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Soyinka, Obi, Tinubu: When repayment of mafia debt is inescapable

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By Sunny Igboanugo

Amerigo Bonasera was a longtime friend to Vito Corleone, otherwise known as Don Corleone the alter ego of The Godfather – that Mario Puzo epic novel depicting the mafia influence of the American society. However, unlike many who had pitted their tents with the godfather, in the Italian neighbourhood, he would rather avoid him and his syndicate, because he felt the consequential backlash could rub off on his well-laid business and reputation as a law-abiding, straight American citizen. On many occasions, the godfather courted his loyalty, but he rebuffed it, feeling safe inside the protective cocoon of the American system.

But that same system failed him when his prized daughter was attacked and assaulted by his boyfriend and his friend. Maria Bonasera was not only his only daughter, but the only child and despite his fears, was the goddaughter of Carmela Corleone, the wife of Don Corleone. Kelvin Moonan, her new American boyfriend had tried to rape her after she rebuffed his sexual advances, but after succeeding in fending him off, the young man, aided by his friend, Jerry Wegner, beat her so badly and damaged her beautiful face.

Completely gutted, Bonasera, a successful owner of Funeral Parlour, did the right thing, or what he thought the right thing in America. He went to court to seek justice for his daughter. But instead of putting the rapists away, at the most for their clearly heinous crime, after finding them guilty, the judge did the unthinkable – he handed them – suspended sentence. So, the two young men walked out free from the same court leering and practically mocking him – no thanks to the powerful influence of their parents, who pulled the strings from behind.

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Suspended sentence?! Bonasere had exclaimed before the godfather in whose presence he ran to seek the real justice. After chiding him for rebuffing his earlier offer of protection in preference for trust in the American system, Don Corleone accepted his request to give him justice. However, he would not accede to Bonasera’s extreme demands. He had wanted the godfather to kill the two young men. But he declined. Bonesera’s daughter was still alive. Let her attackers suffer the same way she suffered, was his own option.

Pressed further to the option of murder, offering to pay for it, he again reprimanded his kinsman for trying to lure him to commit murder, particularly on the wedding day of his daughter. “Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would have been suffering this very day. And if by some chance, an honest man like yourself made enemies, they would be my enemies. And then, they would fear you,” he had emphasised?

Having agreed to help him in his own way in return for his “friendship” he had given the job to his executor to conclude. At the end of the day, the two young men were so beaten with so much damage to their faces that their parents could not recognise them. So, that was how Bonasera, who had earlier pledged his everlasting loyalty by kissing the shoes of the godfather, got justice. Nothing could have given him more excitement and satisfaction than the disfigured faces of the two boys, splashed in the newspapers the next day.

But did Bonasera not pay eventually? Of course he did. But he did in a different way, different from monetary payment. Don Corleone, had visited him at the funeral parlour, three years after. His irascible son, Sonny had been heavily disfigured by the bullets of the competitors and enemies of his mafia organisation. He wanted his Italian brother and friend to fix him to look normal and fit for presentation for an open-casket funeral. Bonasera, who was the best in the land, ought not to have touched such a job, coming from Vito Corleone, a criminal to be avoided. But he was in debt, so high a debt. Backing out was out of the question. Either by way of gratitude and conscience or by knowing the grave consequences of saying no to the godfather, he was in debt.

How apt this story to the new reality in Nigeria of today. For years, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had played the same role of Vito Corleone, though at a different level – politics. Countless Nigerians who were hurt one way or the other, have found succour in him and through him.

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When Muhammadu Buhari, before the end of his disastrous outing as President between 2015 and 2023, tried, or so it seemed, to shirk this obligation of playing ball after Tinubu single-handed made him President, either due to patriotism, knowing that Tinubu would probably be a worse calamity or out of mischief or desire to hand over to another Northerner, knowing his proclivity for nepotism, he was stopped in his track. Tinubu simply reminded him where he was coming from.

