By Promise Adiele, PhD
Barrister Jubril Salami is my good friend. Our friendship started at Henry Carr Hall, University of Lagos. I cannot immediately remember how our friendship started but we became friends and shared ideas about different things including Nigeria’s political situation. Then, the maximum dictator Sanni Abacha was in charge. Although older, Salami is humble and always punctuates every request with a ‘sir’. He is a man of modest accomplishments, completely detribalized, and kind to a fault. But we disagree on one thing – football. While he thinks the red side of London is a better and bigger club, I insist the blue side of London is a bigger and more accomplished club. (hehehe… no further questions please).
Last Sunday, Salami invited me to his apartment for a low-key celebration of his wife’s 50th birthday. I went with my wife. Not more than ten people attended and we had fun. We left his house at 6:45 pm and got home 1 hour later. At home, I discovered I had left my phone at Salami’s house. Horror. I called him on my wife’s phone and he confirmed picking it up from the table where we sat.
‘Ok, bros, how do I get the phone, please?’ I asked, relaxed, knowing the phone was safe.
‘Well, meet me early in court tomorrow to pick it up before my case is called’. He replied, feeling pity for me.
‘Bros, I have a Creative Writing class to teach from 9-11 am tomorrow. I will rush down to the court to pick it up immediately after my class. Which court please?’ I asked.
‘Come to Ikeja High Court, I will be waiting for you at the entrance of Court A018’. He assured me.
‘Ok, bros, thanks’. I dropped the phone call, relieved.
The next day, immediately after my class, I informed my HOD and quickly rushed down to Ikeja to pick up my phone. It is so difficult to operate without a phone, some kind of existential blindness when you are cut off from the rest of the world. Less than one hour later, I got to Ikeja High Court. But Salami was nowhere to be found. I was worried. While searching for him, I peeped into one of the courts, filled with people of different social standing, the poor, the rich, and the middle-class.
I have never been fascinated by legal procedures because I consider them boring. I also did not like how the entire legal process blatantly subverted truth sometimes so that the innocent became the guilty and the guilty declared the innocent. I just did not like court procedures at all. Law negates every strand of morality. But today, something caught my attention inside this court.
I moved into the court, found an empty seat, perhaps the last empty seat in the air-conditioned courtroom, and sat beside a well-dressed but older man. He looked at me intently and asked…
‘Your face looks familiar, are you a columnist with The News Magazine’?
‘Yes sir’, I replied. He smiled, nodding in approval.
‘You also teach at Mountain Top University right’?
‘Yes sir’, I replied again. He stretched his hand for a handshake and I obliged.
‘My son just got admission there to study Software Engineering’. He smiled again with a sense of accomplishment.
‘Congratulations sir, he is at the best place for the course’. I responded with an air of pride and we both laughed quietly.
‘So what brings you here sir’, I asked.
‘Well, I came with my friend whose landlord forcefully ejected from his apartment because he defaulted to pay his annual rent. He is seeking redress in court’.
‘So sorry sir, I hope the court intervenes in his favour’.
‘Well, let’s see what happens’, he concluded.
We both kept quiet and looked on. In the dock was a man of not more than 45 years, with overgrown hair, lean and hungry, desperate and dirty. He caught a pitiable sight and I wondered what could have been his offence. A criminal maybe. Then, they read the charge against him.
‘The charge is that you, Mr. Musbau Ilori of no 22 Awonife Street, Ojota Lagos, on the 10th day of August 2024, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, stole a bunch of plantains from your boss, knowing full well that the said plantains do not belong to you, thereby contravening section 285, subsection 1 of the Lagos State Criminal code. Guilty or not guilty’?
The trial Judge, a delectable, beautiful lady of not more than 50 years, lowered her eyeglasses and looked intently at the accused, expecting a quick response. Then, the accused, shivering and unstable, looked at his lawyer intently but his lawyer did not seem convinced about what to say. Slowly, his lawyer stood up, lacking that fiery agility attributable to all lawyers. When he spoke, it was a mixture of doubt, disappointment, and capitulation.
