By Suyi Ayodele
If you don’t belong to the upper class in Nigeria, stay off crime. If you are not close to any man-in-power or man-of-power, be law-abiding.
In Nigeria, a man of privilege can take the entire crew and passengers of a plane hostage and get home within hours. The friend of the powerful can stop a plane from taxiing, and he takes the next available flight home.
In the same Nigeria, if a daughter of Mr. Nobody assaults air hostesses, she gets half-stripped by airport security. Within the hours, the gates of Kirikiri prison are opened to receive her. Our laws here are not blind; they distinguish the privileged from children of commoners! We sink odiously; only that we are not oozing maggots yet!
Know our ways and be guided! Here, a lion kills children of the poor. It gets commendation for cleansing the land; the same lion kills a prince and is accused of genocide! Children of the privileged are always treated preferentially here. It did not start today.
At the funeral of an elderly man about 38 years ago, a young man was detailed to entertain the other elders gathered for the rites of passage for the departed.
Part of his assignment was to serve the elders with palm wine. He did that successfully, filling their calabashes more than twice. Custom also demands that he has a taste of the palm wine. He who feeds a child must not clean his hands on the bare floor (anu omo kò ní fowó nu’lè), goes the saying. But that would be after the sacred elders must have had their fills.
By the time the young man checked the keg of palm wine, what was left could barely fill a cup. So, he turned the remnant of the palm wine into his own calabash and drained it in three gulps. The elders saw him and exchanged glances without saying a word.
He packed the empty calabashes and the keg. One of the initiates stopped him. The old man commanded: “Now, pour the dreg of the palm wine into this calabash (Ò yá, da ìdí emu tó kú sìnú igbá yî)” Stalemate! There was nothing to pour from the empty keg. There was a deep silence.
One of the elders broke the silence by asking who drank the dreg of the palm wine. Before anyone responded, roared: “Has the tradition changed that the dreg of palm wine belongs to the elder?” He shot a fierce glance at the young man. The loudest silence followed, a pin drop! The man who spoke was the oldest and the most senior of the attending initiates.
Glances were exchanged, heads nodded. In the Yoruba worldview, only the oldest man in a gathering drinks the dreg of palm wine. Except he gives it out, nobody dares touch the last drop of the substance. The young man knew the implications. They can be unpalatable, especially when the initiates are gathered! A sacrilege had been committed, everyone waited.
An uncle to the young man, a senior initiate himself, stepped in. He announced that the young man drank the remnant. The other elders called for the appropriate punishment as prescribed by tradition. The uncle emphatically said that would not be applicable in that circumstance. Almost everyone asked why. He explained.
The boy who drank the dreg is a privileged child, the uncle said. The passage of rites in progress was for the departed father of the young man, he added. The deceased, he reminded them, was not just an initiate, but the lead initiate in the clan -the one we call Àòrò in my Ekiti dialect or Àwòrò in Modern Yoruba (chief priest).
He adumbrated the age-long tradition that the child of a chief priest cannot be treated like the child of a non-initiate. He backed his traditional advocacy with one of the panegyrics of the departed Àòrò thus: When the child of the chief priest stumbles and upturns the sacred water pot, the chief priest turns it to a laughing matter; if the child of a non-initiate does the same, the chief priest collects rat, he collects fish; he asks him to bring several pieces of brass- sacrificial items for appeasement (Omo Àòrò subú d’omi akòkó nù, Àòrò mú s’òrò èrìnrín; kó s’omo olòmúrìn, ha gb’eku, ha gbe’ja; há so’hun wéréwéré bí ude).
The uncle sat down. The meeting went silent. One after the other, the initiates stepped out to the sacred court to perform their last rites. Prayers were offered for the deceased, his family, and particularly, for the young man assigned to see to their welfare. Funeral rites over. Everyone went home. Case closed!
