Patience and the Idiot Behind the Wheel

A Scene in Bucolic Cheshire

Accidents are exactly that, and some are caused by avoidable human error. In bucolic Cheshire, where the roads are pleasant and everyone drives with the abandon of suburban, carefree distraction, I happened upon a scene.

A fire engine stood with lights flashing, and as the details began to make sense, I saw two cars involved in a collision, with a tow-away truck arriving to cart one of them away. The police had cordoned off the road; in fact, there was no thoroughfare. Cars were being diverted further up the road, except for residents of the area.

Surveying the Wreckage

I did not tarry. As another tow-away truck navigated the roadblock, I noted the cars were a wreck, and could surmise from my observation who might have been at fault. One car had been accessing a busy road, and the driver's judgement must have deserted him; he was not fast enough to cross the oncoming lane to turn into the road as another car approached from the right.

There would not have been enough time for the other car to react with a sudden stop or a swerve. The result: a crash, fenders ruined, airbags deployed, and one foolish act becoming the inconvenience of many.

Reflections on Patience and Policing

I have always opined that the speed and manoeuvrability of a car present many opportunities for patience; but you only need an idiot behind the wheel for a vehicle to become a weapon of catastrophic consequences.

Yet, for all the unfortunate interactions I have had with the police before, I was persuaded that their helpfulness on this occasion was commendable.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Almost a stranger seeing some danger

A man in a park

How the familiar can easily rob you of the peculiar is sometimes the spectacle of living in Manchester and watching the interplay of people, property, and services. My local Sainsbury had closed when I got up from my nap and I needed to get some essentials leaving the shop at the Manchester Piccadilly Station the closest that is open until midnight.

Donning my walking gear as I was just a two-score steps short of my daily 10,000 step threshold, having aborted my walk, earlier because it had begun to rain and I was not wearing suitable apparel. Out by the Vimto monument in Vimto Park, a police car was parked on the kerb and I spotted two policemen apparently chatting to a man sitting on the bench.

A man on a limb

Maybe to eliminate the strange and wary, one of the policemen called out a greeting to be me as I passed, and he waved as I acknowledged him. Minding my own business I trotted down the rather quietly deserted road that has a few student hostel blocks until I got to the main road and crossed it into the station.

Up the escalator and via the one-way system in a station that was for years familiar and now remote as to be changed into the unknown. I have not boarded a train there since the first week of December 2019, I got to Sainsbury’s and picked up a shopping basket. A couple of bananas and then an altercation between a member of staff and a customer, whether it was a power trip or something else, the customer was being thrown out and the guards were ready to manhandle him. Some things he said were borderline unprintable.

A man to be cuffed

I continued with my shopping, some milk, tea, and sparkling water, using the self-service till I walked out seeing a man grab about 10 shopping bags that go for 10 pence each, that would be stealing or shoplifting, to put it mildly. I must have missed where he went because as I reached the bottom of the first escalator, I could have sworn those bags were a pile of litter caught in the teeth of the moving steps of the escalator.

On to the main road and back on the route I plied on my way out not expecting to see the policemen I saw earlier, there was a police van parked in front of the police car and 4 men in uniform apparently trying to get a hold of someone lying on that same bench, like he did not want to be taken away. 

I doubt the person had a medical issue, else the van should have been an ambulance. As to why the policemen were there in the first place, considering the road is private with a lifting bar gate, one can only surmise someone alerted them to the presence of a strange man in Vimto Park.

The UK: Our democracy is crumbling

This kakistocracy is debilitating

We are coming to a point where the contract of trust between the people and their government is presenting hairline fractures and it will most certainly break. Many of us law-abiding citizens having chosen our representatives in the hope that they will pursue our best interests are learning differently from that prospect.

There are too many things I disagree with the UK government about, but I take it on trust and faith that our democracy is supposed to have safeguards, checks, and balances. Yet, I watch how the House of Commons has become a supine accessory and conspirator against our freedoms, liberties, wellbeing and progress.

An unquestioned authority

For instance, we in England have been in some sort of lockdown since January, the easing of the restrictions with a roadmap announced in February appears to suggest many of these restrictions will remain in place until June. The House of Commons literally gave unchallenged fiat to the executive to act with very little accountability for their actions, all on the premise that we are dealing with the pandemic and it is for our safety.

Then last week, a lady returning home from visiting friends was abducted and murdered, only to find that an elite member of the police was implicated in this dastardly crime. It begs the question if we are endangered by the police force that is supposed to protect us, we are by terms endangered and our trust in institutions will be sorely diminished.

A crumbling democracy

On this matter, the inalienable right to protest at this situation is a fundamental part of our democratic system. Yet, with the pandemic restrictions on gathering in public places, the people who have felt so strongly about the matter have in an act of civil disobedience go out to protest and have clashed with the police, so being arrested and fined.

Whilst indeed the police must enforce COVID restriction laws, to have that in conflict with and superseding the right to protest is inexcusable. That the protesters could have find an accommodation with the police where they could safely protest and have police protection is not only unfortunate, we might as well be the Democratic People’s Republic of England.

I fear, there is going to be a breakdown in law and order, the government can only push our backs onto the wall before the people decide, enough is enough and the tinder of insurrection is lit to inflame the country into an ungovernable mess. If there any wise heads in government or thereabouts, I hope their voices are heard and acted on. There may be trouble ahead.

Just another walkabout

Just by the way of

I begin to write with no idea of what I am writing about, I begin, nonetheless. The thoughts in my mind percolating like coffee being made for a morning pick-me-up.