‘My Lord, my client is guilty, please tamper justice with mercy’. That was his timid, self-absolving response. What kind of a lawyer is this? I wondered. I looked at my wristwatch, it was 12.40 pm. I had a class to teach at 3. pm and Salami was nowhere to be found. I was angry at the tepid response of the lawyer. I was provoked to stand up and speak on behalf of the accused. But I am not a lawyer. I waited to see what the judge would do, I waited patiently.
The judge, with long painted nails and a heavily powdered face, wore an expensive wristwatch and a designer spectacle, cleared her throat and spoke.
‘Well Mr Musbau, can you tell this honourable court why you stole a bunch of plantains belonging to your boss’.
‘Ma, my boss sent me to buy three bunches of plantains for his family, I bought the plantains, gave them two and gave my wife and children one. I did it because the last time I bought a bunch of plantains for him, it spoiled, he gave them to me to throw away. So I thought he didn’t really need it in his house. I have three children and they had not eaten for two days. My last child fainted from hunger the previous night and I was helpless’.
‘Well, does your boss not pay you a salary’? asked the Judge.
‘He pays me a salary Ma but it is not enough’.
‘How much does he pay you’.
‘Forty-thousand-naira Ma’.
‘Whaaaat? He pays you forty thousand naira, in these times’?
‘Yes Ma’.
‘How long have you been working for him’?
‘Three years Ma’.
‘So forty thousand naira is not enough for you. Why did you accept the job’?
‘Because there is nothing else to do and if I don’t accept it, someone else will accept it for a lower salary Ma’.
‘What car does your boss drive, I mean, what car do you drive for him?’
‘My boss has seven cars, the latest is a brand new Toyota Land cruiser that he bought for 120-million-naira Ma’.
‘What is your educational qualification?’
‘I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Education – Child Psychology Ma’.
‘What!!! You are a graduate?’
‘Yes Ma’.
‘When did you graduate’?
‘Six years ago Ma’.
‘What work does your wife do’?
‘She had a provision store but the government demolished the building and many others because they wanted to expand the road’.
‘So, what has she been doing since’?
‘Nothing Ma. She has been trying to get a job to no avail’.
‘Is she educated, I mean, did she go to school’?
‘Yes Ma. She has a Grade 11 teachers’ certificate’.
‘And she can’t find a job as a teacher?’
‘She found one where they paid her thirty thousand naira, but after the increase in transport fare following the increase in petrol price, she could not continue Ma’.
‘Do your children go to school’?
‘No Ma. My first daughter, ten years old, hawks bread on the streets to help the family. But people don’t buy bread anymore, so she lost the job’.
The judge put down her head, visibly moved. But propelled by the call of duty, she spoke.
‘I see, but that is not an excuse to steal a bunch of plantains that do not belong to you. I hereby sentence you to…’
At this point, a combination of anger and fury assailed my faculties. I could not tolerate it anymore. The Nigerian socio-economic realities, established and maintained by an exploitative culture played out before me. I sprang to my feet, raising my hand.
‘Excuse me, your Lordship, may I say a few things please’. Everyone turned in my direction.
‘And who are you?’ She asked in a commanding tone.
‘I am a university lecturer, but I have a few things to say about the accused’.
‘Very interesting, did he steal anything from you too?’
‘No, your Lordship. I would like to say that the trial of the accused is the trial of our society and the vicious, exploitative tendencies of the rich class. It is a trial where everyone in this room is implicated without exception’.
‘Contempt of court’, shouted the Court Orderly, ‘arrest him immediately’.
Two police officers came for me but the Judge asked them to leave me alone. By this time, they had ruffled my suit but I was not deterred. The Judge beckoned on me to come forward and state my case. I stepped forward. Standing before the court, I spoke.
