God’s time is best

Today, Kelvin Igha-Igbodalo is gaining national sympathy not on account of himself or his own deed but on account of the slap on the wrist sentence that Yusuf got for a much more grave offence. I have heard some people saying that it was Aregbesola’s fault anyway, that he was too excited to be at his swearing-in, a court having wrested the governor’s office away from PDP man Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s hands and delivered it to him on a platter of gold, or at least on a platter of Oso condensate. There were still other Nigerians who were saying, “Where was Aregbesola’s ADC? Was he not supposed to be standing right behind the governor and guarding him and his pockets? What kind of policeman was he that he was standing behind a principal and someone could dip his hand in the principal’s pocket and make away with a Sony Erickson phone?” I cannot answer this question; maybe Inspector General M.D. Abubakar can.

The prosecutor and the judge in this case will answer these cynics and say look, young man Igbodalo not only stole Aregbesola’s phone—a Nigerian equivalent of Britain’s Great Train Robbery of 1963—but he used it for a sophisticated 419 operation. He used the stolen phone to call some important people and, pretending to be the governor, told them to part with some money, which they readily did. Among the duped persons was the paramount ruler of Ijeshaland, Aregbesola’s home town. The embarrassment caused to the Oba by this episode was probably greater than that felt by the governor, so the judge doubly punished the convict for serially embarrassing the high and mighty.

Now, I don’t want anyone to start comparing us with other people, for I know that Nigerians are fond of doing that. I heard someone wondering aloud that if a film director in Hollywood were to receive a text message from the Governor of California asking him to part with some money, will he readily do so? He could do so if it were a campaign donation and he supports the governor’s politics. Otherwise if it is a request to hand out money to someone else, he is likely to say, “F—k the governor, I won’t part with a dime.” So why should eminent persons here rush to part with money because they got a text message from the governor’s phone?

All the other people who have been stealing phones at the Wuse Market in Abuja, all they have been getting at the courts are a few months in prison. Maybe that is why there are so many phone thieves these days. In Nigeria today, even those persons who do not regard themselves to be thieves would spirit away a phone once you leave it lying in the wrong place for a minute. I learnt this the hard way two years ago when I drove into a car wash in Wuse on a Saturday morning and asked a young man to wash my car. Minutes before I went to his car wash spot, I was speaking on the phone as I stood in front of a shop. From there I drove straight to his car wash spot. I handed him the keys and began to walk away; within two minutes I remembered that I left the phone in the car and walked back but the phone was gone. Yet, the man swore 100 times that he did not take it. That was not even the part that annoyed me. It was that half a dozen of his fellow car washers who witnessed the scene all backed his word against mine.

What is the appropriate sentence that should be given to a man in Nigeria who steals a goat? You often read in the newspapers that a man got as much as five years in jail with hard labour and without an option of fine for stealing a goat. If you are an urban middle class person, which is what the majority of newspaper readers are, you will not regard a goat as a highly prized object and you will think the magistrate overdid things by handing down such a stiff sentence. But that is because you are neither the goat owner nor the magistrate. The goat owner, most likely a rural peasant farmer or perhaps a poor urban woman who inherited the goat from her deceased mother, could see it as her biggest worldly possession and could have invested elaborate hopes and aspirations in that lone goat. Unless the magistrate hands down an exemplary punishment, he could be inviting the aggrieved goat owner to take the law into his or her own hands.

Or even, what punishment befits a man who steals a cow? “Rustling” is a well known crime that often transcends international borders. Now, as an urban middle class guy whose only connection to the cow is when you are consuming beef on the dining table, you are likely to regard two years’ jail sentence handed down to a cow thief as stiff. Which is not how the Fulani herdsman will see it, incidentally. To him, a cow is not just mobile wealth, it is his whole life. It is wealth, it is status, it is dignity, family prestige, ancestral heritage, the focal point of his culture, his movement, his tales and the centerpiece of his life’s aspirations.

It is not just Fulani herdsmen; all the world’s cattle rearing communities think like that. I recall a report that Ishaq Modibbo Kawu wrote when he returned from a trip to southern Sudan in 2006. It was about “Spending six cows to look for one lost cow.” Look at it this way; for an urban resident like me, if you take away my N1,000 and ran away to Kaduna, I will calculate that if I follow you there, I will spend more than N1,000 in transport costs alone, so it’s better to forgo the stolen money. But to a nomadic herdsman, this is not just a rational economic decision. As Kawu reported, a Dinka herdsman can spend six cows looking for one lost cow, which tells you that it is more than an economic issue.

I think punishment should only be tempered with mercy if the thief happens to have a very good reason, like the man who stole a clock in the church. The magistrate was very angry, and he said, “Of all places, why should you go to the church and steal the wall clock?” The man coughed nervously, looked at the magistrate straight in the eye and answered, “Sir, God’s time is the best.”