Maybe I should write about the chance encounter made possible by my taking a detour to take a look at the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, it is in the midst of a construction site and boarded up out of view. I suspect it might have temporarily been moved elsewhere. [Manchester History: Abraham Lincoln]

Then I came upon a bigger restoration site of our city town hall, a Grade I listed building completed in 1877 by the architect Alfred Waterhouse renowned for over 600 architectural works around the UK, including Strangeways Prison in Manchester and the Natural History Museum in London. The town hall is undergoing a 7-year restoration until 2024. [Wikipedia: Manchester Town Hall]

Policing our curiosity

As I read the notices on the hoardings around the site, two policemen walking towards me were sharing information about what changes were being implemented. I was reading a list of the rulers, the rich, the famous and accomplished that had visited the town hall when I suggested to them to have their names on the list.

That began a conversation about the names on the list, the history of the town hall, my discoveries during my walk around Manchester, the joy of travel and so on. We concluded travel broadens the mind out of sheer curiosity and curiosity inspires the need to travel. In something like 20 or so minutes, we had such a meeting of minds that at another time, we would have shaken hands, we didn’t.

Thought Picnic: Black Lives Should Matter Always

Are we that quick to be noticed?

Sitting at home and catching up with the news has caused me no end in distress as a black man in the UK and observing the world at large.

In these Coronavirus pandemic times, first, I read of the indication that Black, Asian and ethnic minority [BAME] people are 54% more likely to be fined for the contravention of Coronavirus laws than whites, considering we hardly make up to 15% of England and Wales population. [Guardian: BAME People Fined] [GOV.UK: Ethnic Population Distribution]

Law enforcement would contend that the distribution of fines is proportional, I would beg to differ. One can only wonder what proportionality means to them in the face of the numbers, yet, one must endeavour to keep an open mind. Whether it is over-enthusiasm or an unfortunate predilection to attract to and intimidate the BAME by the police, something does have to shift, because it does not augur well for community relations.

This is not to forget that BAME are also disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus with poorer outcomes that the government has instituted an enquiry to determine why. It is as if there is no respite in going about our business or being afflicted. The little triumphs in the overturning of some of the convictions and fines are almost worthy of celebration when they should never have happened, in the first place.

Flushing out no guns

I have once had an encounter, where on visiting a public toilet there was a SWAT raid, apparently, the coincidental presence of 4 black men in a large facility that could have 10 standing at the urinals and 4 water closet cubicles. Someone had called the police to report that one of us was in possession of a gun.

The ordeal in the early 1990s was as unsettling as it could be, we were bundled out, searched, questioned and had our details taken down. They found nothing and offered no apology. Despite their elaborate and extraordinary intervention is what amounted to a ruse, I could not obtain a record from the police at that place or after two visits to the police station as to how I was roughed up.

They basically got away ultra vires exercising untrammelled authority without accountability or consequence, we, being left hard done by. I have probably only had one encounter with the police out of maybe 5 in the UK and the Netherlands, where it has been courteous and satisfactory. Thankfully, the only thing harmed has been my pride and a knock on my self-esteem.

Being Black in America

Crossing the pond, when I first saw a video of a woman choking her dog by the collar, it was without the sound on. It was bad enough. My Twitter timeline was lit up with outrage and indignation about being ‘Black in America’. When I then returned to watch the video with the sound on, it was a woman who had been called out to put her dog on a leash as she was required to do taking umbrage to being spoken to by a black man. [BBC News: White woman called police on black man in dog row]

She then called the police on the African American feigning being violently attacked, the good fortune of it all was it being caught on video along with the police not attending the event at the time might just have let the man live another day, safe in America. What kind of providence allowed for both their surnames to be Cooper? Quite uncanny.

Black Lives Must Matter Always

As if this was not bad enough, a black man was apprehended under the influence and found sitting on the bonnet of his car. To a man inebriated, one would expect some consideration as to their incapacity and irrationality. When he was asked to step away from his car, he resisted. He was overpowered and handcuffed only for one of the policemen to kneel on his neck whilst he was in medical distress and he died. [BBC News: FBI to investigate death of black man in Minnesota after arrest]

It is like being Black in America puts you high in the list of threatened and endangered species, from those who cannot countenance the presence of black in any space to the point to a sighting of a black person is tantamount to violation of every law of humanity, a threat to existence and the need to exterminate their person. Touching on the topic of police brutality and use of excessive force leading to the violent deaths of black people, that is a plaque on America for which a remedy is yet to be found.

Things ought not to be this way, it is why movements as Black Lives Matter exist because there is a discussion we all must have about our common and diverse humanity regardless of race, the need for consideration, courtesy, respect, humility, fairness, and justice is paramount.

The case of the abusive co-passenger

A short and eventful journey

On the 18^th of December, last year, I was returning from a vanity trip to Paris to keep up my loyalty status with KLM/AirFrance. On arrival at Manchester Airport, I boarded the train for a 17-minute journey to Manchester Piccadilly Station. It was more eventful than I expected.

The coach I boarded was closest to the top of the platform and as the train was about to leave, it meant people were rushing onto the train through our coach. I could not put my bags away as other passengers were trying to get by. It meant, I had to lean over my seat, opposite me across the aisle, another passenger was leaning over his seat for the same reason.

It took a while for everyone to get through, but they all eventually did. It was at that point that my co-passenger on the other side accosted me and literally shouted in my face asking whether I would allow him to put his bags away. I ignored him because there was no reason to shout at me, but he continued being an irritant.

