Nigeria: Our Culture adopted for criminality

Our masquerades and culture

Those long varied conversations with Iya (my mother) the other day veered into the amusing, if not incredible but depicted the complete lawlessness that is eating into the fabric and peaceful co-existence of society in Nigeria.

We have always enjoyed the masquerades when we all come out to see the dances, the acrobatics, the drummers and sing the folk songs that make the Yoruba tribe the most given to festivities of every kind.

Our folklore or read superstitious inclinations, consider masquerades heavenly beings, to be respected and revered but they are never touched – their colourful garments sometimes identifying a clan of masquerade pedigree renowned for having powers that instil irrational fear in the onlookers.

[Reading some research material, the masquerades known as Egungun in Yoruba are considered people risen from the dead – bones (skeleton) made alive, hence the assumption they are heavenly beings – benign as people would want this to be, we do in ways worship our ancestors and give the dead a lot more reverence than the living in Yorubaland.]

The criminality of masquerades today

The masquerade festival usually lasts a week, however, it appears these heavenly beings have decided to take up abode on earth – I quipped to Iya – the masquerade has become a menacing chief of criminals that runs through the market grabbing condiments and ingredients that included two live goats - A recipe for masquerade stew?

His cohorts bear whips, harass people and demand under duress monetary gifts whilst creating traffic jams and rolling over bonnets of cars that people are so terrified of menace and aggression, they are completely pliant parting with “gifts” for idle men who can get away with it.

This enterprise has become so lucrative, the festival has been running for 3 months and there is no end in sight except when it rains – in which case the masquerade probably changes into waterproof garb to keep up the game.

It would appear masquerades are no more the harmless entertainment with some underlying traditional rituals and a public cultural spectacle; they have been co-opted into criminal enterprise and have become a lawless and menacing clique in the pay of powerful and shady masters.

Oro in daylight

This whole matter was escalated to a more terrifying spectacle when in the middle of the afternoon, the chiefs who at one time were respectable elders of the community but now have their noses in the trough of relieving people of their effects through menace, gathered in the centre and allowed Oro to come out to play.

According to the earlier research material - The word Oro means fierceness, tempest, or provocation, and Oro himself appears to be personified executive power, Oro is supposed to haunt the forest in the neighbourhood of towns, and he makes his approach known by a strange, whirring, roaring noise. As soon as this is heard, all women must shut themselves up in their houses, and refrain from looking out on pain of death.

One would ask, what is the haunt of the forest doing in the middle of town, in the bright light of day - The Oro only visits the town centre at night when surely all women would be in their homes and completely out of harms way.

Menacing the women

Iya in her car, returning from church, resolved that any Oro that comes out in the daytime wants to be seen of women and should not by any right menace women when it has violated its nocturnal cover.

How I wish other women were able to stand their ground on this matter but she talked of women abandoning their vehicles in the middle of the road and running off to seeking cover in what definitely was a completely illegal and lawless activity.

Iya safely manoeuvred through the melee but it was not a sight for the faint-hearted, it took the governor to call these criminals masquerading as custodians of our traditions to order.

Apparently, as the governor would have learnt, it is one thing to enact a law banning street parties but if it is not policed and the law upheld by law enforcement measures; it would be flouted by all those who think they can do things with impunity.

But Oro in the centre of town at 14:00 hours just really takes the biscuit, big time.

Nigeria: The powerful taking the law into their hands

The third part of that programme

If we are to go by the respect for the rule of law as the core intent of President Yar’Adua’s programme in Nigeria, I have noted we also have to have that go in tandem with equality before the law.

Reading another news story today leaves me very aware of the fact that the President does have a mammoth task before him and I can only wish him Godspeed.

Obviously, it appears many of my insights seem to revolve around the family of the ex-President, I would have you know that their cases are not unique and almost always representative of people who can wield power and peddle influence by reason of their association rather than personal achievement.

Daughter bothers mother

This time the matter concerns of the mother of Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello – Mrs Remi Obasanjo; considering the tribulations her daughter has been going through and they the parents would quite have us believe their daughter is being persecuted and victimized as a means of getting at her father.

That is a matter for some other debaters; however, it is nice to see that families do close ranks when met with some sort of adversity.

