Lagos Okada Ban: Who Should Blink First? 

Babalola Yusuf Abiola

At exactly 2:30 pm on the 25th of May 2010, there was a knock on the door; Mrs. Kemi Olajire managed to open the door of the living room thinking the person knocking was her three year old son who has gone to school.

What went through her mind as she heard the knock was the trouble her little son will give her asking herself what caused her child early return from school but to her greatest surprise, it was her husband who was knocking the door, ‘what happened? Why did you returned early from the office today?’ She enquired, the husband who looked worried and dejected answered in a hush tone, I am one of the twenty five employees that were issued a sack letter today by the management.

You mean you have been sacked from work? Jesus! how will the family survive this? The pregnant wife asked rhetorically.

However, Kolade, believed that with his five years experience in the banking industry, it won’t be long before he get a new job but in other to keep his family together he asked one of his neighbors whom he has asked to manage the motorcycle he bought while he was still in the industry to return it, no thanks to the banking tsunami.

After sending his CV to various financial institutions and attending various interviews, Kolade accepted his fate and faced his Okada business squarely.

Also, Quasim Bello is a graduate of Mass Communication from one of Nigerian leading polytechnic, in the South West, aside that he sponsored himself through his National Diploma (ND) with an Okada he bought from the menial job he does after leaving secondary school.

After lectures in the school, Quasim ply major roads in the city where his school was situated and come to Lagos during semester breaks to continue his business on the popular Lagos- Abeokuta express way, also, he takes care of his aged parents and other younger siblings from what he gathered from the business.

Like Quasim Bello, Kolade Olajire also ply the ever busy Lagos Abeokuta express way in other to meet their family demands but with the new Lagos traffic law that was signed and enforced in Lagos lately the road Quasim and Kolade ply is one of the over four hundred roads that riders has been banned from plying and with this new law where the next meal will come from for this family is what they don’t know. 

But, unlike Kolade, Quasim was fortunate that his motorcycle was not impounded by the official of the Lagos state task force enforcing the compliance of the law.

These and many more are reasons why most Nigerian old or young took to motorcycle operation in the state. 

 However, notable activists are pressing for a review of the new Lagos traffic law, particularly the ban on commercial motorcycle as they converged in Lagos recently to condemn the action of the state government, describing it as “a bad law”.

Among the human rights activists that converged to castigate the new law recently signed into law by the Babatunde Fashola government are the Executive Chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), Debo Adeniran, National President, Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF), Yerima Shettima; State Chairman, All Nigeria Automobile Commercial Owners and Workers Association (ANACOWA), Aliyu Wamba, 

According to Shettima, he said “the ban on Okada riders is condemnable and Lagos state government must have a re-think and a review of their position.

“It is draconian and does not represent what this government seems to be professing as a progressive.

He continued, “This is not a protest rather it is solidarity with the Okada operators in Lagos state which the state government banned.

“We felt the ban is uncalled for at this crucial time, we felt it is a wrong time, especially when our security issue has become a major threat so we must not allow things like this to compound the situation for us.

“We that are gathered here are leaders of various organizations and some of our followers; some of our members were among those that were affected.

“So, we deem it wise to come and solidarise with them, to tell the Lagos State government to have a re-think over the issue, since already they are in court”.

Debo Adeniran, the Executive Chairman, Coalition against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) said, “This is a bad law and anti-poor.  It is not only the operators that are suffering it but majority of Lagosians given the traffic situation in Lagos.

“There is no pedestrian way not to talk of special route for Okada riders. If they have provided alternative roads no Okada rider will want to ply highways and most of the roads are not passable by cars and buses.

‘’Some of the roads they banned Okada from does not have passenger buses, taxis or even the three-wheeler tricyclists, so how do you expect people to get to where they want to go on time.

“You wait for the BRT buses and they will not be there on time. They said when the BRT became operational that one bus will come after the other within the space of 15 minutes but of course we know it is not working as they claimed because you have to wait hours on end before they come.
“It is a bad law and that is why it is being broken, if it had been a good law nobody would want to break it.

“If it has been a good government nobody will want to oppose the law, it is because it is a government that is implementing anti-people, anti-poor policy.

“And if you are implementing anti-poor policy, you don’t expect them to cooperate with you.
Though, the government has been advised to thread softly with the newly initiated law because with this law more people will be pushed into the already crowded unemployment market which may lead to increase in crime.

Meanwhile, the law has recorded its human casualty as in the process of execution as an unidentified policeman has allegedly killed a motorcyclist at Agege.