He was not only quickly reminded of his debt – remember Tinubu’s Abeokuta declaration and his infamous Emilokan speech – but the enforcers moved in. They were the ones who completed the first stage of the project at the All Progressives Congress (APC) convention in Abuja, beginning with the Northern governors, who took the initiative to rally around him. Now, you might be wondering why the North with their touted unquenchable taste for power could become so amenable. Well, mafia debts are paid to the full.

Asari Dokubo, currently has a standing army ready to go to war against naysayers on his behalf. His reason: Tinubu was his patron when as the leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), he was arrested and detained by the Federal Government. Tinubu fully provided for his family including a home in Victoria Garden City (VGC), one of the most glamorous areas of Lagos. Debt!

If, perhaps, you are wondering what debt Yakoub Mahmood, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who virtually threw caution out of the window by practically killing the 2023 presidential election owed, listen to Chibuike Amaechi. The former Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation, provided the answer when he told the world how his appointment came via the Tinubu camp.

So, why then would anyone be surprised about our own dear Prof. Wole Soyinka? Not a few saw his recent diatribe against Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 election as shocking, but needless, especially given his enviable place in the history of the Nigerian struggle as well as global reputation.

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The Nobel laureate at a recent event in South Africa entitled: The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue, organised by Africa in the World, in the Cape Winelands city of Stellenbosch, had this to say about Obi and the 2023 presidential election: “I can say categorically that Peter Obi’s party came third not even second and the leadership knew it but they want to do what we call in Yoruba ‘gbajue’, that is force of lies.”

While acknowledging that Obi achieved “something remarkable” by breaking the monopoly of power established by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he also tongue-lashed the Labour Party through which he contested for the presidency, accusing it of taking over the organised labour movement in the build-up to the 2023 election.

“This recent election – two things happened first of all. One party took over the labour movement, which is not my favourite movement, and then it became a regional party. Whereas it was a marvellous breach into the established two camps. Peter Obi achieved something remarkable there, that he broke that mould. However, he did not win the election.

“They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate. I’m also ready to be among such demonstrators but only on the banner of truth not on lies, and deceit. This party wanted the same thing (referring to 2011 post-election violence) to happen on the basis of a lie and we find this vice-presidential candidate on television boasting, insisting, threatening and trying to intimidate both the judiciary and the rest.

“What kind of government will result from that kind of conduct? In addition, they did not know this but they were being used. Before the election, there were certain clandestine forces, including some ex-generals, who were already calling for an interim government before the elections began. Some of them were known figures, including a proprietor of a university calling for an interim government before the election took place.”

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Why this descent into the muddy arena, many people have continued to ask. But he provided the answer to his current wacky undertaking long before now. To every ear, he had told the story of how Tinubu and his family provided for him when he was down and out on return from exile imposed on him by former Nigerian despot, the late General Sani Abacha who went after the necks of leaders of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), of which he was one during his iron-fist reign.

He himself narrated how Remi Tinubu, the supportive wife of the former Governor of Lagos State, now President, provided him with pots and pans and other household utensils to start life anew. He also told the world how Tinubu it was that got him a letter of recommendation with which he then approached the government of Taiwan for the rice contract that supplied his daily bread. Nobody knows whether that source and the stream of income thereof has closed yet. Kongi did not tell us.

So, what would you not do for someone who fed you when you were hungry and probably saved you from the frustration of starvation and even death? Today, South Africa, despite all the threats from Europe and the US, has remained the major ally of Russia in Africa for the simple reason that the country was its bastion of struggle and hope in the bid to extricate itself from the vice grip of white man’s rule during the struggle for apartheid.