It would appear the mother had been in Abuja to offer moral support to her daughter and only just returned to Lagos after her daughter had fulfilled her bail conditions.

Since the daughter until recently had been as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel the press decided to seek a sound bite off her mother in Lagos about the travails of her daughter.

Within the law your privacy

Now, anyone anywhere should be at liberty to exercise the right to privacy and be able to seek relieve from intrusion of the press. Generally, that should be a polite message to visitors that one is not interested in their entreaties and inquiries, failing that one can seek the help of law enforcement or go as far as seeking an injunction from a court of law.

A journalist from the Punch newspaper - the powerful have a seething contempt for professional, journalists, most especially - visited the premises of Mrs Remi Obasanjo in Lagos seeking an interview and presented his business card to the security guard; soon afterwards an aide of the madam came to the gate and this allegedly is the conversation that took place between them.

The threatening conversation

Aide: Are you the owner of this card?

Reporter: Yes.

Aide: Madam is not in the mood to see anybody now and I will advise you strongly that you leave this place at once.

Reporter: Did Madam actually send you to deliver this message?

Aide: Yes, and I will advise you in your own interest to leave and never to come around this place again.

Reporter: Why?

Aide: Well, I have just told you, if you love yourself, don’t come here again. Or why do you want to risk your life?

Reporter: But this is not my first visit here.

Aide: And since you have been coming, how many times have you seen her? So, in your own interest don’t come here again.

Reporter: But make sure you give my card to her.

Aide: She has seen your card, and will call you when she is in the mood to talk. Bye

Reporter: All right.

My pique

I have a serious problem with this conversation, the first clause of the second sentence of the Aide is fine enough – Madam is not in the mood to see anybody now – fair enough she has had a rough few weeks on account of her daughter.

Is there any reason to then try to menace the journalist with – I will advise you strongly that you leave this place at once – it is very much like chasing away a stray dog; there might be cases for treating journalists as dogs, but I do not think the conversation warranted this level of hostility.

The reporter then tries to ascertain if the threat was a direct order from the madam or the aide being supercilious and working beyond her brief.

Incriminating her mistress she affirms that she was told to threaten the journalist – fine enough.

She then threatens the well-being of the journalist saying he should in his own interest leave and never come back again – well, where there is a public interest issue that would be a difficult order to follow – we can agree that the case of the daughter does not automatically make the mother a public interest subject.

The threats and menace continue with this statement – I have just told you, if you love yourself, don’t come here again. Or why do you want to risk your life? – She does appeal to his sense of self-preservation but a threat to his life?

Is Nigeria this lawless?

This is just not on, is Nigeria such a lawless society?

Is she implying that an enquiry made of the ex-wife of a former president can lead to a homicide in trying to escape or avoid media scrutiny?

That I would say is completely lawless, no one should have their lives cheapened in such a way in order to convey a message that they are being inconvenienced, it is really taking the law into their hands and there are places where such a threat would be prosecuted to the limits of the law exacting apologies and compensation.

But this is turning into a train of ideals that need to be part of the President’s grand scheme – respect for the rule of law, equality before the law and not taking the law into ones hands.

The aide either exceeded her lawful remit or her madam was wielding influence and power that primarily should belong to law enforcement and legal process – you can refuse to see a journalist, you can beseech the journalist not to visit or pursue you but you have crossed the line of legality when you threaten a journalist with menace.

In the end, I am glad she did not send out her security guards to beat the journalist to a pulp, I would not put it beyond their ilk to commit such a heinous act and get away with it.

I think can now really announce that I am officially exiled from Nigeria – I cannot countenance this kind of attitude, it is just not on.

Handling Internet Intimidation

Networks of similar interests

Belonging to a number of networking sites, some social, others professional, one leaves a footprint almost irremovable from the Internet.

Where the networking sites are of special interest lifestyles there is opportunity to be more particular about your interests and the kind of people you want to interact with.

One would hope that the more detail provided, the more discerning people seeking similar companionship and interests would be and maybe one can naively assume that all that is through informed consent, personal prerogative and genuine awareness of what engagement one is undertaking.

Indeed, we have heard that certain social networking sites have become havens for bullies and harassment – cyberbullying is the new word for that – these matters are becoming an area of crime investigation that is receiving the scrutiny of social protection agencies and law enforcement - the playground bully has moved to cyberspace.

