes are nepotism, sectional bias,
cronyism, and lies.
The
99-year-old Iyase of Akwukwu-Igbo Kingdom, Chief Emmanuel Sonwnu who was badly
humiliated by the police returned home the same day with me in a type of
reception that is usually accorded to war heroes of the past when returning
home after victorious battles. The Iyase was full of dance and the man whom I
expected would go in to hug his bed in a tired sleep danced, beaming with
smiles, and hugging those who came to welcome him. It was quite a joyous crowd
which even built up some more as the news of his arrival spread to all parts of
the town.
As I made to
depart, I inquired from my friend, the reason for his joyful dance. He told me
something that will remain with me for the rest of my life, some words of
wisdom which reminded me of the writings of Buddha who once said that; “Holding
on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at
someone else; you are the one that gets burned”.
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