Criticize and go to jail
It was wrong to change the fancy name of jails to correctional centres. It is a serious attempt to transform official jails into Swedish lookalikes. Once that happened, bad things started happening. Lately, crossdresser Idris Olanrewaju Okuneye went to one of these centres and returned, six months later, almost three times his normal size. From […]
It was wrong to change the fancy name of jails to correctional centres. It is a serious attempt to transform official jails into Swedish lookalikes. Once that happened, bad things started happening. Lately, crossdresser Idris Olanrewaju Okuneye went to one of these centres and returned, six months later, almost three times his normal size. From jail, the correctional centres are now fattening rooms, and it was only time that we would all become celebrity ex-cons.
image maker, the handsome Olumuyiwa Adejobi has confirmed our best fears. He has confirmed that henceforth, anyone who insults another being on social media would go the way of Bobrisky. When you think of the fact that nearly 100 Nigerians have died in stampedes within a week, going to a correctional centre for insulting people is something we all should look forward to. After all, we all already live in and conduct our businesses behind steel grills. The difference is that if insecurity allows us, we can still manage our time.
Come to think of it, the safest place in Nigeria today is not Aso Rock, it is the correctional centre. That’s the only place where one’s security is guaranteed. A place to choose a slim diet or a fattening one. Insults are worse to deal with than state-sponsored propaganda.
Those with razor-sharp tongues must not be allowed to choose their habitual jailhouse. They should consult their political leaders who are experts at escaping the long arms of the law. The PPRO considers insults as cyberbullying, it could only mean one thing – it is worse than breaking and entering, armed robbery, kidnapping and ritual murder.
Our dynamically inactive lawmakers passed a Cybercrime Act while we were sleeping on our rights. The best way to test the fangs of any law is to punish those who breach it. In the Eldorado that the ruining APC has created, Nigerians haven’t had it better. They spend their lazy behinds watching television and imbibing the horrible habits of others on social media.
Western critics are spoilt brats. In Canada, citizens constantly ambush their prime minister and pour as many invectives as they could on him. Usually, he smiles coyishly and moves on. Those who have no direct access to him have their stickman stickers simulating an ass grind visibly on their vehicles. Yet, the Canadian RCMP pretends that such sacrilege is not a violation of the law or as important as tracking the thieves picking luxury cars from garages or chasing the blatant thieves breaking and entering malls in Ontario.
In Britain a state-owned media, the BBC once questioned the motive for going to war in Iraq. Its on-air personalities spend their shifts mocking the foibles of their government, including the ceremonial monarchy. Why, they even forced a royal prince to drop his inherited duties.
In America, insulting and abusing officials are erroneously considered an Amendment Right. They stick their phone cameras at everything and everyone while streaming their despicable behaviour live on the Chinese app – TikTok. Now, the government wants full control of Tik-Tok or it would block its signals.
The irony in China is that insulting a Politburo member might attract more than a correctional centre sentence. But then, even in 2024, Chinese officials punish corruption with death. Li Jianping, a high-powered official accused of mismanaging a paltry $412 million was recently shot publicly. This cruel and inhumane sentence contrasts sharply with events in Nigeria, where Mr Jianping would have hidden in the hallowed offices of his state governor, then surrendered to the EFCC, went to court and emerged from detention on crutches. If he had faced a Nigerian legislative enquiry, he would have caught epilepsy on his way to the hearing and publicly exhibited his fainting spells until his case was terminated or heard a huit close.
Mr Adejobi knows that if Nigeria continues to allow the unhindered bullets of insults to hit those in high office, the earth itself will become too hot for their siren immunity.
We all expect a time like this would come, albeit too late. Didn’t our father, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu confess that he stopped all social media activities after realizing that he was the subject of unbridled tongues? And in spite of all the great things the man is doing in Aso Rock and on his flights across the globe, the insults have not stopped.
We do not have a caring president, but a passionate First Vice President in the person of our dear mummy, Pastor Mrs Oluremi Tinubu. She recently launched her Renewed Hope Initiative with the announcement of her billion-naira freebies to the aged, institutions and poor Nigerians. The latter are becoming very hard to find these days, but trust the enemies of the regime, they had to make Nigeria look like a big beggar colony. This was what led to the organization of the so-called palliatives by groups and individuals that led to the death three days of around 100 people, mostly children in three different parts of Nigeria.
The opposition just has to look for a way to make it look like all the misanthropic policies of the government are having an effect on our socialist government. Not only is the government doling out Wi-Fi money through Bluetooth to unknown citizens, but it has also announced free train rides for the Yuletide season. Yet, it must increase its global credit score by borrowing to finance the 2025 budget.
Mr Adejobi’s warning came late. It ought to have started on the day the president was sworn in. Adejobi’s elders say that a toad must be eaten hot because its hide gets tough once it gets cold. Sending critics to the correctional centres is good for business. It keeps all others in check. This is a tactic that has worked everywhere else except Nigeria.
Jail terms for critics are synonymous with the ruse of the law. In Thailand, it is used to jail anyone maligning the King, the Queen or their heir apparent. The term ranges between three and 15 years in the slammer. Critics are a scarce commodity in Togo where the Eyadema Dynasty exerts permanent control over its 10 million population.
Paul Biya has enjoyed the unquestionable loyalty of his citizens and party for 42 years in Cameroon. Usually in countries under military rule, freedom of speech is forever guaranteed, but freedom of speech is a different matter.
As the giant of Africa, Nigeria should step up on its game and enlarge its correctional centres. It could even adopt the Latin-American model in which errant loudmouths are sent to privately run jails while the hardened ones are sent to the type that transformed Bobrisky. After all, it is obvious that we have done fantastic with the jailhouses we inherited from the colonial overlords, so much so, that at a time, even Britain was willing to pay us to send any of our children caught violating their laws to our reformed prisons.
The rule should be that those who have the audacity to criticize others must have the liver to do their time in a correctional centre, different from the iron grills on their traditional doors and windows.