It is not that Soyinka is not aware of the parlous situation in Nigeria today. It is not that he does not know that from the way things are going the country is fast descending from the critical to the fatal condition and soon there might not be a country anymore, at least the way it is presently known. But what could he do, when he is in so much debt over the years of favours?
Like Bonasera, he would have opted to be excused from the evil and putridity of the mafia, having built up such an enchanting record as a nationalist and world renowned icon in many respects. But he was the one who ran to Tinubu like Bonasera ran to Don Corleone for help when the system failed him. Like Bonasera nobody bothered him before now. But now his services are required.
Currently, Tinubu’s political face is as badly battered as Sonny’s bullet-riddled body and needed to be prepared to look decent to the public. Who else to do the job than the master of words, grit and skills, who could, by his pedigree, practically make the dead appear alive? Soyinka has the personality and the voice to do the job of painting Tinubu white or at least try.
Incidentally, choosing to do so from South Africa, is instructive too. Remember that South African woman, who spoke in that viral video, telling the world that Tinubu’s presidency lacked legitimacy. What could be more practical that tackle her in her own land and attempt to change the narrative, which surely must have pervaded the land of the Mandelas? But it would surely not stop there. Watch out. South Africa may be the starting point. Don’t be surprised to see the Nobel Laureate expanding his campaign further and farther. For even Kongi must pay his debt. Even if Nigeria falls! He has no choice. It is the way of the mafia!
Igboanugo, a journalist, wrote from Lagos

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Femi Olaleye, “Randy” Lagos doctor! *Aren’t Nigerian men in danger?

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“The prosecution’s case was bereft of any credible evidence that she was a child. Credible and reasonable doubt was created in the prosecution’s case.

“The trial court relied on tainted and unreliable evidence of his estranged wife, Oluremi, and the alleged survivor.”

These were the words with which the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos nullified the rape conviction of Femi Olaleye, a medical doctor and Managing Director of Optimal Cancer Care Foundation, on Friday, while lashing out at the judge of the Lagos State High Court that delivered the verdict.

When I read the story of this man’s conviction, I couldn’t help but notice the conclusion the Court of Appeal reached on this matter.

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I saw beneath the frenzy of the entire episode a determined effort by an injured woman to extract vengeance on her husband in a failed love affair using that young girl as a bait!

Unfortunately, the lower court seemed eager to help her in the wicked scheme either because of the ostensibly determined effort by Lagos State to punish sexual offences or just pure conspiracy.

Clearly, the story didn’t add up, just like many others, including that of that Yoruba film actor that is now serving jail term for molestation. There’s no doubt that sex happened between this doctor and the wife’s niece. But the story went beyond what the public was made to see.

My conclusion: Much as every sexual offence from either male or female, particularly rape and more particularly child molestation, I think the public must beware of not being used to achieve some evil agendas.

There must be a clear division between actual commission of a crime and an obvious case of a setup as appears in the instant case. That difference must be clearly established.

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The warning by Shakespeare that “Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned” must always be in the public consciousness whenever they’re inquiring into these matters.

That said, society must also remember that here is not the Western world where they imply that freedom is absolute and people are allowed to behave in the manner they wish.

Ask your daughter where she’s coming from. Ask your son to explain the reason for standing with that girl in the corner of the street and what they were discussing. Take charge of your children’s moral behaviour. It’s not their exclusive property.

People of my generation never flaunted our lovers before our parents. We only showed them our would-be wives. It wasn’t absence of freedom, but respect.

What did you go there to do? This was the frequently asked question from our parents. But today we’re told it shouldn’t be asked again because it’s blaming the victim – very obtuse reasoning.

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Today, we’re being told it’s okay for a woman to go to a man’s house, change into his boxers, or even sleep naked on his bed, enjoy some smooches, then come out and shout – rape!

No! It wasn’t okay with our parents. And nothing shows that today’s society is better than what our parents made of theirs and left for us. The complete dislocation, if not destruction proves so.

Olaleye may be lucky. While he counts his losses and moves on – definitely things will never be the same again – his bitter ordeal must send a clear message to men – These are DANGEROUS Times!

Need we say more? – The Tiny Voice

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The education Doctor Reuben Abati needs outside PhD!

