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Yoruba’s spirit of resistance

By Lasisi Olagunju

The king in pre-colonial Oyo had power over everything. He determined who lived and who died. At a point in time, there was this street drummer in Oyo metropolis who moved from one point of the town to the other plying his trade. And, he was a master of his art, great skill, vigorous activity. He would praise those he considered praiseworthy; he would deprecate the deplorable. The people enjoyed what he did as long as he did not make them the object of his pillory.
One day, the drummer got up early and woke up the town with a strange beat and a strange message:

Kòtò kan nbe n’íta oba,
Olórun ó mu
Kò ì yá ni

(Meaning: There is a pit in front of the king’s palace; God will catch him (the king) but it is not yet time).

What is he saying? Alarm bells rang in homes and across Oyo that a drummer was spreading a strange message against the king. Is it not said that a dog is allowed to run mad but its insanity notwithstanding, it is expected to know and avoid fire? B’ájá bá nsínwín sebí ó ye k’ó m’ojú iná. This particular dog had a madness that obviously knew no limits. He had added the king to his list of objects of scorn.

The message soon got to the King, the Alaafin. He sent for the drummer.
“Ngbó, what are you saying about me?” Kabiyesi asked him.
The drummer responded before Ikú Bàbá Yèyé with his drumbeat:

Kòtò kan nbe n’íta oba,
Olórun ó mu
Kò ì yá ni.

You would not be a Yoruba in those days if you did not understand the language of drums.
Everyone heard him loud and clear and gasped. This one should die! Ar’óbafín l’oba á pa. Palace guards moved to assault him; the king stopped them. Kabiyesi took a long look at the drummer, took a deep breath and told the man to go home. He even gave him money for his trouble. The drummer was equally stunned by the king’s verdict. He left.
The king looked round his chiefs, then turned to his people. “We must not touch him. Oba kìí mú akorin (The king does not arrest the bard).” He said and added, in very low tones that apart from the fact of a bard having immunity, touching him because of that particular message would set the town ablaze.
What is Kabiyesi saying? He and a few of his trusted aides understood clearly what the drummer was saying. There was truly a deep pit in front of the king’s palace. In that pit were the king’s deepest secrets. It was into that pit he threw the unfortunate heads of his enemies.

So, what happened thereafter? A contrite Aláàfin ordered the pit closed. He also stopped the serial murders he was committing.

Where did the above story come from? I got it from the late Aláàfin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III. It was in his palace he told me a few months before he joined his ancestors in 2022. I was not there alone; my friend, Festus Adedayo, was also there.

With the oba, we had many deep discussions on the notions of rights and privileges in the context of Yoruba identity and cultural nuances. This was one of them. The Aláàfin stressed that the story was real. Kabiyesi said he also heard it from his fathers. He pointed at the probable site of the pit. We agreed that the drummer of that era would be today’s press.

I am writing on the spirit of protest and resistance – my focus is the Yoruba. My dictionary says the opposite of acquiescence is resistance. Anywhere you find the Yoruba and there is injustice or simple insult, do not think of acquiescence; think of the opposite. They value their girl’s idí bèbèrè but they don’t deck the voluptuous waist of a bad daughter with beads of stupid accommodation. They also do not make their hips available for dislocation by bumbling relations. To them, pimples find seats only on foolish faces. It makes very little difference whether the actors are men or they are women.

What we heard about the ancient time is what we read of more recent eras. Professor Ulli Beier lived in Yorubaland and patiently studied the Yoruba of the 1950s and the 1960s. He was in Ede, Osogbo, Ilobu, Okuku, Ibadan, etc. Ulli Beier witnessed resistant women bringing grasping men to their knees in Ede in 1955. He recollects this in his piece, ‘The Position of Yoruba Women’. Ulli Beier writes: “The women who sell ògì, a food prepared from ground maize, must bring their maize to the mill owners for grinding. These mill owners are men. Now the women began to complain that the charge of the men was too high to allow them sufficient profit on the sale of ògì. The Iyalode then made representations to the mill owners, demanding a lower price for the grinding. The men refused at first, then tried to bargain. The Iyalode, however, called out all ògì sellers on strike. The women then began to grind the corn by hand and after a week, the mill owners surrendered unconditionally” (Beier, 1955:40).

