EKWEREMADU’S TRAVAILS & THE REST OF US: Casting The First Stone (Part 1) -
By Tunji Ajayi
I confessed to loving Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), the Minister for Works & Housing so passionately in“Amaechi’s Prohibitive Railway Fare & Fashola’s Clock of Secrecy” (Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA. Feb. 1, 2022).The ever-bluntFashola hardly descends into ambivalence on any issue. To him, subterfuge or quibbling has no place in his expression. A distinguished learned lawyer and senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) though; Fashola’s being so “deep” must have been a result of his scholarly mind and wide reading. I will vote Babatunde Fashola, Bishop Mathew Kukah and perhaps Comrade Adams Oshiomole any day in a competition on eloquence, depth and clarity of expressions. They are all skilled in verbal presentation of issues with sweeping eloquence.
Most people hate to read these days. They are entrapped only by google(ing); grimacing at social media pictures for 24 hours, etc. But most wide readers are often excellent men of shimmering honours. I once submitted in a biography that it is better to be a stark illiterate, unable to read and write than being literate but hate to read voraciously and widely. Lethargic readers unconsciously delimit their own horizon and restrain their unbridled access to knowledge. Readers are often egg-heads made of stern stuff and scholarly minds. They are hardly idle minds in pursuit of “ease virtues”. Their precocious minds are kept ever busy on wholesome and virtuous activities, and are always in quest to know more. More importantly, they are often “proud” persons. And being proud, as lexicographers agree,is not synonymous with being arrogant. Knowledgeable people are often self-assertive, thus are “proud” but not arrogant. After all, “decency”, the aphorism goes, “is no pride.” Hear the late sage, the human library and trove of knowledge, Chief Obafemi Awolowo on this subject, when replying his traducers who accused him of appearing omnipotent and arrogant: “The truth is that while many men in power and public offices are busy carousing in the midst of women of easy virtues and men of low morals, I, as a few others like me, am busy at my desk thinking about the problems of Nigeria and proffering solutions to them.” And then his puncher: “Only the deep can call to the deep.” To listeners of Babatunde Fashola’s eloquence and elocution, they will agree with me that he often “calls to the deep”.
Responding to a very delicate question at the National Assembly in October 2015 on his relationship with his benefactor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his predecessor as governor of Lagos State, prior his approval as Federal Minister of Works & Housing, Fashola gave a quotable sentence as response: “I always pray for my loyalty never to be tested.” On this, I want to deal with the subject matter on the recent painful travail of Senator Ike Ekweremadu who was recently convicted on a serious case of organ trafficking in far away United Kingdom. For a man of towering image with aristocratic bearing and stupendous influence who had served in the national legislature for an upward of 20 years at a dizzying height of deputy senate president, he needs not much introduction. His name must have ricocheted around the world. His fall is not only catastrophic to his person, his family and friends; the entire nation also shares the ripple effect of his travails. Ike Ekweremadu, his darling wife and his accomplice lawyer are to serve various terms of imprisonment. It’s one bizarre story of a debonair lawmaker who ran afoul of law, and would spend the next ten years in jail. The scenario provides multiple lessons from which to learn. Let those who think they stand take heed lest they fall so says the Holy Scripture.