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By Sunny Igboanugo

Would any sane man go to Iga Idunganran and demand to buy the palace of Oba of Lagos or a piece of land inside? How much would anyone offer the monarch to cut such a deal? Even if Kabiesi is willing to sell, assuming he is so pressed for cash or the amount being offered is so mouth-watering and irresistible, would his chiefs allow it? Would ordinary Lagosians including even the area boys that swarm around that area of Lagos?

An accurate response to these questions should produce the right answer to educate Reuben Abati, the main anchor on The Morning Show, the breakfast programme on Arise Television on issues regarding the sale of land in Igboland. For indeed, despite his high educational level and high intellect, he still needs education – a lot of it.

That Abati is an intellectual giant and media guru is difficult to deny or put down even by his worst enemies. But there is more to intellectualism and media face to make things complete. I guess that’s where the problem is with (Doctor) Abati – he insists that everybody must include that prefix in addressing him. So, I must comply.

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I guess Doctor Abati has everything anyone could desire in a country like Nigeria where superfluousness takes precedence over substance. His meteoric rise in the academia – getting a PhD at the age of 24 – certainly no mean achievement – speaks to this. So is his attainment in the media industry also enough proof.

Imagine leading the Editorial Page of The Guardian – the almighty Flagship of Nigerian media – where all the intellectual titans of a certain era in the country coalesced as a driving force of the nation’s thought industry – and at such a young age to boot. He couldn’t have been up to 30 at that time. So for this, he becomes a superstar – so elevated by an admiring public. But is that all there is to it?

Somehow, Doctor Abati, seems to reflect the reality of Nigeria. President Olusegun Obasanjo, put a finger to it in one of his public outings. He narrated how certain people had gone to God to complain about Nigeria. Why should you give this country everything on earth – abundant land with all manner of precious minerals buried in it – so rich that it grows virtually everything – too many waters that are home to the most prized aquatic life – human resources that prove the best across the globe – how could you be this partial?

God was said to have laughed at his accusers and told them to wait and see the type of leaders the country would have. Even those who took that complaint to God, which of course could have included people from Israel, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia or Singapore, would have been aghast at what Nigeria has turned out and would be thanking the same Almighty for not allowing them switch places.

Doctor Abati, as he wishes to be addressed, has virtually everything. But see what his immense gift has done to him. Like many of his ilk unable to manage their endowments, he has been struck with the same disease geniuses suffer – megalomania. He simply lacks the ability or knowhow to manage all the gifts bequeathed in him by nature and learning.

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Imagine what he would have been if humility was added onto him as well. But instead, having been so bereft, where that virtue ought to be, sits a deluge of egomania, self-conceitedness, if not narcissism. Even a passive observer notices those features easily on that programme, where he ostensibly makes his own rules and brooks no form of opposition thereof. Who else hasn’t noticed him dismiss his critics as illiterates and uneducated? Who didn’t hear him call others social media rats? Many of such expressions are not only inelegant for use on television especially, but in most cases, forbidden totally. But he uses them.

“I’ve said it severally on this programme that nobody will tell me not to speak!” That was him last week, clapping back on the backroom staff, who apparently wanted to manage the programme to fit into the time and space allocated to it. Of course, he spoke while others had to recline and recede to their cocoons.

How many times did he have to shout-down his colleagues right there before the cameras? Even the irrepressible Rufai Oseni had had to suffer the impetuous, grumpy attitude and bow to the cajoling, if not bullying on many occasions. Who would have thought that Mary Chinda, his colleague could face such tongue-lashing in the open studio for the singular sin of not prefixing his name with Doctor?

Who else could have demanded that especially on television where it is a well-known tradition to address people by their first names if not Doctor Abati? It is this penchant for egoism that has been at play since last Thursday’s outing on the programme regarding his infamous comment about Ndigbo not selling land to strangers, which has now raised a lot of dust.

Now, much as I agree that targeting Ndigbo and handing them the short-end of the stick in Nigeria has remained a somewhat state policy under the All Progressives Congress (APC), beginning with President Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was and sustained on a higher scale by Bola Tinubu, his successor, I don’t think that he was playing anyone’s script in that direction. I definitely don’t think he was speaking for anybody.