 

•  Impounded Motorcycles to be destroyed by the Lagos State Government

The police officer who was attached to Pen Cinema Police Division, Agege, Lagos State, was alleged to have hit the cyclist with a baton on the head on Oba Ogunnusi Road in the Ogba area of the state.

According to eyewitness’ account, the policeman hit the motorcyclist with the baton after he refused to stop when he was flagged; the man fell from the bike and died immediately.

The anonymous man said, “I don’t know why the Okada man refused to stop but they have been warned not to pass through Agege, because the road is among the 475 that motorcyclists were banned from plying.”

Though, police officers have earlier been accused of manhandling errant motorcyclists accosted in the area.

 

• a policeman arresting an Okada man in Lagos...recently

On the same day another rider, Dare Ajayi, escaped death by whisker when some policemen from the same division descended on him and beat him to a pulp on Haruna Street, Fagba Road, Ifako Ijaye.

Ajayi, who has bruises in some parts of his body, said Haruna Street was not among the roads Okada riders were asked not to ply.

The cyclist said, “I left my house around 6:30am. As I was going, I saw policemen standing. They flagged me down and I stopped. One of them told me to come down from the bike and I asked him what my offence was. He refused to answer. As I tried to move, he pulled me back and I slugged it out with him. We later fell into a gutter.

“The other policemen later joined him and hit me repeatedly with the butt of their guns and batons. They injured me on my hands, legs and neck. They also tore my cloth. Nevertheless, I did not allow them take my bike away.

“They later called two patrol vehicles to take me to police station at Pen Cinema, Agege, where I bailed myself with N1, 000 after some of them who know me intervened.” 

The Chairman, Ifako Ijaye Motorcycles Operators Association of Lagos, Branch B, Mr. Bayo Ayorinde, has however reacted to clamp down on the motorcyclists in the state saying the enforcement of the law was “brutal.”

His words, “The police need to be civil. Here at Haruna, Fagba Road, another rider was injured. The police beat him a lot. They have to enforce the law gradually. The state government should give exceptions to some places. Look at the streets, a lot of passengers are stranded.”

Collaborating Ayorinde’s comment, the Chairman, Motorcycles Operators Association of Lagos, Iju Ifako Branch, Mr. Ganiyu Ogundimu, said unemployment made some of the riders resort to commercial motorcycling.

He said, “The arrest of Okada riders should be done moderately. How do they want us to survive? This place is a rural area and people can hardly survive. The Fagba Road they arrested us is not even included in the law.

“There is no job and some of us are artisans. The same government demolished our shops. So, we resorted to Okada riding. They have injured someone now. Thank God he did not die.”

Although, the Lagos state police command through its public relation officer, Ngozi Braide has denied police involvement in the killing and injuries sustained by the operator saying the rider wonded himself while trying to evade arrest, contrary to this  Lagosian still believes banning of Okada on major highways is like putting a round peg in a square hole.

According to Sunday, who believed that before government could come up with such a law government must create another means of livelihood for the riders like it is done in Maiduguri when motorcycles were ban, the government make way for three wheelers also known as (keke) as an alternative source of livelihood for the teeming unemployed youths in the state.

Aside that he believed that motorcycle is the fastest means of transportation especially in a society like Lagos where the most used transportation network is by road. When one have to catch an appointment and due to the traffic situation in Lagos it is always very easy to take bike to where one is going, now that that means has been blocked and if not properly managed jobless youth may take up arms and it is the masses that will always suffer.

In a different vain, Alhaji Abdulraman Salaudeen, who love the current calmly nature of the state stressed that the level of accident and armed robbery in the state would be reduced with the introduction of the law because most accidents, injury and death are caused by motorcycles.

He said, “I would rather say I like the situation as it is now, everywhere is calm and very easy to access, when government introduced policy definitely there will be fall outs because a lot of people will be affected, but in the case of the Okada riders, majority of them are pushed into this business because of the failures of successive government to fix electricity in the country,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the Lagos state government has vowed not to rescind its decision of banning motorcyclists from plying major highways and other specified roads in the state  saying sanity must be restored back to the roads and clampdown will continue on riders making people to ask, who will blink first? Only time will tell.

                                MYSTERIES SURROUNDING MKO'S DEATH EXPOSED
              Kofi Annan: Abiola’s Death Was Suspicious.
           **he was ready to denounce his mandate for peace.
           **On release, he planned to go to Mecca to pray and give thanks.