But before “we cast the first stone” let us visit two key issues here viz; human propensity to pointing accusing fingers, and Babatunde Fashola’s quotable quote above, viz: “May our loyalty not be tested” whichis a very awesome prayer to which every Nigerian should to say spontaneous Amen to highest crescendo. Hear this: A certain woman was excitedly brought by the arrogant Pharisees and teachers of religious law before Jesus Christ, not to learn but ostensibly to find fault in Jesus reply, and confirm the justification of administering harsh punishment on the woman. She had been caught in a heinous crime of adultery forbidden by the Mosaic Law, and which attracted summary execution by stoning to death.Hmm. . . . Pharisees with vile characters anxious to stone others to death. Hypocrisy did not start in our modern time. It had gained prominence since Jesus was here. It was early in the morning. You see. Idle minds often begin their gossip and backbiting trade early in the day. Their hands are often devil’s workshop. Hear the fault finders: “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. And the Law of Moses says: we must stone her. What do you say”? Jesus’ reaction stunned me personally. He bowed down his head while using his index finger to write indecipherable things in the dust, typical of what we kids enjoyed in primary school while playing in the dust. (John 8: 4-11)
Oh! . . . In spite of his awesome knowledge Jesus the greatest teacher was a very humble and grass root person! His action taught us a lesson, viz: Never answer your traducers hurriedly in anger to avoid committal of error. There is wisdom in thinking deep before acting. Thus, the Holy Scripture had warned: “Know this my beloved brothers. Every man must be swift about hearing, slow about speaking”. (James 1:19) His silence notwithstanding, the fastidious Pharisees insisted on having Jesus answer. He lifted up his eyes and said: “Let the one of you that is sinless be the first to throw a stone”. And Jesus was back again to writing on the dust with his index finger. But by the time Jesus raised up his head again, the hypocritical accusers of the adulterous woman had run away secretly one by one. Facing the woman, Jesus asked: “Where are your accusers. Did no one stone you again?” . . . “No sir”, the accused woman retorted. Jesus then said: “Neither do I condemn you. Go away and sin no more”. And so the woman was discharged and acquitted. End of story. The bottom-line? . . . No one is infallible. I remember the song: “Nobody knows the trouble I see, Nobody knows my sorrow . . . “May our loyalty not be tested!
Quite often we are quick to condemning and pointing accusing fingers at others. Perhaps that explains why the Scripture warned: “. . . Hypocrite, first extract the rafter in your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to extract the straw that is in your brother’s eye”. (Luke 6:42) Rafters are woods. A straw is a tiny dry stem. Depending on the way one looks at it, Ekeremadu’s travails evoke fear, reprobation, condemnation, sympathy etc. The fatal fall from grace to grass of a man with immense stature and awesome power conjures fear, teaching the wise a lesson that those who need to exercise caution most are those at the high corridor of power. The cliché, “the rich also cry” becomes real to us all now. Except the bubble that busted, no one would have ever heard the story that a stupendously affluent man with awesome power had where the shoe pinches him and his family. His pretty daughter Sonia had been on treatment for a long time due to kidney disease, which culminated in abandoning her postgraduate degree course in far away United Kingdom. To others, his travails attracted reprobation and reproof because the case involving a high-profile lawmaker was that of heinous crime of illegal “organ trafficking”; thus presenting him as a callous person with less regard for human feelings.
But without being apathetic to a sympathetic situation the distinguished Senator Ekweremadu’s situation also evokes pity. Hence, we are back to our Babatunde Fashola’s aphorism: “May your loyalty not be tested” as we look at this scenario, let us see this: A sum of N40 million is kept with you as Treasurer of a Cooperative Society for keep. Your first child is on the throes of death in a hospital requiring N35 million naira within 24 hours for a required surgical treatment to be effected lest your child dies. While pondering on what to do, your wife rushing to help your son on his bedside had an accident with broken limbs also requiring N5 million lest her legs are amputated. Now ponder. Will remember the canonical teaching”thou shall not deep hands into others belongings” while watching your loving child die in a short while, and your wife’s legs amputated? Hmm! . . . “May your loyalty not be tested”. But like Bob Marley would sing in Running Away, “He who feels it knows it all”.
On moral ground, the manner of attempting to solve Sonia’s kidney problem had been roundly condemned. But the truth is that kidney transplant had been a known medical solution ever since. Provided there was “consensus ad idem” in legal parlance, viz; the agreement of two minds, it hardly generated any fuss like this . . . . . (*Part 2 to continue under EKWEREMADU’S TRAVAILS & THE REST OF US: The Legal Conundrums)
*Tunji Ajayi, a creative writer, author and documentary producer writes from LC-Studios, Nigeria.
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