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I think he simply went into an overdrive as it is wont with him on many occasions. No doubt, the nature of the programme allows the anchors a lot of latitude to impute their opinions lavishly on given subject matters. But on many occasions, this has not only led to excessive licentiousness, but outright abuse. This was actually the case in this instance, in my view.

Now, what was in issue? Ojy Okpe, the anchor of What’s Trending segment of the programme, had played a video where Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, praised the entrepreneurial spirit, what he called the mercantile spirit of the Igbo that impels them to develop everywhere in Nigeria, including building their own residential houses and dwelling with host communities, something he says other ethnic groups lacked.

“The Igbo are very proud people, the Igbo are very mercantile, the Igbo are the only ethnic group in Nigeria that when they enter Kano State, they build houses in Kano State for themselves. They don’t rent. When they enter Lagos, they own almost two or three local governments, they build houses and live there. There’s no place they go they don’t make impact. But other Nigerians will come to my place, rent houses and live without building a structure. But the Igbo are not like that.”

This was what Abati reacted to. And what did he say? First was to acknowledge the truism in Akpabio’s comment. He even stressed the popular local saying that anyone that ventured into a community where there was no Igbo should scram immediately because it meant danger. But the problem is what he described as the flipside, which he took the liberty to adduce.

In doing so, he sought to take back with the left what he gave with the right hand, stating that in Lagos, for instance, it was rather the “liberalism” of the people than “conquering spirit” of Ndigbo that was at the base of their massive investment. Really? Pray! What is this liberal spirit supposed to look like when the lands were not given out free?

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When did a symbiotic affair based on willing seller, willing buyer translate to one party doing the other a favour. For those who don’t know, it is with the proceeds of such lands Igbo people bought that families established businesses for themselves and sent their children abroad where they became high-rate professionals, with some of them becoming mega billionaires in foreign currencies.

This is not peculiar to Lagos. It is true of all the major cities in Nigeria. Families in major towns of Onitsha, Aba, Enugu, became very prominent because they sold land to outsiders to develop themselves. Onitsha became the hub of lawyers in the entire Igboland, because families sold lands and with the proceeds, sent their children abroad to study law. The evidence of that enterprises is everywhere.

Many interior Igbo families would like to be like Onitsha where land is hot cake or Aba, where families become entrenched as billionaires because they raised enough capital through land sales to engage in merchandises like textiles, stockfish, same as their counterparts in Lagos. Incidentally, it is the scallywags and urchins in such families that the public seem to focus on to count the losses. They never showcase the big men that attained their status from such proceeds. In other words land sales is a quid pro quo, where you lose something to gain something. It has nothing to do with accommodation or liberalism. It’s pure business, simplicita!

Besides, could an American in New York claim to be “accommodating” or being “liberal” to a fellow citizen from Texas who bought and built house in the city? Shouldn’t that be an anathema? Should those expression ever come from a public figure like Doctor Abati? Methinks no! That’s a dangerous mindset, the sought that has now become quite prevalent in recent years, especially of the APC-Lagos.

When Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu established the Apapa Wharf, was the thinking like this? Did he acquire land to set up and engage in other businesses that made him the richest man in Africa, because the Yoruba were liberal or because each of the people in the value chain saw opportunities? Did Aliko Dangote establish the Dangote Refinery Limited in Lagos, because the Epe people are the most liberal in Nigeria?

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Citing what he claimed was the experience of Thomas Owolabi Shobowale (TOS) Benson, the late Yoruba politician and lawyer, who rose to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and who he quoted as claiming that his Igbo in-laws refused to sell land to him, Doctor Abati had stated how that summed up the “irony of Nigeria about the politics of the federation.”

Then he went off: “The same Igbo who are so industrious that they are all over and do well in other parts of Nigeria, you go as a non-Igbo man to go and buy umunna land, you will be told that you don’t belong even as an in-law. That’s by the way of an aside, but these are the issues, in my view!” Does he know what Umunna land is all about? That’s where he should have begun the conversation.