This incident is no fiction. It happened at the final rites of my father, Baba Daniel Falade, in 1987. My family produces the chief priest for our clan deity, Òràngún. The panegyrics above belong to us. The young man in the narration, my elder cousin, is a lawyer today. Every child in our family is an ‘Omo Àòrò’ (child of the chief priest).
That ancestry confers on us some certain privileges. As Omo Àòrò, we get away with the most sacrilegious offence such as tumbling on the sacred water pot (omi akòkó) and spilling the content. Omi akòkó belongs to the deity. Only the chief priest or anyone he delegates can touch it.
Spilling the water or breaking the sacred water pot is too grievous a taboo to commit. The consequences are terrible! Only a member of my family gets away with it because we are privileged children! We don’t answer Òsínbôn (male), and Aríé (female) for fun!
Incidentally, no single Òsínbôn or Aríé has ever stumbled on the sacred water pot. It is part of our training, part of our orientation from the cradle to reverence omi akòkó. Other children can spill it and get severely punished. A typical Omo Àòrò would never do such. The discipline runs in the family. We know we have the privilege. But no child of ours has ever abused it. How our forebears achieved that, only the Cosmic knows!
In Nigeria today, we have so many spoilt brats running around the landscapes. We have so many privileged individuals who get away with the most heinous infractions. Once you know someone in power, or you have access to the corridor of power, you can do anything and get away with it.
I once saw a complimentary card by an official of Ogun State Government. The designation on the card is: “Office of the Friend of the Governor.” I am serious! The owner, I was told, was a complete nuisance throughout the tour of duty with his governor-friend.
In our contemporary time, we have had the Office of the First Daughter of the Federation. The Privileged abound here. The son of the president attended the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting for weeks until sanity prevailed. The same son is accorded airport receptions whenever he ‘tours’ states! We all saw the videos of such receptions and just moved on. The son of the president is as good as the president himself in Nigeria.
One of General Muhammadu Buhari’s daughters once commandeered a presidential plane and flew to Kano to shoot photographs. Her father, we were told, was our generation’s Bayajidda and epitome of discipline and integrity. Nobody reprimanded the girl, at least not to our knowledge!
As an Omo Àòrò, I could barge in on the esoteric in their meeting without consequences. But I would never do that because from the cradle, we were trained to know that nothing kills a child more than taboos (ohun tó únpa omo bí èèwò kò sí). Taboo or abomination, our elders say, is eaten in small bits like the tip of a needle. That saying holds no water in the Nigeria of today where the father is the president, the mother is the First Lady, and the daughter is the Ìyálójà General of our universe!
Privilege! It is an intoxicant. Only the disciplined and properly well-brought ups can handle it with the care it deserves. Nothing is more fragile than privilege; it breaks without prompting the carrier! If you doubt this, just check what happened to the Official Musician of the President (OMP), King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, popularly known as KWAM1, last Tuesday in Abuja.
Our OMP also holds one of the highest titles in Ijebuland today as the Olórí Omo Oba Akilè Ìjèbú (Head prince of Ijebuland). Ceteris paribus, the man may be the next Awujale of Ijebuland. Do not say God forbid. When you are the official griot or bard and percussionist of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, you can become anything here! But for public outcry, a beautifully decorated ocker would have been made a king in Lagos. Even now, the matter has still not been settled. This is a country of anything goes.
Go to Osun State and see the mess a scallywag has made of one of the most traditional stools in Yorubaland. Any town mentioned in Ifa Corpus is sacred. That is the throne someone powerful people gave to an American fly-by-night. Today, His Royal Rascal (HRR) changes the title of the throne in a manner that makes the chameleon envious. It is only in that same Osun that you get first class kings who divorce their Oloris as if divorce has been listed as a sport in the Olympics! Those ones got enthroned because they were privileged to be close to people-in-power and people-of-power!
Akure Oloyemekun once had a privileged Deji, who pursued his Olori from the palace to the streets and emptied a can of hot ashes on her. Someone high up in the power equation got the wife-battering Kabiyesi to the throne. Thank God for the then Governor Olusegun Mimiko who waded in immediately, dethroned the Deji, banished him to Owo and installed a new Oba for the Akure people.