The abuse was a torrent

Then I answered him back, “If you want to address me, you do not shout at me.” He repeated what I said to ridicule me and then as he sat down he launched into a tirade of abuse. None of which I answered to until he got to say, “This is England,” and something along the lines that I needed to return to where I came from.

To which I responded, “I am English too.” Then another passenger adjured him to stop all that racist nonsense. Without pausing, he laid into the other passenger with torrents of unspeakable abuse. Meanwhile, someone else on the train had called the police and informed them of the ensuing altercation.

The train conductor came through, checked our tickets and then called me aside to ask about the fracas and whether I wanted to involve the police. The episode did not affect me that much, but I thought the man should not get away with such unwarranted and abusive behaviour, I acquiesced to having the police involved in the matter.

The goodly police acted well

When we arrived at Manchester Piccadilly Station, the police boarded the train, they invited me to state my case and got the offending passenger off the train, he was both shocked and surprised as they handcuffed him and took him away. I was taken to the police station where I was made comfortable, served tea and invited to give a statement.

Other passengers as we disembarked offered their names and addresses as witnesses to the episode, I felt buoyed by the support of all the other people who felt scandalised by the event. Going through the formalities, I was asked if I needed victim support, therapy and all sorts of help. I did not feel a victim even if I was shaken by the encounter and soon I was on my way home.

Charged and convicted

The man was kept in custody for the night and consequently charged with the offence of 'Racially / religiously aggravated harassment/alarm / distress by words/writing'. Apparently, as the case was being prepared, he committed another similar offence having not learnt the error of his ways.

The British Transport Police kept me informed of the developments through a liaison office, I was even invited to give a witness impact statement which I declined. Over months, a date was set for a court appeared and adjourned twice until it was completely resolved at the end of August.

The man pleaded guilty to the charges and he was fined £600 plus £100 legal costs, a chance encounter of unnecessarily boorish behaviour that he probably had gotten away with many times before had caught up with him and I am glad that I decided to allow the police to intervene, not so much for my sake, but to hopefully teach the man a lesson, that abusing strangers on a train may come with grave consequences and you never know which of those strangers could cause you avoidable grief.

That, I believe is the end of the matter, I will call the Witness & Case Officer later in the week to thank her for her help and support.

The UK: 50 Years since it was Against The Law - Consensual Homosexuality

Sometime ago

50 years ago, today, Sexual Offences Act 1967 received royal assent, bringing into law the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between men in private, as long as they had attained the age of 21.

I was born at a time of interesting changes in society when the worst form of abuse you could throw at anyone was the phrase, “You’re a bugger.” It carried the weight of disdain, disgust, condemnation and disgrace, there was no particular understanding of homosexuality apart from misconceptions that fed the idea they were acting against the law of nature, they were evil, they were paedophiles and possibly worse.

Yet, it was rarely the case that to that point in time, people who found themselves to be bequeathed with the burden of homosexuality were inclined to be anything but normal law-abiding human beings. Only that the law through moralisation and sententiousness or just the need to find those to persecute criminalised the nature of people who happened to be different.

Against the law

13 years before this, Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning having been persecuted by the system for his sexuality, one of the pioneering brains of the computing age and to whom some of the successes to breaking the Nazi Germany encryption codes presaging the end of WWII is attributed. His profile saved him from jail, but it did not save him from the system that literally ruined him.

However, in all this, I celebrate three men, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Peter Wildeblood and Michael Pitt-Rivers who were charged and convicted in 1954 for conspiracy to incite certain male persons to commit serious offences with male persons" (or "buggery"), for which they went to jail.

Despite the sensationalism of what became known as the Montagu Trial, Lord Montagu admitted to being bisexual and Peter Wildeblood was first to publicly admit his homosexuality. The police were involved in a widespread clampdown on homosexuality even acting as agent provocateurs to entrap unsuspecting homosexuals for a prosecution that there were at least 1,000 men sent to prison yearly for being homosexual in the 1950s.

Against bad law

The way the prosecution and trial was conducted led to an inquiry which submitted the Wolfenden Report in 1967 suggesting consensual homosexual acts between adults be decriminalised. 14 out of 15 members of this inquiry agreed to this.

Peter Wildeblood wrote about the trial in his book, Against The Law: The Classic Account of a Homosexual in 1950s Britain, which was adapted for television and shown last night. [BBC Two]

Finding myself different

I began to realise my own same sex attraction from around the age of 7, just about the time that I had my first sexual encounter with a much older girl who was twice my age. I did not know or understand what happened between us, but I know I was taken into the toilet, told to pull down my shorts and instructed to put my thing in her thing.

How that impacted my sense of sexuality, I would never know, but in that singular event, I lost my innocence and became sexualised. In the following years up to the time I was 10, I suppose male servants seeking a sexual outlet found easy prey in me, to which I somewhat acquiesced, none the wiser about what it meant.

In fear and loathing

Through secondary boarding school, there was a fondle, some frottage and consequently lots of fellatio with one friend who assuredly was not homosexual. In fact, I met no homosexuals in any sense in school, or at least never knew of any until I saw some of my schoolmates in the UK.

By my late teens, I was in great conflict between understanding my sexuality and embracing spirituality, I could never square the situation of being naturally attracted to men and yet feeling condemned for what I did not choose as a matter of cause or course.

Meanwhile, I found amenable and willing partners for sexual expression into my twenties. On one occasion, we were caught in the act and literally blackmailed into complying with some norms. At the eve of my departure from Nigeria, one such liaison had revealed the tryst to another party and they both schemed to blackmail me, I refused to budge, told them to do their worst as I was also about to leave Nigeria.