By now, it would have been obvious to Doctor Abati that he committed a faux pass given the deluge of responses that have trailed his comment. In fact, it would have been much so as he stepped out of the studio on that Thursday into the volleys of reactions from Ndigbo across the world. Even those with him in the Arise News studio, who were privy with the Igbo tradition would have schooled him adequately.

The encounter between him and the same Ojy Okpe the next day, seems to underscore the fact that he must have been privy to the other side of the story. They must have told him the difference between Umunna land, which is land belonging to a family as opposed to land belonging to an individual. He must have been told the reason such lands are seldom sold to an outsider, including members or the same community.

All he needed do at that stage, was to at least clarify his position or provided further evidence if he was convinced he was right. That’s if apology would be too heavy in his mouth. But he didn’t. Instead, he remained obstinate and even switched on a combative mode, dismissing the opposing views as nonsense is the key issue. That’s the way of the pompous – a disease of the self-centred.

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How would it look that a whole Doctor Reuben Abati, who ought to know everything, and whose job is to teach and correct the ignorant society, who practically learn at his feet, would now submit himself to correction? That constituted the albatross that made him thunder at Ojy Okpe, when she tried to bring up the issue with the obviously sole intention of offering him the opportunity to make amends.

Even since that time, more evidences have been pouring out about how wrong he was on the matter. Beside many examples of Yoruba people owning properties in Igboland, the Mbieri people of Imo State – the supposed in-laws of TOS Benson have also contradicted the TOS Benson supposed narrative. It has now emerged that the people saw it as an anathema to sell land to their in-law, but instead, donated one to him, where he now decided to build a post office that is still standing in the community till date.

Indeed, the issue of Ndigbo not selling land to outsiders didn’t start from last week. It is an old story. But the classic response is how many houses do these people have in other areas outside Igboland? Recall Akpabio that spoke is not Igbo and the reference he was making wasn’t about Igboland. He was complaining that other people do not copy Ndigbo who build houses in Akwa Ibom and live.

He insisted that rather do so, others simply rented for the number of years they lived in the state and departed thereafter without owning properties. That was the crux of his submission. Abati, ought to have made more sense if he had detailed how many houses, he built in Akwa Ibom or anywhere outside Lagos to justify his hunger to buy Umunna land in the South East.

How many houses do other tribes have elsewhere outside their homelands? Are the people in Maiduguri refusing to sell land also? Are people of Benin, Delta, Benue, Katsina, Rivers, Ibadan or Ekiti selling to only Igbo people? So, why are other ethnic groups not dominating the Igbo in those areas where lands are sold easily to outsiders unlike Igboland who hoard their land?

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Except anyone could prove that he went to buy land from the ubiquitous real estate companies or land dealers that advertise on daily basis all over Igbo cities and was denied on account of not being Igbo, Doctor Abati, would not make sense. But insisting on buying Umunna land or okpuno obi land, is like insisting on buying land inside the palace of an oba or a sacred shrine in Osogbo. The response to that is a no-brainer. If that is the crime Ndigbo committed, then it will be repeated over and over for many years to come.

Doctor Abati must have been told this much. But has it changed anything? Will it? Nada! From him since then, mum has remained the word. Incidentally, Ojy Okpe was not on duty on Monday. Perhaps, if she were, she might probably be moved to raise the issue once again and given him further leeway to make amends. But knowing the persona involved, the “emperor” would have cowed the others from bringing up the matter, accounting for why it was not on the card on Monday despite remaining a live issue on the front burner in the Nigerian polity still.

What does this say? Not a few see the development as demonstrable evidence of character failure on his part, which they say reflected the President Goodluck Jonathan days and the mess he made of it as presidential spokesman. His critics say with Oronto Douglas, his predecessor the former President, was smelling roses, but even after Jonathan virtually handed him a blank cheque and boundless latitude to operate when he took charge, the result was still unmitigated disaster.