‘Your Lordship, it is easy for everyone to stand on sanctimonious grounds and condemn the accused for stealing a bunch of plantains, not for self-enrichment but out of a desperate, frantic need to survive and feed his family. Yes, we agree that there should be no justifiable reason to commit a crime but the present economic structure in the country has practically turned many poor people into petty thieves. Not because these people want to steal, but because they want to survive and keep alive by all means. Now, you are about to sentence a man for reacting in a way which would guarantee survival for himself and his family. No problem. But it becomes a problem, your Lordship, that this same court protects people of means, the real thieves who have despoiled and plundered our collective patrimony, plunging many people like Musbau into the abyss of need and poverty.
We all should be ashamed that a university graduate who studied Child Psychology in a country where millions of children are disoriented and misdirected, is about to be sent to jail or punished because he played his role as a father to provide for his children albeit, breaking the law in the process. We should all be ashamed that in one way or another, we have upheld a vicious, totalizing socio-political matrix which gradually bludgeons the underclass through brutal government economic policies. But many of us in this room have domestic workers and drivers who we pay shameful wages while flaunting our wealth before them. The current government has inflicted untold pain on the populace, ruthlessly erasing the middle class who are now on the lower rung of the ladder as the underclass.
Meanwhile, the politicians and their families frolic in obscene comfort, living large while the people suffer. How many of your politicians have fat files with EFCC and are walking as free men? After embezzling huge sums of public funds, they are rewarded with higher political offices where they continue to steal and impoverish the masses. How many wealthy people build their wealth on the graves of innocent people? My Lord, do you realize the level of poverty and anguish on the streets of Nigeria these days following the increase in the price of petrol?’ There was murmuring in the court. I paused for effect and continued.
‘Recently, two bakers in Ibadan were sent to jail for stealing two loaves of bread from the bakery where they work. Those bakers are in jail now as we speak while criminals are romping in surplus as distinguished citizens. It is morally and ethically unjustifiable that a man would have seven cars, then purchase a new one for 120 million naira, yet pay his driver forty thousand naira. It defines Nigeria’s exploitative significations which continue to stifle the growth of the poor. Mr President borrowed 800 million dollars recently and gave each governor 5 billion naira to ameliorate poverty in their states. Where is the accountability for that money? How many poor people benefitted from it? From the World Bank alone, Tinubu has borrowed $ 6.45 billion since he came to power.
Where is the money and how did it positively affect the lives of the common man? ‘Subsidy is gone’ is the most revolting, despicable phrase in the history of Nigeria. Your Lordship, since the subsidy was removed, how much has the government saved from it? How has the ordinary man benefitted from the removal of oil subsidy or is the money used to offset the inglorious lifestyle of the ruling class? These are facts we should consider but unfortunately, many of us rely on sentiments as the source of our socio-economic knowledge and interpretation. I can go on and on…’ There was more murmuring in court, many people were nodding their heads.
‘It is easy to send Musbau to prison or punish him in some ways, but know that very soon, the poor will revolt and the streets will be unsafe for people like you and other flesh eaters in the corridors of power…also…’
‘Stop him immediately, I have had enough, arrest him for contempt of court and take him away’. The Judge retorted.
The court erupted. Two police officers came for me. I wanted to rush out through the door, but they caught me. I was handcuffed immediately and taken away. By this time, there was total commotion in the court. While a majority of the people supported me, a few others were against me. As they dragged me out of the court, I had the Judge discharge and acquit Musbau. At least I scored a point. I turned and saw Salami, my friend. He was shocked.
‘Prof. what is going on, what did you do, no, wait, this man is not a criminal, no, no, no, wait, he is a lecturer, google his name, he is…ehm, please wait, he is a columnist too, wait…hello…wait’. ‘Bros…where have you been?’ I managed to ask him.
‘I was in another court please…wait…wait…’ He pushed, trying to hold me but the police dragged me on with determined urgency.
My friend’s voice gradually faded away as the police pushed me outside the court, straight to this vehicle I never imagined I would enter. Kirirki straight and I missed my 3. pm class.
Promise Adiele, PhD, of Mountain Top University can be reached on promee01@yahoo.com, X: @drpee4