Women in any Yoruba society would do exactly what those who have long departed did in Ede in 1955.

Ilorin Dadakuada musician, Odolaye Aremu, in his album, Olówe Mòwe, characterised the immediate past Iyalode of Ibadan, Alhaja Aminatu Abiodun, as a man: “Wón pè é l’óbìnrin ní/ohun t’ólókó nse ló nse (They call her a woman but she does what those who have penises do).” Long before Abiodun, there was Madam Efunroye Tinubu whose activism straddled business and politics in Lagos, Badagry and Abeokuta. In Lagos of the early mid-1880s, she was with Oba Adele I whom she married and lived with. Then Adele died, there was a problem in Lagos, she went on exile to Badagry. From exile in Badagry, she led the push that ousted Oba Kosoko and re-installed Adele’s younger brother, Akintoye, and reigned with him. She shared the throne with Oba Dosumu, Akintoye’s first son, and with it ruled the business world of Lagos.

While doing all these, Madam Tinubu ensured that her activism broth had a large dose of nationalist condiments. Oladipo Yemitan wrote Efunroye’s biography and gave it the title: ‘Madam Tinubu: Merchant and Kingmaker’. In that book, the biographer notes that though Tinubu was overbearing in her dealings with Dosumu, one of the obas she dealt with in Lagos, “her pre-emptory orders had a nationalistic undertone: She did not want the oba to be dominated by foreigners” (Yemitan, 1987:38). Madam Tinubu organised resistant actions against Europeans in Lagos seeking their expulsion from the land. On one occasion, a major uprising against foreign ‘rule’ ensued under her instigation. “Several meetings were held in her house by the dissidents. So efficient was her organizing machinery that this uprising nearly succeeded…”, Yemitan wrote. At a point, the white man felt her cup was full. She was deported back to her hometown, Abeokuta.

The zenith of Madam Tinubu’s activism was her becoming the Iyalode of Egba, the number one woman in Abeokuta. In Abeokuta, she remained a major force in politics and business. Marjorie Mclntosh in her ‘Yoruba Women, Work and Social Change’ (2009: 137) wrote that when the Dahomeys attacked Abeokuta in 1864, Efunroye Tinubu “was a key figure in organizing the defence of Egbaland and securing the enemies’ defeat.” Her biographer, Yemitan (page 47) wrote: “The women’s war-cry – ‘Elele-múlele’ – meaning: let everyone reach for his machete – was a slogan coined by Madam Tinubu on that occasion. She moved from quarter to quarter in Abeokuta rousing up women for concerted action.”

On that incident, Saburi Biobaku, in his ‘Egba and Their Neighbours’ (1957: 38) wrote about Tinubu: “Her compound was converted into a veritable arsenal from which arms and ammunition were issued to the Egba forces on their way to the front: Then she took up a position at Aro gate, nearer the front, at which the wounded were nursed by her and her female associates, where soldiers whose powder had exhausted in battle replenished their store and from which any would-be deserters were sent back with a renewed determination to fight the Dahomey and save the Egba metropolis from destruction.”

At about the time Madam Tinubu reigned in Lagos, in Badagry and, later, in Abeokuta, another Egba woman activist was in charge in Ibadan putting the men there in their proper place. She was Madam Efunsetan Aniwura (c. 1790-1874). Like Tinubu, Madam Aniwura was the Iyalode of Ibadan. Historians credit her with uncommon entrepreneurial ability, enormous wealth and man-like bravery. Efunsetan’s activism saw her challenging the power structure of Ibadan which was effectively in the firm grips of her male counterparts. She was assertive and daring, and would be called, in today’s parlance, a feminist who queried lords and troops and the incessant disruptive wars they fought, hurtful to women and their trade, injurious to children and their growth.

