I have been inundated with calls and messages about my seeming silence on the serious issues that bother our nation. Some of my Readers and Followers guessed that I may have been indisposed on account of health, as true as that is, even more worrisome is the dearth of conscience and the death of sound values on our national fabric. Mayday!
Our collective canvas stinks, it stinks to high heavens that Herod and Herodias will pass for Saints. It stinks so badly that Pontius Pilate would pass his verdict on the Christ without the luxury of washing his hands clean, or better still atoning for his wrong. Our Socio-political kaleidoscope is vile and vain, and the Judiciary Crimson red soiled with the blood of the innocent. It is justice for hire everywhere, nay justice for the highest bidder, need I call it the Temple of Injustice? Mayday!
Where Rot Rules, Right Is Ruined
A sage once opined that where vile and evil men hold sway those who repudiate evil are endangered. I’m compelled for emphasis to reproduce the quote verbatim. It was Edward Snowden who said, “When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.” Does this quote speak to the Dele Farotimi ordeal? Does it capture the effort by the vile to stifle free Press? Does it speak to the now trending issues on Criminal Defamation and libel? Dem want make we nor talk again, which side!!! They can’t win. Mayday!
I hear that beyond the hoopla about Criminal Defamation and the shambolic arrest, arraignment and remand of Citizen Farotimi in the Correctional Facility (Prison) in Ado-Ekiti with the imprimatur of Chief Afe Babalola SAN, that some Lawyers who felt defamed by Farotimi in his Book NIGERIA AND ITS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM are fanning the embers of War. I hear that one is asking for 500m damages. Why are they all suddenly alive and woke now that Dele Farotimi is restrained, confined and cannot speak directly to the world about the Truth he has written in his book. Do they conceivably think that Farotimi will not have his day in the Court of Law, and in the Court of Public Opinion? Na lie dem dey lie. We shall speak on his behalf until he is free to speak for himself, and even when he is free, because he will surely come through this stronger and better, we shall continue to shout and cry Mayday, yes, our Country is in trouble, so much trouble that Thinkers and Fixers are needed Urgently.
To those whose ambivalence and indecision are deafening because they are scared to speak out for fear of being called out as having defamed ‘a big-man’, your cowardice is reprehensible. To those who nurse some bias against the courage and effrontery of Citizen Dele Farotimi, your fears will most definitely be interred with your bones, for the slave only comes free through a fight. To those seeking to colour Dele Farotimi bad because he dared to tread where Angels dread, his legacy shall outlive y’all. I shall speak for Dele, I am speaking for Dele and will continue to Speak for Dele, and the many citizens of our Country who across the many Correctional Facilities in this nation are awaiting trial for no verifiable crime, and who a ‘Strong-man’ or ‘Big-man’ has vowed to bend the law against. We are not a Banana Republic where Judocracy is right, we are a society that must be governed by law and due process. Mayday!
If you are moralizing about the weight of the thoughts expressed by Citizen Farotimi in his Book, thoughts that are yet to be proven wrong, why not also moralize about the Gestapo style arrest, the hurried journey to Ekiti, the quick arraignment and the kamikaze remand of Dele Farotimi in Prison, does it not speak to the compromise and the filthiness of our Criminal Justice System? What about placing him in handcuffs like a common criminal? What about the Magistrate Court returning him to Prison even when a Federal High Court had granted him bail, should the Magistrate Court not have followed suit the difference in the matter before it notwithstanding. Or was the force of the Puppeteer so much that the Puppet must follow through with the instructions given. Are the Big and the Strong men not completely validating the thoughts that Dele expressed in his Book? Mayday!
In his 1845 Poem The Present Crisis, James Russell Lowell captured the times before us. He captured the duel between truth and falsehood. And placed a verdict, one so true and eternal that I must reproduce that verdict here and now. “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future. Behind the dim unknown stands God, within the shadow keeping watch above his own”. To Citizen Dele Farotimi and the many victims of the wrong/falsehood on the throne, I bring great words, the truth on the scaffold shall most definitely have the last laugh.
Countrymen and women, in the very end we shall win the victory set before us, for nothing is truer in God’s world than the ultimate victory of good over evil, of truth over falsehood, of light over darkness, and of love over hate. No matter how vicious and wicked the plot of those who do not want a Country that works for all, the universe stands tall for those who are ready, willing and able to fight for, and to die for a New Deal and a New Dawn, if need be. I must therefore salute all those who have taken side with the oppressed, who are calling out for freedom, and who have not elected the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. To y’all I say keep the faith and your belief going, knowing that sooner rather than later we shall rework the fabrics of this nation, and berth and birth a nation governed by Law, where justice is for all, and not for the highest bidder. Such is the Spirit of my MayDay Call.
And to the onlookers out there, I must remind you that History will be unkind to you for not taking the decision to fight on the side of right and justice. As I come to the conclusion of this piece, a sage once opined that ‘History will forgive you for taking a wrong decision BUT History will not forgive you for not taking a decision”, and my Mentor Martin Luther King Jr. put it more succinctly in the following quotes, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal”, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”, “We will have to repent in this generation, not only for the evil words and deeds of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”, and lastly that great Preacher from Atlanta, Georgia, Rev Martin Luther King Jr. again delivers a pungent punchline, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”. We must therefore rise up to be counted in the league of those who stood up against injustice, and amongst those who cried out and fought for a just and egalitarian society. Mayday!
May God Bless Nigeria.
Prof Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr.
Convener COUNTRYFIRST MOVT, A Good Governance Advocacy Group.