In a remarkable testimony in his new book 'Interventions (A Life in War and Peace)' the former United Nation's Secretary General and most recently U.N. Peace Representative to the Syrian Conflict, Mr. Kofi Annan, has revealed the minute details of his meeting with acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential elections, Bashonrun MKO Abiola, and how chief Abiola assured him that he would not be seeking to reclaim his mandate.

On the Abiola saga, Annan wrote: “Moshood Abiola had been imprisoned and in solitary confinement since 1994. Previously he had been a millionaire businessman reveling in the most extravagant of lifestyles, acquired through a long-standing and close relationship with Nigeria’s military governments.

“But in 1993, there was a short-lived attempt to introduce democracy, and Abiola entered the presidential race. When Abiola looked entirely set to win, the final and full count was never allowed by the reigning military government of President Ibrahim Babangida, even though he had set up the elections in the first place.

“Abiola backed down quietly, but the vote changed his relationship with the government. He had acquired an unprecedented swell of support from many sides of the ethnic and religious divides that criss-crossed Africa’s most populous country.

“When President Babangida was ousted from power and replaced by General Sani Abacha later that year, in the midst of Nigeria’s deepening financial crisis, the new president dissolved the institutions that had been formed to move the country toward a semblance of democracy—the parliament, the thirty state governments, and every single local council—and declared all political parties illegal.

“But in the unfolding chaos of Abacha’s rule, Abiola stepped forward in 1994 and, on the basis of the thwarted 1993 elections, announced to a huge crowd of supporters in Lagos that he was the legitimate president of Nigeria.

“He was immediately arrested and charged with treason and spent the next four years in solitary confinement. During this time, he was denied access to even radio, saw no one from his family from 1995 onward, was unable to talk to anyone else, and was shown only one newspaper article: a report on the assassination of one of his wives in 1996. The only other reading materials he had were a Bible and a Koran.

“Abacha was as illegitimate a ruler as one might have the misfortune to come across—extremely corrupt, and prone to eccentric and self-indulgent behaviour on a scale that only Nigeria’s crony-capitalist oil wealth could sustain.

“He loosely promised the return to democratic elections, including one to me personally after I became secretary-general in 1997, but persistently reneged on such pledges. Opponents and suspected opponents were arrested, and the ranks of political prisoners swelled, as did the number of victims of politically motivated murders at the hands of security forces.

“But on June 8, 1998, Abacha unexpectedly died. General Abdulsalami Abubakar was installed as his replacement the next day. I had met Abubakar previously, when he was accompanying Abacha at a summit in Lome, Togo, in January 1997. He had once served as a UN peacekeeping officer as part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, so we had a common past in peacekeeping which I used to get us talking. “I found him reasonable in outlook and straight speaking, in contrast to the strange, quiet character of Abacha.

At one point, when the president left the room, I pressed upon Abubakar the importance of releasing political prisoners. Abacha had only sighed away my repeated calls for greater freedoms and introduction of democracy, and I hoped influencing his advisers might at least increase the pressure upon the Nigerian president.

“But now Abubakar was president, and he, as he later revealed to me, was scared. The country was entirely isolated internationally after repeatedly refusing to change its political course or release political prisoners, and could count on little outside help; it was in a terrible financial position with a crippling high debt.

 Abacha had antagonised the country’s power bases, which had brought growing unrest and violence onto the streets; the military (dominated by the Hausa ethnic group) was used to its privileged position in society and was not going to give this up easily; and while Abubakar recognised the necessity of democracy to ensure the country’s political sustainability, a mismanaged and sudden introduction of elections could bring even more instability.

“Abacha had disingenuously set the date of October 1, 1998, for a transition to democracy, which, everyone agreed, he fully intended to miss. But Abubakar, with his more genuine agenda, was now beholden to this deadline. One way or another, he needed a carefully managed way out of this very difficult situation.

“Part of the problem for Abubakar was how to deal with the imprisoned Abiola. If released, he could still upend the political balance in the country if he demanded the presidency as he had before. Such a move would be backed by his mainstay of supporters in the South-west of the country, but almost certainly rejected by the military…A few weeks after Abubakar came to power—on June 22, 1998, at 3.30 pm—I had one of these sessions with Nigeria’s foreign minister, Tom Ikimi.

“He conveyed Abubakar’s message: The president hoped I could help him exploit the current opportunity provided by Abacha’s death, Ikimi said, to assist his plan to move Nigeria out of its current predicament. He wanted to return Nigerian to a position of reasonable standing in the region and internationally, to end the country’s misrule, and to usher in democracy. But he also wanted to extend the timetable for elections to ease the process of change—and he wanted my public support for this.