Akinwumi Ishola, who wrote ‘Efunsetan Aniwura: Iyalode Ibadan’ (1981), a very negative play on this woman, would later describe her as a positive force in the evolution of Ibadan as a metropolis. In an interview in The Punch of 16 November, 2013, Akinwumi Isola said: “I was very young with little education when I wrote the book. If I were to write it today, it would be different. Efunsetan can be described as a woman fighting for the rights of womenfolk. She could be described as a woman rights activist. She is not as tough as I portrayed her.”

In ‘Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura (Owner of Gold)’, Bolanle Awe describes Efunsetan as a very ‘independent-minded’ and outspoken woman who was not afraid to criticise Aare Latoosa and his other chiefs. Very importantly, Awe says she was a woman who was strong enough to openly oppose Ibadan war chiefs’ constant wars. “She realized that the condition of almost continuous warfare disrupted her own and other people’s trading. She therefore became the spokesperson for a group of chiefs who were opposed to the aggressive policy of the leading war captain. For the expedition launched in 1874, she refused to field any soldiers, give ammunition on credit, or demonstrate her solidarity by meeting with the chiefs at the town gate” (McIntosh, 2009: 139).

If we want more on contemporary activism of the Yoruba woman, I think we should read about the Nigerian General Strike of 1945. We should read how Yoruba market women took the lead in giving moral and logistic support to the striking workers: “The workers found support among the women community especially market women headed by Madam Alimotu Pelewura… The women traders deliberately lowered their prices to enable workers purchase available foodstuffs apart from contributing generously to the workers Relief Fund. Madam Adunni Oluwole in particular donated 100 pounds to assist the workers”. That quote is from Wale Oyemakinde’s ‘The Nigerian General Strike of 1945’, published in 1975. Check page 704.

Rebellion or resistance; strifes and wars are usually preceded by songs (of abuse). Among the Yoruba, songs or even drama can be channels of resistance – and of change. Akinwumi Isola in his ‘The African Writer’s Tongue’ (1992) tells a story: “An aggrieved king tried in vain to punish an oral artist who had caricatured his lawless messengers. The masquerade was Agborako at Oyo, and the king was Alaafin Ladigbolu (1911-1944). When the king’s messengers, usually identified by the single tuft of hair in the center of their heads, became intolerably cruel in the execution of their duties, Agborako (the masquerade) organized a performance that criticized the king’s lack of control over his messengers. Members of Agborako imitated the customary hair style of the king’s messengers and dramatized examples of their lawless behavior. The king was furious! He immediately ordered the arrest of Agborako! But the arrest stirred up considerable anger among the people, who participated in a huge demonstration demanding the immediate release of the masquerade singers. At this point, the king was reminded of the rule: ‘Oba ki i p’okorin’ (The king never kills an artiste). Agborako was released.”

The story of Hubert Ogunde is well known to members of my generation. The generation before ours experienced his trail-blazing exploits in the decade before independence. In 1945, Ogunde came out smoking with an opera titled ‘Strike and Hunger.’ Oliver Coates (2017) wrote a descriptive piece on that play. He says the play “provides a unique opportunity to examine the ways in which late colonial politics were reimagined in drama.” The play was inspired by the 1945 General Strike in Lagos and “offers an allegorical dramatization of the events”. Recalcitrant Ogunde and his theatre company had considerable problems with the government over that product. The company was banned in Jos in 1946 and fined 125 pounds for staging ‘Strike and Hunger’. The Ogunde Theatre was again banned in Kano in May 1950 for staging another of his plays, ‘Bread and Bullet’. In addition to the ban, he was arrested and charged with sedition. He was discharged of that count but fined six pounds “for posting posters of the play without permission.” Ebun Clark’s ‘Hurbert Ogunde: The Making of Nigerian Theatre’ (1979) which contains accounts of those incidents also has other details of the activities of this activist artiste. Tunde Kelani’s ‘Saworoide’ (1999) and its sequel, ‘Agogo Eewo’ (2002), continue the Ogunde tradition of using drama as a vehicle for social commentary and activism.