Enough digression. We go back to the OMP, KWAM1, Omo Anifowose himself. He needs no introduction save to say that he is one of the most popular music talents this nation has ever produced. He crowned his voyage in the nation’s entertainment industry by becoming the number one musician for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
And KWAM1 is more than being the OMP. He is also a spiritualist to the President. Anything President Tinubu needs to go esoteric against his perceived enemies, KWAM1 is readily available with his Àyájó (evocation). Don’t ask me how I know. Search for the videos of Tinubu’s campaign in 2023. You will understand what I am saying. KWAM1 is the only one who holds the trophy of recording and sharing his conversation with the President to the public and got away with it. Privilege!
KWAM1 set the internet buzzing since last week, when, possibly drunk by the privileges he has as an OMP, he held an entire crew and passengers of a commercial plane hostage on the tarmac! He was selective and deliberate. Wasiu Ayinde committed that sacrilege in Abuja, our Federal Capital Territory. And guess what: he did not see it as a big deal. How do I mean?
Four days after his failed hostage-taking incident, he was on stage in Ikorodu, Lagos State, at the gig for the Ayangburen of Ikorodu who marked his 10th years anniversary on the throne. While ‘apologising’ for the infraction, our OMP wondered why such an “ìsèlè kékeré se wá di únlá” (why should a small matter turn to a big issue). Standing before a taxi-bound plane is no big deal here. That’s how we roll!
The issue that led to the Abuja airport incident has been over-flogged. I saw KWAM1 and his golden flask. I wonder why a man who carries a golden flask would have the character of a common street urchin. But I stopped wondering when I remembered the saying that Aso únlá kó ni ènìyán únlá (a big apparel is not an indication of responsibility). Character is like a smoke (èéfín nì’wà), says the adage. Our elders complete the wisecrack: no matter how one covers it, it must exhale (bí a de mólè, rírú ní rú).
I am amused by those who said that KWAM1’s apology should be assuaging enough. What a nation! If Wasiu Ayinde had committed the same crime in a saner clime, would he apologise using a teleprompter the way he did? Would he tender the apology from the comfort of his home or from a detention cell? Only a privileged rogue elephant would hold people hostage in an international airport and would go home the same day to apologise on a teleprompter!
Even his Ikorodu gig for the Ayangburen and the so-called apology was a malarkey, a complete tosh! He sang in Yoruba. Those who understand the language would agree with me that what Wasiu Ayinde did in Ikorodu is nothing but a continuation of his esoteric àyájó (evocation), a double-Dutch, to hypnotise the public. Holy Moses! Am I the only one familiar with these evocative lines: Mo já’wé gbégbé, kó’mí má gbé mi lo/ Mo já’wé tètè, kí’lè má tè mi rì/Mo já’wé akóyoyo, èrò léhìn mi (I pluck gbégbé leaves, let the sea not wash me off/I pluck tètè -sinking-leaves, let the ground not sink me/I pluck akóyoyo – crowd-pulling – leaves, let the crowd follow me).
That is exactly what KWAM1 did in Ikorodu when he sang: ewé oríjì mo já/ewé oríjì mo já o/eni ‘ùnbá sè/eni ‘ùnbá sè kó f’orí jì mî/ewé oríjì mo já/ (I have plucked oríjì -forgiveness- leaves. Whoever I offended must forgive me. I have plucked oríjì leaves). Only the òpè, the ones Gen-Z refers to as ‘Jews’, will consider those evocations as an apology. This is, I daresay, without paying any attention to the arrogance that oozed out of him on stage.
I have asked KWAM1’s fans spreading his ‘apology’ to go and watch the two videos again. I equally asked them what would have been their reactions if the pilot of that plane had been their wives. How many men would take kindly to another man pouring a substance on their wives because the assailant has a bogus entitlement mentality?