By the time he was trounced by Buhari, the image of the ex-President was so bad that Nigerians preferred to vote in a man with bread label or NEPA bill as certificate instead of a PhD holder then at the Presidential Villa. Nobody needs be told the consequences of that ironical outing, given what Nigeria is today. So, vicariously, given this line of thinking, Doctor Abati cannot exculpate himself of blame from the further mess of today’s Nigeria – a consequence of his supposed character failure.

That same template erected on omniscience, arrogance and self-conceit with which he was accused of virtually messing up the well-oiled media structure Oronto left behind, thus ruining the Jonathan presidency, is what they insist have become evident in the current undertaking at The Morning Show, he hosts.

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The jury is still out on this tag. But what is evident is that Doctor Abati needs some education – not the type through which he acquired all manner of academic credentials that have equipped him with such rare intellect and with which he has become such a superlative analyst on television, quintessential orator and public speaker – but the one that strips him of all forms of arrogance and purges him of every vestige of contempt for opinions outside his. He needs to attend the University of Humility and human management!

My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I’m The Tiny Voice!

 

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Osimhen: Quit the anger! That $5,000 is not enough!

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By Sunny Igboanugo

I got a job with The Guardian shortly after NYSC and from my little keske, supported my classmate to establish a business centre in Owerri. When The Guardian was proscribed, I didn’t go to Lagos to trouble my senior brothers. I joined my friend in Owerri. I not only lived with him, I lived on him and with him shared EVERYTHING EQUALLY without let.

We cruised Owerri in grand style. I ate the same thing he ate. We were both light drinkers, but drank as much as he could carry. Before setting out, I knew the size of his pocket and knew what I could order. That was the only restriction. I knew I could order beer or meat or anything on my own without consulting him, based on my idea of “our budget,” and knew he would pay without hesitation.

I toasted babes on the same budget, just as he did, never having any inhibition or hesitation about who would pick the bills of the peppersoup or whatever was needed for entertainment.

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After the hunt, whoever was lucky, the other donates the bed. He was living in a one-room-self-contained apartment in Ikenegbu, different from my four-bedroom apartment in Enugu.

It didn’t matter that he had the dough or that I practically lived on him. On occasions both of us became lucky on our usual daily hunt, whoever gets to the bed first takes it and the other sleeps in the mattress on the floor. Sometimes we even preferred the mattress for obvious reasons.

Decades on, things became tough for my friend again and he reached out to me once more. I was living a good life and without hesitation I came through for him and he was reestablished. Two years after, things crashed for me again. I couldn’t even find money to evacuate my belongings from the city where I once lived in opulence. Just a phone call and my friend again picked the bills and did more.

Today, everyone seems ok. But tomorrow, when tough times knock again, we know where to go and what to do. Throughout the time when things were bad for me, I never felt any inhibition to live off my friend and when it was reversed, I never harboured any towards helping him out. He could drive my car and I could drive his.

So, what’s this nonsense I hear today? They call it ‘Entitlement Mentality!’ What’s that I ask? Does it mean I should be happy and I couldn’t demand that my friend with whom I chased rats and rabbit in the past help me when I’m in tight corners and I shouldn’t be sad or complain if he didn’t?

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Does it mean I shouldn’t complain when my friend is living lavishly while I struggle? Does it mean that my elder brother’s son would be at home because of school fees while I send my own children abroad on holidays or purchase the latest SUV to add to the cars in my garage – or start changing my furniture or even start building a new house and my brother who probably saw me through school would applaud me? Just because it is my money?

When did that become the norm in our society? When has it become the practice that we shouldn’t expect our brothers to scratch our itching backs and like animals rely on nearby trees, or roll on the floor to get relief, while our brothers stand by and look on?