I started this piece with the story of an oba and an activist drummer. I have also quoted Professor Akinwumi Isola’s recollection of a communal resistance to an oba who ordered the arrest of a masquerade. Both incidents tell us that the oba is in reality not above the law – although he is greeted Kabiyesi, a salutation which mocks the invincibility of the unwary.

An oba’s behaviour must not endanger the community. If it does, he will pay. In a proverb, the Yoruba found an oba involved in money ritual. His exasperated people rose against him and asked why! Is there any other position bigger than the throne in a kingdom? They queried and chastised the oba: “Do you want to become God?” Won fi o j’oba, o tun nw’awure, se o fe d’Olodumare ni? Deeper into history, no oba who misbehaved escaped justice at the hands of their subjects. Samuel Johnson, author of ‘The History of the Yorubas’ (1921), has a long list of such obas. He calls them the wicked kings. He also remembers to tell what became of them:

Alaafin Ojigi reigned a long time ago. Some accounts say he was the eighth Alaafin of Oyo. He was a good, effective king but he lost his throne and his everything to the excesses of his crown prince. This is how Johnson (1921: 206-207) tells the story: “Ojigi, who was elected to the vacant throne, was a powerful and warlike king…Personally, he was a very good man, but a too indulgent father. The Aremo (crown prince) by his cruelties and excesses brought about the father’s rejection and death. He ordered Oluke, the Basorun’s son, to be unlawfully beaten. As this wrong could not be avenged without serious consequences, and as the king did not punish the wrong doer, it was thought more expeditious to effect the king’s death, for about this time the custom began to prevail for the Aremos to die with the father, as they enjoy unrestrained liberty with the father. A pretext was soon found for rejecting the king and fond father, and consequently he died, and his eldest son with him.” That Alaafin did well running the empire but did not do well running his home.

That king’s immediate predecessor, Osinyago, suffered a similar fate. He had an Aremo who died young because, according to Johnson, “he was of a grasping propensity…like his father, an avaricious man who by exactions, massacre and confiscations amassed wealth which he did not live long to enjoy.” This king lost all when his second child, a lady “of masculine character” out of envy and “wounded pride”, slew the son of a commoner. The king had to die, his family with him (Johnson, 1921: 205).

One more example from the same Oyo. It is said that one of the early kings, Oba Jayin, killed himself before he was publicly disgraced by an Egungun for murdering his own son whose sin was that he was a better person in character. And, so, the people sang: “O ku dede k’a ko’wi w’Akesan, Oba Jayin te’ri gb’aso.” (Johnson, 1921 [2017]: 202-203).

There is also Yoruba praise names or praise chants, oriki. Karin Barber, an authority says an individual’s oríki is the standard unit that “refers to qualities of character or physical appearance” of someone. She says sometimes the oriki refers “to incidents in the subject’s life – often apparently trivial or even scandalous.” In Adeboye Babalola’s ‘Awon Oriki Orile Metadinlogbon’ I find these verses in ‘Oriki Iran Olofa’:

“Won l’Omo òtòsi Ộfa, wáá lo sódò lo rèé ponmi wa,
K’ómo olówó o ri mu…

Omo òtosi Ộfa

Ò lóun ò ní i lọ sódò lo rèé pọnmi wa, k’ómo olówó ó ri mu.

A fọn ộn kò dún.

A tè é ko ya’nu.

Ộrò d’ilé Abiódún Oba Aláafin…”
(They told the child of the poor to go to the stream and fetch water for the child of the rich to drink. The child of the poor said no, he would not go to the stream to fetch water for the child of the rich to drink. There was trouble. The matter was taken to the palace of Abiodun, Alaafin of Oyo. Alaafin asked the child of the poor to go and enjoy his life in peace).

The above explains the Yoruba ideal of equality and justice: “Ibi ko ju’bi; bi a ti bi eru ni a bi omo (birth pangs are the same; a slave has the same privilege of birth as the freeborn).”