The journey to accepting myself

By then, I had become aware that there were much more people like me, even if I did not know where to meet them. Back in the UK, I sought out men like me, I found a bar in the West-End called the Brief Encounter, now defunct, and from the moment I stepped into the bar, I began to the journey to the acceptance of who I was.

There were still many battles to fight for being homosexual in 1990, the police still found opportunity to harass, coming out had grave consequences for life and well-being, Justin Fashanu had just come out as gay and there was a great backlash, gays were being queer-bashed without finding any recourse or redress, discrimination was tolerated everywhere against homosexuals with homophobia expressed from politics to pulpit without sanction, we existed in an underclass of secrecy finding community in minority and the persecuted.

We were also in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, I watched friends and acquaintances grab each day as it came, them wasting away until they expired. It was scary, then there was Section 28 enacted in 1988, which stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship." That’s Russia today and worse.

We’ve come a long way

Within this period, I found companionship and love, great tolerance and understand at work where my managers protected me from abuse from colleagues and much else. Many never understood homosexuality but accepted we existed and respected us for who we were. Our sexuality and sexual preferences do not define us, we are first human beings and there is much to us than labels.

In the West, in 50 years, we have come a long way, equality is the norm, discrimination is condemned, expression is free, gay marriage is legal in many countries, we’ve had gay heads of government in Iceland and Belgium, and currently in Luxembourg, Ireland and Serbia, coming out is not such a big deal anymore.

The spectre of AIDS that strafed the gay community is not so much the sentence of death it was some 20 or 30 years ago, because of new treatments that limit the debilitating effects of HIV.

Many battles remain

Yet, there is much to do for gay minorities, to tackle sexuality and status stigma, to address homophobic laws gaining traction in other countries where gays are abused, persecuted, prosecuted and murdered, just for being who they are.

Many are caught in that morass of being against the law – of nature to some when that is what they naturally are. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder, it is part of our humanity and human nature, but the journey to accepting, tolerating and respecting our varied and diverse humanity is still a long one.

Today, I must celebrate that where I live, my homosexuality is not against the law.

Dear Sergeant Adebisi of Ajiwe Ajah Police Station, please do your job

Dear Sergeant Adebisi,

I am writing to you to appeal to your good nature, your sense of duty, and your commitment as a police officer to public service to rise to the challenge of doing your job.

On the night of the 23^rd of May 2017, my sister and brother-in-law were burgled, or to use an Americanism, they were burglarized by armed robbers. My brother-in-law in the encounter received head wounds that needed immediate hospital treatment and amongst the things stolen were electronic goods, phones and wallets containing bank cards. I reference the crime in the link below:

Appeal: My sister and her husband are being terrorised by an armed robber gang

This would have been the standard-issue armed robbery in Nigeria that rarely takes up police resources, but we have something to work on here. In the morning of the 24^th of May 2017, between 5:57 AM and 7:47 AM, 5 money transactions were made from my brother-in-law’s account with the Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank) to a recipient account with the Fidelity Bank; that recipient account belonged to Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema.

This is where your duty as a policeman begins to matter to matter to Nigerians along with the training you received and the experience that has elevated you to the rank of sergeant with the opportunity for more laurels.

• Who is Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema?
• How did Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema’s account come to be the recipient of unauthorised fund transfers a few hours after an armed robbery?
• Could Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema be in cahoots with the armed robbers or is he under duress to have his account used for laundering proceeds of crime?
• Why is Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema not being apprehended for questioning, maybe interrogation and possibly held for conspiracy in committing an armed robbery?
• Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema is the only link to the armed robbers and at the very least should be made to return the sums of money transferred to his account back to my brother-in-law’s account.
• Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema should be eliminated from being a person of interest with regards to the armed robbery, but that requires he be questioned and the stolen money returned at the very least.

As you can see, this is all police work, not what you or anyone would expect civilians to do. This matter is complicated by the fact that my sister after much agitation was able to get GT Bank to correspond with Fidelity Bank, the result being Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema’s account was restricted, but the funds have not yet been transferred back to my brother-in-law’s account.

When Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema’s account was restricted, the armed robbers returned to terrorise my sister, my brother-in-law and their neighbours. We were lucky no one came to any harm because as the armed robbers were trying to gain access to their building, everyone was alerted and so my people escaped harm.

Not only have my people (my sister and brother-in-law) lost things, he was wounded and had to be operated on twice, they have their money stolen and locked away in an account owing to inertia on your part and that of the banks and they have been so terrified of reprisal attacks from the armed robbers that they have been rendered homeless, just 8 months into their marriage.

I have it on good authority that you had to be persuaded by more senior officers to be interested in investigating this crime, yet for one reason or another 5 weeks after the armed robbery, we are nowhere near any resolution, in apprehending the link person Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema, in returning the stolen money or even retrieving the stolen goods.

The devastating impact on the lives of my sister, my brother-in-law and their neighbours is one that every reasonable person would expect that you are the senior police officer in their locality to be concerned about, but you have been scolding them for seeking justice and going above your head to encourage you to do your job. It is an unfortunate reading of events that are within your power to remediate.

I would think you want an easy life and this looks like an easy crime to resolve if you can rise to that challenge.

So, Sergeant Adebisi of Nigeria Police Force Office in Area A, Ajiwe Ajah Road, Lekki Expressway, I appeal to you once again, please for the sake of your reputation and the reputation of the Nigeria Police Force, get engaged, get involved and help resolve this matter. You have the details, you have the evidence of a crime having been committed, perish the thought that an inducement is required to do your job from the victims of crimes or worse still that anyone in your office is in cahoots with Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema or the armed robbers.