There are sites that cater for adults and hopefully the membership is made up of law-abiding ones who should not be embarrassed for doing what as adults they choose to do within the law.

Informed and mutual consent

The operative phrase being mutual consent; this is however not a fixed quantity, what some people mutually consent to do having informed each other of their intentions and desires might as well be morally reprehensible to others and excite passionate negative emotions.

One cannot refuse those who find these things abhorrent their right to have those emotions, convictions or feelings – it is part of our humanity.

If one has racist, xenophobic or homophobic sympathies, they have their issues but hopefully they are abstract; to take those sympathies and target them at an object, personality or group for vitriolic abuse, threats of denigration or bodily harm has that person crossing the boundaries of civility to criminality, which can be prosecuted.

Handling abuse

I have tolerated a lot of abuse on the Internet and in social networking sites I have helped some people keep within the bounds of the law by not responding and hence not aggravating the situation.

Where the site has clear guidelines about abuse, I have matched the clauses in their documents against the claims I make of abuse and given administrators of those sites the opportunity to address these matters – in two cases the sources of abuse were bumped off the site.

In other cases, I have used the blocking facilities to prevent those people from contacting me and in one case I completely removed myself from the site to avoid harassment.

I would NOT be intimidated

But I would not be intimidated on the Internet by faceless, anonymous cretins who can pen unspeakable abuse and hatred but are too cowardly to leave a calling card which bears a name and a proper reply slip.

What they forget is that every action taken on the Internet leaves footprints and the tenacious would find those tracks and trace them back to the originator, nobody is really anonymous on the Internet.

In two instances, I engaged the service of private detectives, employed computer & Internet forensics in which I have professional qualifications, gathered all the evidence, got the police involved and obtained with the force of the law, records of transactions on a social networking site to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law in court, death threats on the Internet – I secured convictions for what the perpetrator thought was his right to menace and harass with impunity – they chose the wrong guy.

Your rights - my rights

Recently, I have been menaced by someone who by rights has a right to feel abhorrence about me if he deems fit, but we live in a free society where everyone has a personal responsibility when engaging in any liaisons with informed consent; that responsibility should and must not be passed on to others once one has come of age as an adult.

One studied situation deals with sexual conduct when people expect others to watch out for them when they should be alert and aware of what they personally engage in – this includes the moderate use of alcohol and drugs so that they are not taken advantage of and cajoled into acts they would not engage in when sober and of clear mind.

Informed consent must be the prime mover in any liaison, it is the responsibility of each person engaged in that liaison to exercise that prerogative and hopefully where either cannot exercise that prerogative the more alert party would desist and refrain.

Arguing with the fool

This sounds like a reasonable argument that any sane person can appreciate and understand, it is however difficult to engage a menace in such reasoning – a saying infers arguing with a fool would make both of you fools.

In fact, these Internet bullies if one were to confer any status of their cowardice are snipers, assassins, assailants – no better than terrorists – even hecklers in their anti-social garb are recognisable; they, the terrorists, have a time of menace but each attack creates a pattern, a patchwork and a developing case towards nabbing them with compelling evidence.

One saying this menace would very well understand is this – Everyday is for the thief and one day is for the catcher.

You have already crossed the line between personal expression through abuse which can be tolerated to criminal conduct through threatening my physical well-being which would be investigated – think about the consequences before your reprehension grows beyond your ability to control the events around you.

Shame on you! Sagamu

Literary day

When I was in secondary school (Remo Secondary School) just about 30 years ago, we used to have a day of social events called the Literary Day.

Really, I must say, I never saw anything literary about that day apart from people trying to get dressed up to the nines and each prepubescent male trying to get dance with that girl he has had his eye on since he knew he could blink.

I would say, I was never trendy, not by apparel, ostentation nor shoes, but I still tried to look my best and hoped that all that time of practice with my two friends who seemed to be better dancers than one would shine on the day.

There usually was all sorts of entertainment and though we were in Sagamu, Ogun State, the traditional Eyo parade was imported from Eko (Lagos Island), it allowed boys to dress up in white hoods, hats and white masquerade wraps holding a long branch of a shorn palm frond as a beating stick, they made whooping sounds hopping about on one foot, any female who strayed into their path got whacked on the shin.

