Like Tafa, I’m In Chains, Too

 

 

There are many reasons I don’t wear necklace. One, it’s a chain. Two, I can’t afford an expensive one – like Tafa’s N12 billion worth of silver hand-rings. 

 

Well, it’s not exactly like that. I already have chains around my neck, waist, head, legs, wrists, etc. Chains of poverty, incessant fuel price hikes, insecurity, dependents,  and even my wife’s demands. Invisible chains against my will. Chains that could easily consume the “willpower” – including Will Smith.  But, invisible chains or not, I like to feel free – at least physically. So, I “dashed” my cheap wedding ring to my wife as a birthday gift. 

 

Necklace, ring or handcuff denote one thing – restraint. They mark you out as a “no go area.” Kind of he/she-belongs-to-me thing. Are you still wondering why women appear very happy each time they “cage” a man with a wedding ring? Still, the ornaments mark you out for attack,  either by the “area boys” or robbers. And, if they’re as big as Tafa’s “hand-ring,”  you’re condemned before judgment. 

 

Still, some people as so funny that they even arrest goats and handcuff them. Check out Ayo  Fayose, the Ekiti State governor. He led a team of his Environment Ministry officials, recently, and arrested even his grandmother’s “straying” goats. When the number rose to 200, they planned an “Isi-ewu” party – to keep the state clean. Well, an unreliable source said the goats were auctioned, in Tafa’s kind of handcuffs.

 

Before Balogun, the “banker,” somebody with a similar name headed our Police Force. In his days, innocent citizens, almost on daily bases, were arrested and put on handcuffs, on the streets. It didn’t matter that they only stole meat from mama’s soup. And even if they ended up with the Wabara/Osuji face-saving denials and lame threats, handcuff is humiliating. Oh, a footnote. Adolphus Wabara was once Nigeria’s dull Senate President. Professor Osuji, the naïve “bribe giver,” was the Education minister. Both went swimming in a large sea called “N55m bribe.” They drowned, after fighting Obasanjo’s wave named “anti- corruption.”.They fought long for air, but the tide was too mad to stop. 

 

By the way, I heard some women are planning a protest march to Aso Rock. Many of them, who are “aunties,” I’m told, claim they have been “exposed to public ridicule”  - not only by Obasanjo, but by Mobolaji Osomo, the sacked Housing minister. Co-defendants  in a case the women are reportedly planning include: Adolphus Wabara, Tafa Balogun aka Mustapha Adebayo, Fabian Osuji, Chris Adighije and all the stealing members of the National Assembly. 

 

The planned protest march, I’m told, is because every time Nigerians mention “anti-corruption,” the “aunties” are bombarded with questions by their nieces and nephews.

Nephew: Aunty, I heard you people have a body called Association of Angry Aunties. Well, do you have a member called Corruption? My teacher said Obasanjo has problem with her. This is how he put it: ‘Obasanjo is fighting Anti-Corruption’.

Aunty: We would soon sue Obasanjo to a court headed by Stella, after all, her family bought almost all the property Osomo sold. Oh! That Osomo was actually a “sell-out”. She sold out all the houses. I heard she even used it to woo Donald Duke, whose tender wasn’t even considered. 

 

Tafa’s chain is a lesson in power. Today’s servants could be tomorrow’s masters. Ehindero, Tafa’s boy, chained his oga. But, how good is Ehindero as a student of history? Oh, it doesn’t really matter. I know he read Law and not History. But, hey, didn’t Abacha use a law enacted by Obasanjo to jail the Otta farmer?

Corruption  and chain go with tradition. Both start with “c.” One leads to the other and, sometimes, vice versa. But the distinctive thing about chain is that it’s always “linked.” The moment you break a chain, it loses its name and concept. That’s why  I’m not surprised that Tafa, the new NLC leader, went on hunger strike. He led a team of one man – himself – to protest Ribadu’s attempt to break a chain. EFCC wanted to waste our money feeding Tafa, even with the N12b allegation stuck in his throat. To stop Tafa from eating his wife’s food, was Ribadu, the “leanman” planning to take the BIGman’s place and eat madam’s “delicacies”? One of the unwritten laws of marriage is that the wife must “feed” the husband – whether the food is cooked or raw. And no Ribadu has the mandate to put “asunder”. 

My only anger in the whole thing is that Ribadu tried to “force” Tafa to eat food bought with my  aging mother’s tax, while the woman has been without proper food for months. Look, Tafa’s hunger strike is no news. Many of us have been on “forced hunger strike” for years. And it became worse since 1999. Ironically, just when Adams Oshiomhole was about forgetting strike as a tool of protest, Tafa picked it up. Is this “striking Tafa” from Ghana or is he the same fat guy with Okija shrine register in his tummy? Could this be the same Balogun, who ordered Nigerians shot dead for going on strike against fuel price hikes and other injustices? 

 

Anyway, Tafa’s chain is a point between corruption/crime and lie. Very few people admit on first questioning that they committed a “crime.”

Friend 1: O’l boy, I hope you are not up to something. I saw you looking at my sister’s breast.

Friend 2: You must be crazy. How can I look at my best friend’s sister’s breast. The girl is like a sister to me. Besides, she wore cloth and I was only reading what is written across the front: ‘Don’t read my nipples.’ 

 

Well, Wabara denied collecting bribe. Threatened to drown with Obasanjo’s head in a polythene bag. But couldn’t hold on, he fell  from his high seat to the back of the chamber. Osuji swore to convert EFCC into a classroom so he could teach Ribadu a lesson. He went to court, claiming he never gave bribe. A few days later, he withdrew the case and begged Nigerians. Adighije and his likes denied collecting the N55m bribe. Only to admit later that he lied. And he blamed it on Wabara. He said he did what he “had to do” – which included sharing the bribe money, denying it thrice like Peter and even acting stupid. “It was not until the Senate president said we should lie about this thing that the issue of bribery and corruption came to my mind,” he said.

 

You see, for once Obasanjo has shown some bite in his bark against corruption. And even if Olorunnibe Mamora, the chairman of Senate Committee on Ethics told Adighije and his kind to “ go and sin no more,” his “sins” would not have been forgiven.  Avoiding future sins does not erase previous crimes, does it? It’s even worse when an accused admits, then boasts: “I feel devastated, but I’m not bloodied. My head is not down. My chin is up because once I told it as it is, I feel a sense of relief, total relief.”  It can’t be as simple as Dr Makanjuola walking away with a N450 million allegation. And it shouldn’t be as simple as Tafa denying an alias attached to his name. See? The man may soon walk free of chains, if it holds that Mustapha Adebayo is different from Tafa Adebayo Balogun.  Is “telling it as it is,” long after Adighije lied to the nation, worth N55million? What penance! What Tafa, Wabara, Osuji, Adighije and all the thieving politicians deserve is not just a free ride to the court. They deserve a room in a government quarter, where the president is addressed as “The Marshall.”

 

• First published in Saturday Sun of  April 09, 2005