Obviously, there is an alternative, if you are not interested in being a policeman, you can offer your resignation and allow others with a bit more enthusiasm in police work and bringing a sense of professionalism to the police force to take your place. Any well-meaning Nigerian would applaud the solving of crimes, most especially ones where the evidence is handed to the police on a plate.

Sergeant Adebisi, the ball is in your court.

Thank you for your kind consideration of my appeal and I look forward to the opportunity to celebrate your work as a policeman.

Yours sincerely,

Akin Akintayo (Brother and brother-in-law of the victims of crime in your area of influence.)

Appearing for the defendant, Dammy Krane - A sketch

The boy living large

Until he made the headlines a few weeks ago, I had no idea who Dammy Krane was and I have not yet ventured a listening to his brand of entertainment. What I have been able to glean about him is, he is a somewhat successful musician.

Dammy Krane, born Oyindamola Johnson Emmanuel is 25 and he apparently got a record deal at 20 but is not the reason for my blog today.

On the 2^nd of June 2017, Dammy Krane was arrested in Miami, Florida for having booked private jets with stolen credit cards, the company that was about to be defrauded then alerted the law and when they were about to board the flight of luxury, he was nabbed along with a Chukwuebuka Ilochonwu who apparently has an existing rap sheet of fraudulent activity.

He’s on the money

Now, Dammy Krane has protested his innocence and in keeping an open mind, I probably should hear him out. He released a YouTube video apologising for being caught up in this mess and thanked all who have supported him through this rotten ordeal.

Now, Opa-Locka to the Miami International Airport (MIA) is just a 15-minute Uber ride costing about $20 and from MIA to Washington DC flying American Airlines one-way and non-stop is 2:37 hours at a cost of $82. Dammy Krane’s preferred mode of travel would have set him back $10,943, if he had the money in the bank, I cannot begrudge how he spends his hard-earned money.

We need to develop an urgency of the mentality to tailor our need to show-off to the honestly acquired resources we have to dispose of, you do not have to apologise for being a hedonist given to crude and ostentatious displays of wealth in the vulgar assertion of your manhood. Everyman has a right to be highly fed and lowly taught.

The trouble I saw

However, I know how on my decision to resettle in the UK in 1990, Danny Krane wasn’t even born then. Some Nigerians here before me had crashed the reserve of trust in Nigerians that you had to try twice as hard to be accepted as honest, truthful, qualified and able, all because of credit card fraud activities by people that included one of my close friends from secondary school.

He went to prison for it and when he qualified as a lawyer, that blot on his record meant he could never practice law in the UK. He eventually had to return to Nigeria waving as it were, a clean slate and bill of honesty and integrity.

You’re in deep shit, boy

However, Dammy Krane seems to have some explaining to do, because news reaching us suggests seven stolen credit cards were found in his pants (trouser) pockets, or more directly his wallet. Whilst this presents some difficulty, I offer myself in service for the defence with a number of questions I believe if answered accordingly might well exonerate Dammy Krane from this sordid affair. [Miami New Times]

I would think using the airport baggage check-in protocols, Dammy Krane only has to affirm, deny or plead ignorance to create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that he is being unjustly persecuted and prosecuted.

In court

Me: If it may please your lordship, I am appearing for the defendant who is in the dock and I am here to prove that he had nothing to do with this criminal activity.

Me: [Looking towards Dammy Krane] Mr. Dammy Krane, can I call you Dammy?

Dammy Krane (DK): That is fine by me.

Me: Thank you. Now, tell the court, does the wallet belong to you?

DK: I think so, it looks like one I bought for $15,000 a few months ago.

[The court gasps, but I move on swiftly]

Me: Do you recognise any of the contents of the wallet?

DK: The dollar bills and the platinum credit cards are mine, those other ones with strange names I have no idea of.

Me: One would assume you would know all the contents of your wallet, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and I hope the jury would too. Did you at any time leave your wallet unattended where it could have been interfered with?

DK: That is quite possible, my agent usually does all my business transactions and bookings, however, since I was going up to Washington D.C. for a few days, I picked it up from the ivory table in my penthouse suite on the morning of our travel none the wiser about it.

Me: Did you at any time put any of the said stolen credit cards in your wallet, maybe not the seven, but at least one of them?

DK: I do not recall doing any such thing.

Me: Are you saying you did not notice your wallet was a bit weightier than before?

DK: Music is my passion, I don’t do much on the money side of things, that is what I have an agent for.

Me: So, tell the court who booked the Tap-Jets flight to Washington D.C. from Opa-Locka.

DK: I think my agent did, I am not sure if he asked for my wallet, but when I was leaving my penthouse suite, I was under the impression that everything was sorted.

Me: I recall Tap-Jets did ask that you present an alternative payment option because they had issues with your card. What happened there?

DK: I simply thought they had misheard the credit card details so I just read out the details of another card and they did not say anything to me that the transaction did not go through.

Me: Now, that is interesting, you mean they accepted your booking, sent you a confirmation and then ensnared you with a police bust at the airport?

DK: Yes, that is the case, I am still quivering at their underhand tactics, all they should done was tell me they had issues with my payment and I would have made good the arrangement. I am not that kind of person, I was brought up in a God-fearing home where my parents imbibed in me the dint of hard work, honesty, integrity, and responsibility. I would never have been involved in this racket, I am a successful musician with a thriving career.

Me: Indeed, I see that, it is so unfortunate that you have been a victim of entrapment by unscrupulous businesses as Tap-Jets. That will be all for now.

DK: Thank you.