In the case you’re wondering where all these are coming from, I’ll tell you. I just read a story purportedly attributed to Victor Osimhen, Nigeria’s football sensation. In it, the Galatasaray goal poacher, narrated an encounter with one of his friends. He stated how this “friend” to whom he had always given money, told him that he wanted to set up a business. He subsequently doled out $5,000 to help this friend. That would amount to about N8million, roughly.

That was a good gesture. But, according to the story, he was surprised when his friend started grumbling that the money was too small, given that he earned $1million every month. For that reason, he not only counted it against his friend, but suggested that he would stop listening to people in need who came to him because they were ungrateful.

After all, the football star and the reigning African Footballer of the Year (AFOTY), stressed that nobody came to his rescue when he was struggling in Europe. In other words, he was self-made and everyone should do same.

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He couldn’t just understand why people should be so ungrateful. To him, $5,000 was such a big amount in Nigeria, even though he acknowledged that in Europe, it was not enough to buy a pair of shoes for someone of his status.

Come and see condemnation as people lampooned this “ungrateful friend.” Some people were beside themselves with righteous indignation. Why couldn’t the friend find a way of making his own money? Was Osimhen his father? What right did he have to question or determine what he should be given? Osimhen should ignore him and move on.

I read all the comments and I shook my head in disbelief. Is this how low and deep our society has sunk? One thing that I found intriguing was that none of these people who formed the throng of supporters for the footballer paused to ask how he started with his friend and how far they went and what they told each other before Osimhen’s break came.

This same guy, might not be just anyhow friend. This could be one of the friends with whom Osimhen shared gala and coke at the time they were running after vehicles selling pure water along Oregun Road. At that time, it did not matter who bought the items, but they would share equally and be happy. They would crack jokes, look into each other’s eyes with the deep reflections and understanding only two friends could share.

Nobody knows how many times this same guy could have sprung his friend out of trouble and what they both could have gone through together. Now, one person breaks through and feels it is too much to ask him to lift his friend up to at least a level where the both of them could still relate appreciably on a sound, if not equal ground. I’m sure that’s what the friend was driving at.

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Now, the only way he could do that was to send this his friend the amount he himself confessed was not enough to buy a pair of shoes and believes the friend would jump up in appreciation. No true friend would. I won’t. I’ll grumble like that young man. I’ll not only grumble, I’ll confront him.

What Osimhen gave to that friend was not a reflection of friendship. It was a demonstration of the opposite – akin to master-servant – which is different altogether.

For those who want to know what true friendship looks like, read a similar story between Cristian Ronaldo and his own friend, whom he confessed made him what he is today. I’m sure the story is there for all to still go back to.

Mere tokenism is not a demonstration of friendship. Given the guy $5,000 out of probably $100million yearly earning is nothing but inconsiderate – if not outright wickedness.

To my brothers, who trumpet “Entitlement Mentality” slogan whenever issues like these are raised, be it known to you that what you’re are promoting is wickedness, especially in our African clime.

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An African society is nothing but a community where a tree tries to make a forest or is expected to if that is the only option or until other options. People rely on each other to live, not out of privilege, but of right.

Where I come from, the parents train the first set of children and they take it from there and train the rest. Even if the younger one is the first to make it, the rest rely on him to cater for the rest. It is not even a privilege, it is a right. Whoever fails to live by this precept is not only a deviant, but wicked. And society sees him as so.

It is even worse these days, when I hear people advocating that parents should not expect their children to take care of them at old age, because they have their lives to live. That is the height of it.

The white man you’re trying to copy has his own structure cut out for him. There is nothing shameful about his parents moving to old people’s home. All manner of loans are available to start life or go to school. All manner of start-up facilities are available.

Osinmhen is wrong and his friend is right. Here, it is a different kettle of fish. We ride on each other’s back. We get hurt when we don’t get help. There is nothing to be ashamed of expecting your brother to give you money to start business.

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So, when next, you think your brother who expects you to pay his son’s school fees is indulging in Entitlement Mentality, brother, the joke is on you. You’re not fooling anybody. You’re just wicked.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, and I’m The Tiny Voice

 

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