Dele Farotimi and the Fangs of Fascism, by Kene Obiezu

As democracy in Nigeria has triumphed finally and forcefully over creeping fascism, tyranny has adapted, morphing into other things.

A book detonated like a bomb on the Nigerian public has set off a firestorm of controversy, dragging its author into the lair of the Nigerian police, a magistrate court in Ekiti State and then remand while cupping fistfuls of the robes of one Nigeria’s most distinguished nonagenarians and ricocheting off a prestigious institution in London.

From time immemorial, the book has always been a burden on conscience, a boulder for haughty shoulders and a bastion for seekers and givers of knowledge. More than the most powerful bomb ever made, it is the book that has had the most enduring effects on humanity, altering and reshaping civilizations, starting as well as bringing wars to grinding halts.

In 2005, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, told a conference that if books rather than bombs had been thrown at the Taliban, there would be no ISIS.

A couple of days ago, the police stormed Farotimi’s office in Lagos State, arrested him and moved him all the way to Ekiti where he has been put on trial for defamation. The defamation is alleged to stem from a book authored by Farotimi on the Nigerian criminal justice system. The matter is in court and the law acting through the court will have the final say on Farotimi’s fate.

But Nigerians are understandably aghast. A common question on the lips of many is : why shoot the messenger? At what point does the messenger become a valid target so that the hunt and the hunter retain any shred of credibility? The answer is, at no point and there hardly ever is. If a book or an essay or anything that assumes the written form at all makes any allegation no matter how outlandish, the most credible course of action, and this has been proven consistently, over the years is to rebut such in written form. In other words, the most useful road to take in contending with what one has written is to confront the message by way of a counter, to expose malice. In other words, it is to provide readers who may believe one version, a different version so they can draw their conclusions and make their judgements. That has always proven to be the most effective means to contend with the written word in the battle for opinions, assumptions, impressions and conclusions.

When a gauntlet is thrown on the page, it is best taken up on the page. The trenches are best entered on the page. Even if there is any need to roll in the gutters, it is best done on the page. The moment any of the parties takes the extraordinary step of involving the authorities, especially when they are richer or more influential than the other, the battle is irretrievably lost in the court of public opinion, especially in a country like Nigeria historically steeped in inequality and suspicion.

In a country where steep inequality levels jarringly recall years of underdevelopment and instability under military rule, there is everything to worry about in the way the police makes itself readily available to those who would use it to ride roughshod over their fellow citizens. In a country criminally unsecured, it is absolutely shocking the amount of wild goose chases the police lends its resources to. The question: is what are their priorities? Is it a few well-heeled men many of whom should be in jail were the country not an emblem of dysfunction, or is it the general well-being of Nigerians who must now contend for space in their country with common criminals who seem to resurface everywhere?

At a time when the police is providing more questions than answers, it is time to rearrange their priorities.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com