“Ikimi’s style was unrecognisable in comparison to the one he had displayed while serving Abacha. Previously, he had lectured me and others, at length, on how the internal affairs of Nigeria were solely the government’s business. That bold front was now giving way to realism: a recognition of the truly interdependent world of which Nigeria was a part.

“My first thought concerned Abiola. He could not be a casualty of this transition, or it would not be a transition at all. He had but won the first real attempt at democratic elections, retained significant support, and his imprisonment had caused him to become a symbol for those demanding political change in the country. Continuing to imprison him would mean the antithesis of any progress toward genuine democracy and the rule of law.

"I’m willing to publicly give my approval for the president’s plan,’ I said, as Ikimi’s eyes visibly lit up. ‘But only if Abiola is released.’ Ikimi looked taken aback. But he replied that if I came to Abuja personally to voice my support of Abubakar’s election proposals, then Abiola could be released. I accepted the invitation to visit.

“I would play whatever small role I could to aid the end of a military dictatorship; particularly in Nigeria, which had suffered enough from military rule, after an exhausting series of coups that had ridden roughshod over the country since 1960.

“Once he realised who I was, he became more enthusiastic. He also became more explicit regarding his plans. He said he had no intention of claiming the presidency. All he wanted was go to Mecca to pray and give thanks. But he emphasised that he would make no commitment in writing. If he did so, he felt this would destroy his reputation. But he said he was willing to give the same assurance to President Abubakar.”

“Due to my flight schedule, we flew on June 29 to Abuja from Vienna on a plane provided by the Nigerian government. They were keen for us to come, as it was a brand-new and lavishly furnished aircraft, designed for the president’s use. On arrival, I met with President Abubakar to discuss the situation. He emphasised everything Ikimi had said in New York, and I pushed him to move on his promises, to open up the political system and to bring in civil society, to build the momentum in his favour in order to keep the country on course.

“He replied positively but said the October 1 date for a transition to democracy was too soon for credible elections. I counseled him that if he postponed the date, he would have to publicly provide a new and detailed timetable and communicate clearly to everyone why this delay was necessary. I also reminded him that Abiola needed to be released if he was to obtain international goodwill—and mine.

“On this Abubakar wavered slightly. He pledged his willingness to release Abiola immediately, but under the condition that he made no attempt to reclaim the presidency. I could see the general’s concerns: if Abiola came out and demanded to be instated as president, it could cause a deep and violent split that, given the fragile conditions, could take the country to goodness knows where. Abiola’s release was necessary, but it also needed to be a calm process.

“I asked if I could see Abiola, to discuss this problem, and Abubakar said it would be arranged. It was later that night that Lamin heard the knock on his door, and we found ourselves speeding along Abuja’s dark roads to Abiola’s current holding place. We pulled up at a location near the presidential palace, and sullen guards walked us inside the guest house-like building into a simple, bare room with white walls, where I found him sitting quietly.

“After exchanging greetings, I explained that I was in discussions with the president and the junta concerning current developments in Nigeria, and I was pressing them for his release. He seemed remarkably ambivalent. I asked if he wanted to claim the presidency once he was out, which I told him I was confident would happen very soon.

“He said he was not sure, commenting that the junta would be afraid if he did. He seemed to be hedging his bets, not wanting to be drawn into a firm answer. Suddenly, he switched his interest and asked, ‘But who are you?’

“‘I’m Kofi Annan,’ I replied. ‘I’m the secretary-general of the United Nations.’ “‘What happened to the other one? The Egyptian?’ He said, surprised. I had mistakenly assumed that Abiola had been told who was coming to see him and why. All he had been told was that an ‘important person’ would visit. It was amazing the isolation in which this man had been kept—the regime was so used to keeping him in the dark, they maintained his ignorance of anything going on outside even now.

“Once he realised who I was, he became more enthusiastic. He also became more explicit regarding his plans. He said he had no intention of claiming the presidency. All he wanted was go to Mecca to pray and give thanks. But he emphasised that he would make no commitment in writing. If he did so, he felt this would destroy his reputation. But he said he was willing to give the same assurance to President Abubakar.