And how are we sure that what our OMP carried in his golden flask was water and not the street monkey tail (mixture of ògógóró and weed), or sùngbalaja (sleep anyhow) gégémú (fermented seed) fònàgáu (cross road anyhow) or jékánmò (let them know), the street stimulants associated mostly with people in KWAM1’s trade – Fuji. If the claim that he sipped the content before the air hostesses and other officials asked him to hand it over, and he claimed that what he had was water were true, may we then ask how intoxicant is the OMP’s holy water?
The excuse that Wasiu Ayinde has a health issue that requires him to sip water by seconds is as funny as it is doltish. Are we saying here that with the numerous hours he has had flying, KWAM1 is ignorant of the fact that on board the plane, he could easily require water, more so that he is on Business Class of the flight? And if truly he is easily dehydrated as he claimed, can we know how many times he took time off the stage in Ikorodu to sip water?
It is noticeable that the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, immediately placed him on a no-fly list. But the measures, to me, are like a slap-on-the-wrist given the nature of the crime committed. What KWAM1 did was pure hostage taking, terrorism and false imprisonment, all rolled in one! He practically hijacked the plane for the minutes he prevented it from flying!
If he is an easily dehydrated patient as he claimed, he should know that on board that plane he held hostage for close to 40 minutes were patients who probably had appointments with their doctors. There were businessmen and women who had dates to keep but were held down by an analphabetic bumptious fellow! That he got back to Lagos, hours after the incident, probably aboard another plane (chartered or public) sends dangerous signals to the flying public and undermines discipline in the aviation industry.
Now, another KWAM1 episode played out on Sunday when a female passenger attacked crew members of another plane. If, for instance, the news out there is that KWAM1 had been remanded in prison custody pending the determination of his case, KWAM2’ would not have attempted such an infamy within one week! This is what happens when the right steps are not taken in good and right measures to address indiscipline.
The sane world is appalled that the privilege that covered KWAM1, who committed a more heinous crime of hostage-taking and terrorism, but was only cautioned and released to fly home, is denied a less-privileged ‘KWAM2’, Comfort Emmanson, who assaulted hostesses of an Uyo-Lagos bound Akwa Ibom Air, and within the hours, she was dragged before a court and was railroad to Kirikiri prison!
We have scored yet another low in our preferential treatment of citizens with the way we rushed to prosecute offender number two, without prosecuting offender number one, who is a friend of the president. These actions and inactions will haunt us for a long time.
In closing, I want to say that I deliberately left out the pilot of the Value Jet plane, Captain Oluranti Ogoyi, out of this narrative. Why? I have read comments about how badly the lady behaved or how she should have acted otherwise. I have set a search for what a pilot, who gets clearance to fly, should do when a nyaff stands, like the popular Àgbà Ìnàki (King kung), to hold the plane down.
After the clearance to take off, is it part of the standard practice that the pilot must come down to check who is standing on the tarmac, or if the tyres are well inflated like they do at Okota Motor Park? If it were to be so, there wouldn’t be cases of stowaways. Or, in the alternative, should Captain Ogoyi have called Aso Rock to get President Tinubu to come and move his official bard out of the way? If the pilot was not sure that the tarmac was clear, how come KWAM1 was the only one who had to ducked under the plane when it taxied? Until I get convincing answers, I have no opinion about Captain Ogoyi and her ‘anger management’ as many are claiming.
We are lucky that KWAM1, at 68 years old, still has the dexterity of a typical Ajegunle street boy to duck under the moving plane. The story would have been different today. In his sober moment, when he does not sip from his golden flask, may KWAM1 imbibe the wisdom of our elders that abusing one’s privilege is akin to a child who eats taboos like the tips of needles. Our elders say: Bí orí abéré, bi orí abéré laa je èèwò (one eats taboos like tips of a needle); tó bá ti tó ro’kó ní hun ní (when it is big enough to be smitten to a hoe is when it comes with its consequences). He may not be lucky next time!
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine
