A TWENTY (20) YEAR OLD POUNDED YAM
By Olusola Ajiboye
“Iyan Ogun Odun, a maa j’oni lowo…”
A Yoruba adage, translated in English as: a twenty (20) year old pounded yam can be hot for a touch of the finger…” is a lash meant to whip an erring man into line.
Literarily analysed, the adage validates the universal law of Karma, otherwise referred to as the law of retribution; “what you sow you reap.”
The growth of Nations in different parts of the World did reveal full or partial application of this universal law at epical moments in history.
Upheavals such as the 1789 French Revolution, the 1945 Nuremberg trials of Nazi – Germany dictators, the 1944 post Italian era of Benito Mussolini and the end of key players in the pre and post 1980 military insurgencies in Liberia, all bore elements of karma as major determinants.
In all of these trajectories, Karma pronounced a stretched-impactful verdicts on actors and participants of the events that shaped or re-shaped the destinies of such Nations.
Nigerians who believe in the potency of Karma are unhesitant in referring to trending trials and convictions of highly placed political and public office holders for their indiscretions in and out of office. Some of them have had their properties forfeited. But this is Nigeria where the unGodly often gets away with corruption no matter the odium it emits. Mind boggling criminal acts of disappearance, misappropriation, embezzlement, diversion and outright stealing of public funds without sanctions, have become bigger optics for the citizens already brow-beaten into subterfuge, to entertain any hope that Karma can be enforced.
The systemic rot in the political class, the bureaucracy, security agencies and the Intelligentsia has graduated from corruption to impunity, leaving doors wide-opened for more entrants bearing the badge of impunity.
It is neither the absence of anti-graft laws nor enforcers that erodes peoples’ hope in Karma but the submerge of moral responsibility and authority by a Ruling Caste that has held Nigeria to ransom.
A flip into the recent scandal which drew some top notches in the Presidency and the Federal Civil Service locked in a con-fight, is a vivid reference to how priviledged Nigerians habitually dip their fingers in the cookie-jar. With dirty games as this in recurring decimal at high levels of government, where is Karma?If Karma exists, why is corruption and impunity the order of the day in the Country?
If Nigerians are not challenged by dearth of anti-graft laws and agencies to enforce the laws, why is the judiciary so emasculated to allow extraneous interferences erode its authority? Why has the bench tolerated judges whose conducts are suggestive of compromise, inducements and subtle intimidation? Were the Law of Karma applied, how many of these controversial Judges can escape Justice?If Karma is invincible, why are innocent Nigerians constantly the butt of the oppressors’ Jack-boots and Whips while the law looks the other way?
As I write this piece, the story of a Seventy Eight (78) year old sugarcane hawker in Borno State, North-East Nigeria drew tears from my eyes.
His, is a tale of the Orwellian Jungle where might is not only right, but a way of life..
He was arrested by a police officer for an offence committed out of human error, dumped in a police cell, clamped in remand and tossed from prison to prison without trial for forty seven (47) years. He was thirteen (13) years old at the time he was arrested not for theft, burglary or armed robbery but for accidentally breaking off the rear light of a car!
The sugarcane hawker whose cart knocked off the rear light of a police officer’s car, had his youth and adult life shattered courtesy of a law enforcer who is currently an Emir in one of the Northern States of Nigeria.
The sugarcane hawker was released from prison by divine intervention and grace of his State Governor at age Sixty (60) and taken to the Emir who had severed him from his parents and family in a period that lasted four (4) decades and seven (7).
The old man is alive to tell his story but the Emir literarily took his life.
Pessimists will doubt if Karma is alive on reading this saddening story. They will ask why the law courts are incubators of injustice? Why the Nigeria Police Force continues to be a recruitment centre for morally deprived characters? And why the Emir is still sitting on a corrupted throne after having committed a crime equivalent of crime against humanity.
My faith in Karma, like those of millions of Nigerians may have been thoroughly shaken by the way the country is being misgoverned, but I still believe the law of retribution is not dead.
The arrest, detention and trial of some untouchables is a relieve of some sort that Karma is alive.
What was previously thought was beyond the long arm of the law seems to be receding to the grip of the law. The tin-gods of yesteryears: Shehu Malami, Godwin Emefiele, Ahmad El-Rufai, Beta-Edu, Yahaya Bello, Ahmed Idris, Emmanuel Andoaka among others are having dates with the law.
Is Karma not working? I say, YES.
Even for the Emir who now sits in judgement over his subjects, a twenty (20) year old pounded yam, (Iyan Ogun Odun) is a whip that will lash his conscience for the rest of his life.
The dragnet should spread to catch more bad-fishes outside the net.
There are many still walking free with their loots and living with their criminal pasts. But arraignment, prosecution and conviction of some, is a reminder that all is not lost for Nigeria.
Olusola Ajiboye is a Veteran Journalist and Media Consultant based in Osogbo, South West Nigeria.