“I conveyed this assurance to Abubakar the next day, but he was still hesitant. I explained that a free Abiola, who had no interest in upsetting the situation, would be a calming influence on his supporters, not an agitating one. I then told him that I would be announcing in my departing speech to the press that the president had promised me he would release Abiola and the other prisoners very soon. Whether this speech reinforced his credibility or undermined it would now depend upon him.

“In the ensuing press conference, given shortly before our flight out of the country, I did as promised. But I also revealed that Abiola had, indeed, told me that he had no intention of claiming any right to the presidency, further removing any justification Abubakar held for not releasing him and also smoothing the path ahead with Abiola’s more hardline supporters. I was also trying to ease the concerns of those Nigerians who feared Abiola’s return.

“On our return journey, everything seemed set for Abiola’s release. But tragedy struck a week later when Abiola collapsed and died during a meeting with U.S. Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering. Despite the earnest intentions we had detected in Abubakar, the timing could only be considered suspicious.

“However, an international team of pathologists established that it was the result of heart condition, and there was no foul play—other than the fact, I thought that Abiola had been denied adequate medical care throughout his incarceration. Either way, he was yet another casualty of the systematic violations of a whole range of human rights that are inevitable under personalised and oppressive regimes.

“On leaving the country after the final press conference, we found the Nigerians had lent us a very different airplane than the one in which we arrived. It was old, run-down, and did not look entirely safe. On seeing it, Kieran Prendergast, my insightful and witty under-secretary-general for political affairs, turned to me, laughing through his beard: ‘well, you’ve done what they needed you for. Who cares about you now?’ Indeed, within fifteen minutes of taking off, the flaps jammed in a mechanical failure, and the pilot told us that we had to return and change aircraft…”

      The Beast in Us

By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

She glanced at her watch. It was 2:13pm. Quickly she sprinkled the salt in her palm into a pot of egusi soup in front of her. She covered the pot, rested her shoulders on the kitchen wall as she stood up from a wooden chair near the stove. She walked to the front of the house, moving each leg with great effort. She was nine months pregnant. It took some time before she made it to the front yard.

 For a while she stood there, her hands supporting her waist. Her face gleamed in the tropical day light. She waited for the school bus to drop off her son. It was his second week at the school located in the town next door. She still missed him whenever he left and worried about how he was faring in school. 

As she waited, a light breeze carried the aroma of egusi soup to her nose. Or was it the scent that was trapped on her Buba, she wondered. She bent her head and smelled the tip of her blouse.

And the bus appeared from a distance. As its breaks screeched, she stepped aside, away from the road’s pavement. The bus door swung open and her three-year old son twirled down. He stepped on the red soil with a wobbly gait. 

His eyes had gone inside their sockets and his lips curled around his teeth. His cheeks were pushed deep into his mouth. The young woman felt something in her stomach. She dragged her feet toward her son, her hands stretched for a hug. 

The boy did not run to her the way he used to. His oversized school bag hung on his tiny shoulders. She got to him and picked him up. Up in the air, she asked him if he was okay and the little boy started to cry. She held tight to him and toddled back into the house, wiping his tears along the way. She kept asking what was wrong and the little boy kept pointing at various parts of his body.

Inside, she placed him down on the bed and stripped him bare. She did not know when a loud scream came out of her mouth. His tiny body had lacerations on his back, front, side, arms and legs. There was no way to lay him on the bed without him feeling piercing pain. She gathered soft towels and placed them underneath him. 

She called her husband on the phone to inform him. As the boy cried, she called his teacher’s phone. The teacher said that the boy refused to sleep at school so she flogged him to get him to sleep. Her heart jumped. Her blood bubbled. She ran from one end of the room to another searching for what to rub on his wounds to lessen the pain. She picked dusting powder, glanced at the instructions and put it down. She grabbed a can of Vaseline and dropped it. 

Then she decided to drape the wounds with towel soaked in warm water. She went to the kitchen to boil a kettle of water. There she noticed that her pot of soup had been burning all along. Smoke loitering all over the kitchen.

Her husband rushed back home. They debated what to do. There were not a lot of good options. If they report to police they would need money to get the police to act. Beyond that, their son would be dismissed from the only private school around them. 

The only option would be to have him go to the dilapidated public schools nearby. They did not want him to have the kind of poor foundation they had at village schools. They did not want to be labeled trouble makers, either. They decided to nurse their son back to health. They chose to hope that his teacher would not beat him again.

Their son is my godson.

All across Nigeria and Africa, there are so many young and helpless children who are daily abused. They are abused by parents, guardians, teachers, family members, distant relations and strangers alike.
The tears of these little children contaminate our land. Some of these abuses are so institutionalized that we don’t see them for what they are. Some have been carried on generations after generations. The victims become apostles of the same acts after they have survived and outgrown their abusers.