I was the lead paper presenter at a major conference on ‘Yoruba Activisms’ which was held at the Lead City University, Ibadan, between Monday and Wednesday last week. There were 247 presentations; participants were drawn from across this ccountry and from countries abroad. What you have read so far here is a reworked excerpt from the paper I presented at that conference. The drummer story was my opening glee.

Parrot is bird of the sea; cardinal is bird of the Lagoon. I wrote the above and have read it all over again. My conclusion is that if you have a Yoruba as your president, do not seek to overwhelm him without good planning. He will fight back and will not take prisoners. Also, if a president has the Yoruba as his subjects, he should not take them for granted. If he is a leader who shoots his arrow towards the sky and covers his own head with a mortar, the Yoruba will gasp at his wickedness; the resistance in their gene will come to the fore. They will light their torch of fire and beam it into the face of that masquerade. And if he is of their house, it won’t gel to suggest bastardy as reason for their telling ‘their brother’ that his regime is painful. If they can’t hit the streets in open confrontation, they will migrate away from the unfeeling without the drama of a noisy rejection.

Àbò mi rèé o. I have said my own.

Odinkalu, Ex- AG Ogun State, Baruwa praise Fatima Waziri – Azi’s transformation of NAPTIP

Law Professor and onetime Chair of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chidi Anslem Odinkalu has described the immediate past Director-General (DG) of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP), Prof. Fatima Waziri-Azi as the woman who transformed NAPTIP with “strategy, mixing enforcement with education, enlightenment and prevention.”

Likewise, a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Ogun State and International Accountability Expert, Akingbolahan Adeniran, as well as International gender and development expert, Olufunke Omoyemi-Baruwa agreed that NAPTIP was blessed with her excellence and professionalism in the last three years.

Odinkalu in a post on his LinkedIn page —Prof. Fatima Waziri – Azi, Ph.D turned the NATIONAL AGENCY FOR THE PROHIBITION OF TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (NAPTIP) from a forgettable entity into something that could work —.showered praises on the NAPTIP DG.

“With a deft combination of professionalism, passion & principle, she took the fight to traffickers & many of them ended up in jail or took flight.

“In the FCT, where the hashtag#NAPTIP under her took responsibility for modelling implementation & enforcement of the Violence against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, she also turned in significant scalps.

“But she also had strategy, mixing enforcement with education, enlightenment & prevention.

“It reflects very poorly on the current leadership of hashtag#Nigeria that they seem to think every agency exists to reward party lackeys. Of course, no one is indispensable but when the principal reason for transition in leadership in an agency like hashtag#NAPTIP is to make lackeys feel good, you have to worry.

“Anyway, that is not Fatima’s problem now. Gratefully, she has an alternative address & she can look back with pride at the legacy that she leaves behind at the agency.

“Thank you, Fatima, for showing what a difference one committed person can make even in the most difficult of situations. And thank you, Boye, for calling attention to an inspiring & different kind of record.”

Akingbolahan Adeniran, International Accountability Expert and Independent Investigator added to the commendations.

“She was just different. I find that I am often guilty of complaining about bad governance but rarely find time to recognize those who stand out in public service.

“I want to begin to change that, starting with the recognition of Dr. Waz as I call her, or Prof. Fatima Waziri – Azi, Ph.D as others more formally refer to her.

“Her appointment as the Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) in September 2021 was one of the few well-thought-out appointments at the time.

“By the time of her appointment, Dr. Waz had already distinguished herself as an academic with the Nigerian Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, as an anti-corruption adviser with the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, and as a rule of law expert working as Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s Rule of Law Advisor.

“I recall her enthusiasm at the beginning of her tenure. She realized what most political appointees never fully grasp throughout their tenure – that is, time is an appointee’s worst enemy.

“Within a month or so after her appointment, she started consolidating the national network of her agency. I was a state attorney-general at the time, and she met with me and others to discuss collaboration to ensure greater accountability for offenders and better support for victims.