Judge: The defendant may step down and the court is adjourned until 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

Postscript

In view of my questions, how would there not be some reasonable doubt as to Dammy Krane’s culpability in this criminal enterprise?.

It would take a Houdini of an attorney acting out a Wallender tight-rope walk over the Niagara Falls in a Force 10 gale to get Dammy Krane off the indictments against him.

Seriously, who does Dammy Krane think he is fooling?

The plot thickens …

Appeal: My sister and her husband are being terrorised by an armed robber gang

My people robbed

On the night of the 23^rd of May 2017, my sister and brother-in-law were brutally attacked at home by armed robbers, he was inflicted with head injuries and the bandits made away with their mobile phones, her laptop which contained her PhD programme activities, her glasses, their bank cards and identity cards.

The thieves or an accomplice of theirs then raided my brother-in-law’s bank account and the money was transferred to a beneficiary account number (6018594851) with Fidelity Bank belonging to a Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema, this apparently happened between 5:57 AM and 7:47 AM on the 24^th of May 2017.

They are terrorising them

My sister and brother-in-law on finding that moneys had been transferred out the account, informed their bank and a block was placed on the account of the beneficiary. Since then, the robbers returned and my family was saved because they were sighted at the point of breaking in again, but they are terrorising my family and that is just unacceptable.

Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema needs to be picked up and interrogated to reveal who his actors and accomplices are to stop terrorising my sister and my brother-in-law. They are living in constant fear away from home and other places where their identities might compromise them, terrorised by criminals who have been thwarted in their atrocious enterprise.

Stop this lawlessness

This is lawlessness that cannot be allowed to continue any longer and I appeal to anyone who can initiate, expedite and help apprehend these people to save not just my sister and brother-in-law, but anyone else from being terrorised by this brigandage of menace.

The key person is Izuka Chukwuemeka Onyema, his account number 6018594851 with Fidelity Bank should have other pertinent details as his photograph and address where he can either be picked up or the investigation that start to build a picture of his contacts towards stopping this criminality once and for all.

Obviously, in nabbing this man, it is also possible that lots of stolen property can be retrieved and hopefully returned to their rightful owners.

Help me nab them

Now, this touches me more because, my sister and brother-in-law are newlyweds, who just started a new home, it is only over 7 months ago that we lost our baby sister. My brother-in-law is recovering, but they both need to be back safe in their home without being fearful of armed robbery reprisals.

My appeal is to the good offices of the law and process to get these criminals off the streets and allow the citizenry live their lives in peace and happiness.

As with most things Nigerian, we are left to do our own do-it-yourself detective footwork and investigations, the police have been redolent and nonchalant even with the evidence we already have to hand. The only alternative left is to drive a social media campaign in the hope that a resolution is possible. It is my hope that you will be engaged, interested and help bring these criminals to justice. Thank you.

Berlin: Pictures that tell other stories

Bottling money

Germany has a way with issues and one I have observed and only just captured a good picture of is the consequence of the Container Deposit Legislation.

Anytime there is a big outdoor event there are people with bags or suitcases, sometimes on foot or wheeling bicycles or even with supermarket trolleys collecting containers.

These are for single use containers as cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles, the empty bottles cost €0.25 each at the returns point and all affected containers are labelled pfand.

What makes this legislation quite bizarre is a black market created by reason of people not necessarily caring about returning their containers to reclaim their pfand deposits. At first, people had to return the containers to their original point-of-purchase; that was eventually eased for them to be returned to any place where the refunds can be made.

So, picking on bottles, riffling through bins and at night peering in with a torchlight, collectors have made a trade that could yield a free €25 for 100 bottles and when a festival is in town, beyond the jostling for the bottle when there is competition, it could be a health sum in these hard times.

The police are your friends

In the past 12 years, I think I attended every Berlin CSD bar one, besides Berlin in June being warm, sunny and fun, there are too many museums to visit, old friends to meet, decent Nigerian restaurants to visit, the main one for me being Ebe-Ano after Fifty-Fifty closed early last year.

Ebe-Ano is central too and quite easy to get to. Ebe Ano, Pohlstraße 52, D-10785 Berlin, +49 30 609 69 627.

However, what is more striking about CSD parades is the presence of the police who act as bookends to the march, in their cars and as outriders before the street sweepers take up the rear cleaning up as if nothing happened.

The Landespolizei are your friends even though they man war-like tanks on football match days and can be quite fierce looking, armed to the teeth, they are rarely, at least not to my knowledge even found in acts of abuse of power as the Sichersheitdienst (SD) or Gestapo of the Nazi era were wont to demonstrate.

The right to be protected

In many other countries, especially to the East of Germany, the police would probably be testing the strength of their truncheons and their preparedness for riot management on demonstrations of great diversity as a Pride march. Here in Berlin, major arteries of traffic and business roads are closed off for the safe celebration of the CSD.

It is not only a celebration of our diverse humanity, but it sounds out the voice of acceptance and the community that Gay Rights are Human Rights too.

Along with the crowds that gather to watch the parades, most of whom are straight with generations of their families, a society at ease with all that inhabit it regardless of persuasion is one destined to thrive.

For many other countries where the state apparatus is used to harass and persecute those that are different, in that picture is a long story from oppression and extermination in the Nazi Concentration Camps to respectful and celebratory co-existence – that is civilisation.

Not just a manhole cover

I could remember when we moved to our new home in Isolo, Lagos in September 1980, the grills on the gutters of the main road were made in Kaiserlautern, Germany.