Corpses have more respect than children in Nigeria. What house girls go through in homes across Nigeria each day is enough for the prayers of Nigerians not to be answered for a decade. 

The sad thing about these ill-treatments is that majority of the perpetuators are the elite. The same elite who are educated and are supposed to show the light to the vast majority of our people – a majority who did not have the opportunity to understand the connection between human dignity, moral compass and compassionate society.

In the homes where many of us grew up, we observed our parents and other adults treat house girls like sub-humans. Some of us participated in such inhuman treatments. We beat, abuse, molest and deprive these children of the poor under the pretense that we are raising them. 

In many homes across Nigeria you could identify the house girl by the way she dressed, even when the family is out in public. When the parents speak to the kids, the tone they use reveals who is their child and who is the house girl.

The real measure of our humanity is not in how we treat those who are rich, those who are influential and those who are “useful” to us. The real measure of our humanity is how we treat those who are helpless, those who are weak and those who are disadvantaged. Often those we consider helpless, useless and beneath us are the most influential people in our lives.  They are 


“We essentially have animals pretending to be humans. There is no morality left in our religion. There is no ethics guiding our behaviors. There is no enforcement of our laws. We are ruled by our very basic human instincts and yet wonder why our society is backward and corrupt.”

the ones who cook for us, wash our clothes, drive us around and take care of our children. They deserve better treatment from us than members of the high society. It is insanity to show contempt to people who are an integral part of our innermost lives.

What makes Nigeria’s case so pathetic is that the three core sources for the reinforcement of human dignity in any society failed us at the same time – our ethical, religious and legal roots all washed away at once? 

We essentially have animals pretending to be humans. There is no morality left in our religion. There is no ethics guiding our behaviors. There is no enforcement of our laws. We are ruled by our very basic human instincts and yet wonder why our society is backward and corrupt.

The children we abuse today will tomorrow take their revenge on our children and our children’s children. By violating the dignity of others, we invite a violation of our dignity. Those we degrade often lose their sense of what is rational. And when that happens, we all become victims of their irrationalities. 

Our degradation of those who find themselves in low social status causes harm to them and also to us. When we deny our fellow human beings their dignity we open the door for greater evil to come into our homes and our society. 

Our cruelty to the less privileged does not just erode our conscience; it diminishes our sense of shame. And when that happens, a little of what makes us human dies with it. Those who take joy in depriving others of their happiness are asking for posterity’s curse as a payback.

Frequently we take this abusive behavior with us when we move abroad. In My Life Has A Price, Tina told a story of how, as a 13-year old girl she was taken from Nigeria to France to live with Former Nigeria’s footballer, Godwin Okpara.

 The former Paris Saint-Germain star, Godwin, and his wife, Linda, enslaved and abused Tina in France even while she raised their children for them. They spat on her, called her stupid, denied her education, beat her and sexually molested her. Godwin is now serving 10-year jail term while Linda is serving 15-year jail term. Their children are in foster care.

Tina’s kind of story plays out in millions of homes everyday in Nigeria. We partake in it. We perpetuate it. And we pretend that it is not evil. Yet, we are repulsed by the video of those men who grabbed four innocent students of the University of Port Harcourt, beat them up, and set their bodies on fire. 

But if the video of how we treat our house girls, our drivers, our gateman, our apprentices, our cook, our gardener, our students, our workers, our subordinates at work, and all those lower in status is captured and shown to the world, it may be as repulsive as that of the Aluu lynching mob.

Fifty-two years of progressive corruption, unrestrained impunity, accelerating injustice, disappearing cultural custodians and deepening self deceit have unhinged the furculum of our society’s moral core. It has brought out the beast in us – mini- lynching mobs strolling across our communities violating, humiliating and harming every unfortunate being on our path just to appease our uninhibited desires.

To begin to rebuild a moral future for our society, we need to rise above our animal instinct. Therapist Craig Nakken argues that we need to replace arrogance with humility, hate with love, resentment with forgiveness, greed with charity, disdain with empathy, skepticism with trust, apathy with care and inequality with equality. Our world would be a different place if we follow ethicist Bruce Weinstein five principles - do no harm, make things better, respect others, be fair and be loving.

Kindness, goodness, decency and love are infectious. And as the New York City train says, they start with you. And on and on they travel until they get to my three-year-old godson.