“Although I left office soon thereafter, my former colleagues were full of praise for the capacity-building support she provided to the state’s task force against trafficking in persons.

“Now, we can see the results of her efforts. In less than three years, her tenure recorded 190 human trafficking convictions, representing almost 28% of the total convictions secured by NAPTIP in its 21 years of existence.

“For this to happen, she had to understand the agency and its workers. She prioritized the expansion of the agency’s operational structures to cover most of the country.

“Then, she introduced regular mental health and trauma sessions for officers of the agency to improve their productivity and overall wellness. She also succeeded in securing increased allowances for them.

“Dr. Waz redefined the terms of engagement with several donor agencies to ensure that their support was put to the best possible use. That way, she was able to maximize the use of available resources from an efficiency and effectiveness standpoint.

“Although there has been a baton handover to her successor, this much I can tell you – Dr. Waz is not done with helping survivors of trafficking in persons or gender-based violence. Her story is only just beginning.”

Responding to the posts, International gender and development expert, Olufunke Omoyemi-Baruwa said: “I couldn’t agree more, Prof. Fatima Waziri – Azi, Ph.D is a rare breed.

“NAPTIP was blessed with her excellence and professionalism in the last three years. I wish she had more time to consolidate on the good work she began but alas, our politicians don’t think about the import of their decisions on the institutions.”

Woman who tore husband’s passport alleges, he’s a mummy’s boy, sister’s boy!

  • Nigeria Immigration Service invites her for questioning
  • Watch videos of her action and defence

While the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Monday said it has launched a formal investigation following the circulation of a video on social media, showing a female traveller tearing a Nigerian Passport at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos over the weekend, the woman in the eye of the storm, identified as Ella Jeffery, has said the pressure she had borne in marriage over the years made her do it.

In a video posted on the couple’s family Facebook page, (jejojafamilytv), Ella Jeffery said her action was the culmination of long-standing marital and family tensions.

“I am not a mad woman,” she said, waving aside the impression that her actions were irrational or impulsive.

She explained that she has been enduring significant stress in the marriage, particularly due to her husband’s close ties with his family, which she described as overbearing.

“I have been going through a lot, and He’s a mummy’s boy, sister’s boy. I did what I did. Nobody can arrest me. I suffered with him,” Ella explained.

She implied that she had to stand up for herself, warning people who watched the video and judged her based on the short clip not to jump to conclusions without asking relevant questions as to what must have led her into such action.

“The issue has been going on for a very long time, I have just been dancing to the tune till I arrive in my motherland, Nigeria, and I did what I did.

“You have to ask what happened, don’t just look at the action alone, I am not a mad woman, who would just come and act like that. I have my reasons, I have gone through many things.

“When it gets to your neck, you have to act. I didn’t want to make him go through a lot of stress, that’s why I waited till we got to Nigeria to do it rather than Europe where I could have done it. Don’t make comments without knowing what happened. I have gone through a lot of family issues here and there.

“I cannot be suffering, I suffered with him, and just like that, they want my suffering to be chartered away just like that.

“Is it till when I die, will you people know this woman did not speak out? Actions speak louder than words, I gave him my action, to know I have been bearing it.”

However, Service Public Relations Officer, DCI Kenneth Udo disclosed in a statement issued in Abuja that the lady has been identified and invited for further investigation.

“If the allegations are substantiated, her actions would have constituted a breach of Section 10(b) of the Immigration Act 2015 (as amended), with corresponding penalties outlined under Section 10(h) of the same Act.

“The Nigeria Immigration Service remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding the provisions of the Immigration Act in the interest of national security, and to preserving the dignity and integrity of the nation’s legal instruments”, he stated.

Watch the videos below.