Menace and violence

The bad side of the Literary Days was evident in Lagos where groups of students would assemble as thugs and hooligans accost other students and guests to these events and by menace strip the hapless kids of their shoes, valuables and designer wear.

In my last year at school, we were off-campus and I remember that the class after ours had planned to menace and harass with violence anyone who appeared in a particular style of fashion which was called Pinto - basically it was like the Pied Piper's costume in a variety of garish colours - an unhealthy development, one must say.

Let's dance

The highlight of the day was from the early evening when we gathered in the main hall and danced to the reggae music which was the rage of the late 70s till Boney M took on and then other American fare.

Within the campus, the girls were quite astute in accessorising themselves, never did one look like the girl in class, however, only a few wore trousers, there had always been this thing about women in trousers, the chauvinistic outlook of men feeling emasculated meant females in trousers could be harassed or even worse.

The trouser thing

When we were invited to the Literary Days of sister schools, most of the other schools in Sagamu were across town. The girls who wore trousers had to wear a full wrapper over the trousers just in case they came across nasty old men whose only mission was to curse girls who strayed from the "norm".

In fact, we did learn that there was a rule in Sagamu, large as it was and it probably having the largest community of Hausas from the North in the South, women were forbidden to wear trousers.

So, imagine my surprise 30 years on, learning that the local authorities have outlawed the wearing of trousers by women in Sagamu. It makes me feel that the cocoon of my secondary school which was on the outskirts of town then, just on the edge of a forest was oasis of freedom of expression and the emancipation of the rights of women.

Sagamu is a town of quite learned people, one does have doubts about its sophistication in the light of this development and obviously the misconception that education can bring enlightenment to people steeped in the tradition of dominating not only their wives but extending that mantle of domination to cover everyone of the female gender, it saddens and it is shameful.

This is a human-rights issue, but I would not be surprised if a bible-thumping person comes up with one verse about women in men's clothes but none about men in 40% cotton and 60% polyester shirts. Shame on you! Sagamu.

From boys to devilish young men

Spawn of evil unspeakable

The faces looked out at me with the immensity of the ugliness of their crimes, lips bloated like bodies in the process of decomposition typical of what would not be allowed amongst the living. They would live behind bars for an indeterminate period.

Diamond & Timy Babamuboni and Jude Odigie

Boys in their teens trying to be men so fast that they chose heinous crimes that would leave many without breath to air their shocking disgust and appalling rage.

In a time when the quest for more role models of ethnic origin are sought to help our youth see the dignity in labour, the pleasure of education and the joy of service within their communities; these boys give credence to another report that the United Kingdom is the worst place to grow up – it ought not be so.

Nothing could be so evil as to raid a christening, terrify the attendees with the menace of arms and with impunity murder a lady who was shielding her niece from the dastardly event.

They have been sentenced and it only appears too lenient as the news broke today.

From frying pan into the fire

As the judge noted with irony, many of the attendees had fled untrammelled violence in their homelands in Africa seeking refuge, safety and security in England only be to have the same meted out to them by fellow Africans.

It sickens one beyond expression that one of the culprits, having been partner to a murder two weeks before, on the tone and conversation of a mobile phone with a female teenager decided he had been disrespected enough to have to stab her in the heart and kill her.

Whose paps did these evil kids suckle? More so, where of the four, two were siblings who had basically given themselves over to the control of evil so horrid.

The issue of respect concerns me, indeed people need to feel respected but that comes from that person’s contributions in civility that make that person fit into the community to which they belong, it does not fall on you like bird droppings.

Decima Francis on Hard Talk a few weeks ago lamented the growing acceptance amongst young black men of manhood as being able to sire a child at 16. How could that be right?

Respect has to be earned and it is never through unwarranted and extreme violence, and what appears as respect to the seeker is really menace and terror on the part of the onlookers. Whilst you might earn respect through menace, it would not make you respectable.

Ditch civil liberties

Maybe parents, guardians, education and society are failing at making this clear to those who would be the future or if some children have become mules that they are incapable of being productive members of society and their communities, we would have to bite our civil liberty tongues, put them away and throw away the key.

We cannot wait till they have left abominable marks on our welfare and comfort before we are spurred to do what we cannot desist from doing in the name of justice having left victims in their trail.