Nothing could be so distant from the heartland of Nigeria than to have products of other countries cover the dregs and waste of our people, a significant story of what has always been the unrealised potential of Nigeria. The tragedy of our steel industry is best left untold.

Yet, after all these years of visiting Berlin, I looked down at a manhole cover and noticed there was something quite significant about it.

It was no ordinary lid covering the waterworks distribution infrastructure, but a celebration of the City of Berlin with images of the major Berlin landmarks as the Brandenburg Gate, the Fernsehturm at Alexanderplatz, the Reichstag parliament building, the Siegessäule (Victory Column) and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church of the structures I can recognise.

All of these places are worth a visit when in Berlin amongst other historic places that represent ancient, imperial, Nazi, post-War and united Berlin. They even had an exhibition of manhole covers in 2011.

Just one of the many quirky things that one sees, innocuous but still significant. I love Berlin.

Nigeria: No Country for Vulnerable Children

The regularity is inuring

Pastor accused of raping 12-year-old girl, I have read too many headlines like this in Nigerian newspapers that I have no more bothered to read the story, as if it is so commonplace, I am almost dangerously inured to it.

Something about this story was striking, in fact, too many things in this story meant a good 12 hours after reading it, I had this nagging feeling that I had to comment on the issue.

A vulnerable young girl had been brought over from the village, vulnerable in the sense that she was only two weeks in the city, she could speak neither the local language nor English and she was staying with her aunt besides the fact that she was just 12.

That a 12-year old could not speak a word of English in Nigeria in 2012 is the subject of another day, but it calls for serious discussion.

Groomed and raped

This was an Igbo girl in Yorubaland and besides her aunt, there was this neighbour, a Pastor who apparently is Yoruba who could also speak Igbo and so the conversation started where the Pastor began grooming the girl, lured her into the detached communal toilet, covered her mouth and raped her; by first sodomising her and then taking away her virginity.

Her aunt almost caught them in the act and upon inquiring of the girl, she learnt of what had happened and apparently immediately rushed the girl to hospital where she was examined and it was found that she had bruises to both her anal and virginal regions with sperm residue found in the vagina.

A victim to exculpate the criminal

The Pastor had however fled and in the process commenced an unconscionable damage limitation exercise that included stigmatising a vulnerable 6-year old girl who was labelled a witch by his church members; she was brutalised and paraded in public having been accused of bewitching the Pastor leading to his helplessly falling prey to being a rapist. This is no sarcasm; this is what the people really did believe.

This poor 6-year old girl was then left under the exorcist ministry of this rotten paedophile to be delivered of her witchcraft powers – the tale reads like a Steven King horror novel, only that there are real victims involved.

Interminable days

Meanwhile, it took two days after the rape of that child for her aunt to report the crime to the police and it took another two days for the Pastor to be apprehended. A couple of days later, the Pastor was released without charge into the community as if absolved because the courts were not in session to charge the man with any offence.

In fact, the charges were dropped by the police as they are wont to in cases like this, the most the perpetrator suffers is the demand that he defrays the hospital costs of the victim and the rotten paedophile is granted bail to return to the scene of the crime amongst other vulnerable persons where he can intimidate the witnesses and pervert the course of justice.

Now, the police are taking the heat for their lackadaisical attitude to this heinous paedophile criminality that they have suggested when the courts are back in session the paedophile pastor will be charged.

The dread of Syncretism

The spokesperson for the state police command is Ngozi Braide, a lady and I cannot say if she is a mother too, who was filled with as much indignation and rage as to acknowledge that the girl was raped and concluded with - “The pastor is in charge of a white garment church in the area. He will be charged with sodomy. He was released on bail because courts are not sitting but once courts resume, he will be charged.” Really? Just sodomy?

Herein is the big problem, African-initiated white garment churches have a brand of Syncretism that melds elements of animist and Shamanist belief systems with Christianity and it derives most of its doctrinal teachings from the Pentateuch, reciting the Psalms with the fieriness of people under altered states of consciousness, given to mass hysteria whilst believing in demonic possession, witchcraft and voodoo relieving people of their free moral agency.

The unpalatable sway the leaders of these sects hold over the community literally gives them criminal impunity and even in the face of compelling evidence, they are able to operate outside the ambit of the law for the fact that people fear them and whatever powers they might abuse to extricate themselves from criminal sanction.

We are embarrassed

The society at large is scandalised and embarrassed by incidents of paedophile criminality that they will rather sweep the matter under the carpet than agitate to have it prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The victims however receive no psychological help beyond medical examination to prove that the child has been violated and medical establishments do not take on the social responsibility burden of addressing the long term consequences of the sexual violation of minorities, we generally assume time eventually heals the pain and wipes out the memories of such events from the mind of the child.

Witchcraft stigmatisation

The poor child who was stigmatised as a witch might probably have had learning difficulties which the illiterate and ignorant may not understand, these helpless children especially if orphaned are ready brutalisation fodder for unscrupulously rotten religious leaders to mesmerise their flock into believing incredibly atrocious tales.

Injustice is compounded by evil under the guise of religion leaving child victims in their wake as if this is no country for children.

A grave injustice lingers

We need to re-school ourselves and begin to give the vulnerable a voice, the cause for justice for the victim must be paramount and above all allegiances no matter how deep – when a child is raped or stigmatised, it must become a compelling priority to see to it that all perpetrators, conspirators and accessories to that criminality are corralled and charged accordingly to ensure no other children suffer at the hands of these purveyors of reprehensible evil.

We can no more pretend that child sexual abuse does not occur amongst us and we should not be embarrassed to expose all those who tolerate it amongst us.