Of these kids, three were Nigerian, they leave many of us so ashamed of things that we had no hand in, this might also impart negatively on other Nigerian youth who could be viewed capable of unnecessary violence just for the sake of lucre.

My heart is to poured out to the families of Zainab Kalokoh (Sierra Leonean) who was shot and murdered at 33 and Ruth Okechukwu (Nigerian parentage) who at 18 was stabbed in the heart for a mobile phone conversation that apparently was disrespectful to someone who was also 18 – it still beggars belief.

Eventually, these young men might earn their respect if anyone deigns to visit the grounds in which they would be lain when dead, in unmarked graves ready to be dug up by dogs and fed on by vultures – it would be a life behind bars and I would team up to protest any effort to free them – throw away the key and make sure it was done where the ocean is deepest.

References

Doubts persist over killers' ages

Teens guilty of christening death

Killer admits second murder

The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation

Rewarding Malevolence

The Top 40

I had just about had it this afternoon when channel hopping I inadvertently switched to "The Music Factory" a music channel subsidiary of MTV to find out that De Tokkies [1] were at number 11 of the Top 40 charts with their tuneless and toneless contribution to the Christmas chart melee.

You may ask who the Tokkies are. [2] But before we get to that, it appears there is a degenerative development in society that I might have missed and when I found out, I was already a beaten up victim experiencing the norms of our times.

Wherefore Society?

My concern is the tolerance of everything to the exclusion of nothing, the inertia of law enforcement and the indifference leading on to the numbness of society to act where hardly decades ago this would not have been the case.

The Dutch as a people are globally viewed as tolerant friendly people; that, one cannot dispute, but the acceptance of the freedoms that allow for the tolerance of every expression even where it encroaches or obliterates another person's freedom is becoming a cause for serious concern.

I have already highlighted a number of those situations in earlier blogs about queues and queue-jumping, customer service, the electorate's enlightenment, the victim status of proponents of intolerance and the choosing of national figures.

The Tokkies

The Tokkies, yes, back to these chart-toppers, this is a family of at least 3 generations who had by the beginning of 2004 become the most anti-social family in the Netherlands. Their infamy was publicised on our screens a number of times, having been evicted from so many neighbourhoods for every unspeakable asocial activity imaginable. At one time they were hopeless, homeless and hapless and some motivational speaker of allegedly dubious means did at one time attempt to purchase a home for them.

However, a number of bright sparks have tapped on the enterprising and entrepreneurial flair of the Dutch {Remember they first started slavery, made their money and moved on before others caught on}[3] to promote this unwanted societal black spot as celebrity and before we knew it they were raking in money for all sorts of contracts, deals and now the Christmas song. They also have an Internet search page. [4]

Really, wherefore society?

Anyway, the issue here is how society is more accepting of asocial and anti-social behaviour to the extent that the more extreme this behaviour is, it begins to confer notoriety and celebrity, by the time we know what is going on, the self-same people who have refused to be positive contributory members of our civil existence are then rewarded handsomely because notoriety and popularity have become so synonymous they have both lost the measurable parameter of values and morals.

For now, I would reserve invective towards the people who have engineered the transformation of these misfits into rich but unrepentant people; it is both shameful and shameless taken in context.

However, the bigger picture is that society accepts its members; which it should, but it is failing in defining the norms of civility and the taking of liberties. It is promulgating flimsy laws that attempt to address lawlessness but failing to enforce those laws. The presence of laws, rules and regulations not enforced allow for the fabric of stable and normal society to be shredded with impunity. Even now, not many believe the police would rise to the job of crime fighting until it becomes public property seized on by vested interests with nefarious agendas.

Where is the lid?

I will still maintain that the Dutch are a friendly, interesting, tolerant people, however, what is happening as the evolution of society here and elsewhere needs to be arrested well before it gets out of hand. Unfortunately, the lid to this Pandora's Box is lost.

[1] The family no one wanted - Expatica.com
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=10384&name=The+family+no+one+wanted

For translations, you might find The Altavista Babel Fish Translator useful
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

[2] De Tokkies - Wikipedia NL - In Dutch
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Tokkies

[3] Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789
http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

[4] Tokkies Pagina - In Dutch
http://tokkies.pagina.nl/