At the same time, we should be discerning of the fact that when a child is stigmatised as a witch, it is usually a distraction from other unspeakable evils and a smokescreen for contemptible deeds.

No child should ever be sacrificed on the altar of any belief system, no good can come out of brutalising the child either to save it or the community within which it lives, our dread for the supernatural must stop long before a hand is lifted against the child and reason prevail always.

It is time for children to feel safer in Nigeria.

#ABSURape: It is now justice or bust on Social Media

They walked

I should have gone to bed but after reading the news story that the police were of the opinion that the ABSU gang rape (Twitter hashtag #ABSURape) victim agreed to be raped [1]; all gloves had to come off.

On the 5^th of October 2011, walks to protest the #ABSURape were organised to take place in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, Abuja and Lagos, the walks were seriously militated against by the Abia State government with radio jingles advising people not to support the initiative, the walkers were then briefly harassed by the security services.

In Abuja, the walkers got to meet certain ministry officials though much was done to prevent it from happening but in Lagos, they did walk to the Abia State Liaison Office where forceful representations were made on this matter.

My reports of these walks were gleaned from postings made on Twitter, other participants can provide more detailed information about what they experienced, we have to address a more serious burning issue.

So, he watched that DVD

The Abia State Police Command has apparently suspended investigations into the gang rape with the view that the girl victim consented to the rape.

Now, I find it impossible to get it round my little head from what has been reported by those who have viewed that video that the said victim was looking forward to a sex orgy by any stretch of the imagination.

A J. G. Micloth who is the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of the state’s Criminal Investigation Department said he watched the DVD “tape” sent to him and could not see the young lady resisting the rape.

In trying to exculpate the police from taking any responsibility for solving the crime, he suggested the suspects could not be identified from the legs amongst the possible 70 million Nigerian males, which is fair enough.

Some serious questions

However, in the next statement there is a clear abdication of responsibility and a default to the tolerance if not the condoning of sexual violence when he first said, “gang rape is often videoed as a tool by under-graduate boys to rubbish the self-esteem of snobbish girls.”

The questions that arise from that statement are:

So the police recognise gang rape as a tool and are unconcerned about it?

Is mutual consent not required for the recording of any sexual activity?

Do girls have no right to be snobbish and deny advances from boys they are not interested in and be protected from such menace?

When did our society degenerate to the level that such activity by undergraduate boys had become the norm that the police did not care that it happened?

How can a policeman of such a high-ranking utter such statements without any consequence?

Is there a definition of rape in Nigeria?

Then he went on to say, “even if the lady had not consented,” which introduces the suspicion of rape that the policeman had turned into a triviality with the flippant nature of his comment.

He then figured, “that she was a girlfriend to one of the cultists and must have probably cheated on him and when queried ‘insulted’ the boy hence he probably assembled a gang to teach her the lesson of her life.”

So, without any proof whatsoever, he had come to the conclusion that the end of teaching her the lesson of her life had been justified because her supposed boyfriend had been insulted when he questioned her about a possible allegation of cheating on him.

Reviewing the statements together, the policemen has decided that even without consent, but for the sake of teaching her a lesson, it was not rape.

It really beggars belief that it is no more law enforcement working through the proper legal process of aggrievement or crime, investigation, arraignment, adjudication and punishment that in the words of the policeman, teaches “the lesson of [his/]her life” but as it were, jilted undergraduate Nigerian men can take the law into their own hands with impunity, rape women with no consequence and find support from the police that the supposed victim was having a nice time.

A rotten investigation

Now, obviously, the names that have before appeared in the media have been said not to belong to the alleged rapists but innocent persons who were helping researchers ascertain who the victim was and hopefully elicit who the rapists were too.

The police however contend that they have combed the records of the university and visited the supposed locations of the gang rape act and concluded there were no such students at the university.

The only respite in this sordidly unbelievable tale is that the police have offered NGN 500,000 as a reward leading to the arrest of the culprits; this I believe will be augmented with the NGN 200,000 stumped up in the name of the Enough is Enough Organisation.

In all, we have to recognise that the university, the government and the police have from the onset been more than reluctant to take on this case, in fact, they have been hoping that the clamour for justice will wane over time as they twiddled their thumbs in denial and indifference.

There are no words to describe the view of the governor of the state when he suggested the rape video was staged by his political detractors to discredit him and his government; it plumbs the depths of inhumanity that will give the devil second place that no compassion has been shown towards the victim apart from the desperate attempts to close down this heinous crime wishing any remembrance of it will not go away.

Social media activism is it

Once again, we need to redouble our efforts on every forum and by every means to get these men and much as we would hate for the victim to have to relive the ordeal she went through, no justice is served for her or the impunity to commit other crimes if information cannot be coaxed to apprehend them and have them severely punished.

It goes without saying that one’s confidence in the Abia State Police Command to pursue this investigation to a conclusion is lacking, they are prejudiced if not voyeuristically pleasured by the DVD than to see what their duty to society is and it is appalling that such can represent law enforcement even in the dungeons of the harshest cruelty in this whole wide world.

It would appear the Situation Room for this crime returns once again to social media where injustices might well be compounded but everything and I dare say anything must be done to apprehend those cockroaches – this #ABSURape must not go unpunished and by God let it be those 5 men and none else.

As for those who condemned the social media activism as tabloid stupidity, they had better come off their high horses and sanctimonious disavowal with some constructive ideas as to how to help the victim and apprehend the culprits; enough of playing smart, carping from the side-lines with feigned righteous indignation.

Source

[1] ABSU gang rape: Victim agreed to be raped – Police | Vanguard