The python and Tinubu-North’s matrimony

By Festus Adedayo

Undoubtedly, the political matrimony between President Bola Tinubu and Northern Nigeria is at Talaq stage. Talaq is the Islamic unilateral repudiation of a marital union. There are no sobs, no wails. No dabbing of the face with a handkerchief. But, the dusts provoked by the matrimonial dislocation hang notoriously in the sky. Even bystanders miles away can see them. The marriage is only 15 months old but the couple’s patience for each other is rope-thin. As our elders say, right in the presence of the kolanut seller, irreverent worms slide inside his pods.

A matrimony celebrated with pomp and ceremony is now a chaotic market row. The gluttonous cat has eaten the poisonous meat of a toad. A post on X late last week even claimed that “Northerners have (begun) Al-Qunut prayers against Tinubu…Al-Qunut prayers (are) done…to eliminate evil.” There is a litany of allegations hung on the neck of the seismic marriage. It ranges from prostitution, abandonment, betrayal to battery. While the world sees the palm fronds, (mariwo) the egungun of the matrimony would seem to have been long gone.

Well, as the saying goes, a household of misbehaving children is a reflection that it is devoid of elders with wisdom – (T’ómodé ilé bá ńse réderède, àgbà ibè ni ò ní làákàyè). Elders then summoned the couple and demanded the reason for their tiff. Flaunting patriarchal righteousness, the husband has kept mum, dragging smoke off his burning cigarette intermittently. The Northern wife however did the narration, tears coursing down her cheeks. On her knees, she tells the story of Lagere, the cripple and Python, a huge heavy-bodied reptile which kills its prey by constriction. Lagere was a prince crippled from birth. At his turn to succeed his father, Kingmakers bucked, citing an existing tradition forbidding disabled on traditional stools.

Downcast, Lagere hopped down river road to commit suicide. As he folded his deformed leg to jump into the river, a huge python emerged from nowhere and demanded why he contemplated suicide. Moved, Python promised to help him. The snake jumped up, wrapped himself round Lagere and constricted him. Upon unwrapping self from the cripple, the deformed leg received strength. Overexcited, Lagere swore to show gratitude to Python.

Before he was crowned king, continued the Northern Wife, the Ifa Oracle summoned to divine Lagere’s reign muttered a saying, the purport of which was cryptic to all at the time. The Oracle said, “Oore tán, asiwèrè gbàgbé” meaning, at the fullness of time, the foolish will forget a kindness of the past. Lagere then ordered that a groove be earmarked in the palace for the worship of the mysterious reptile. He indeed worshipped Python for months. One day, however, having smoked alien weeds, the king’s head exploded with pride. Lagere reasoned that His Imperial Majesty shouldn’t be seen groveling before an ordinary reptile. He then ordered that the animal be brought to the palace to be sacrificed to him. On seeing what King Lagere was about to do with him, Python cried passionately and asked for mercy. Lagere would not listen. But as he was being dragged down for propitiation, Python suddenly pounced on Lagere, twined self round him. Instantly, he returned to his old cripple state. The town then dethroned Lagere. “That, elders of the land, is my story,” narrated the Northerner wife.

Being a student of Nigeria’s political history and one right inside its vortex, from its beginning, it should have occurred to Tinubu and his Northern bride that their matrimony would be short-lived. As the one who holds an umbrella all-day long would find out only later at sunset that they carry a heavy object, only at dusk would an Oko Ìyàwó Elépòn Búlúù (a vulgar Yoruba folksy appellation for a newly-wedded groom) realize that wedlock is the least of matrimonial rituals. Meeting responsibilities of matrimony is the toughest nut to crack. So long as there is a colony of lice on clothe, the fingernail cannot be devoid of blood. While narrating her ordeals and betrayal of trust from Lagere, the Northerner wife had lapsed into a Yoruba proverb which says that if a monkey is uncertain about the danger upon a tree, it should not be found climbing it (Bi oju alakedun o da igi, kii gun) to which the elders nodded in unison.

Before the End Bad Governance protests which began on August 1, the depth of the matrimonial discord between Tinubu and the North was, at best, at the level of guesswork. For instance, we knew that it is almost an impossibility that tantrums won’t follow a stubborn child given a knock on the head. When the Tinubu government thus disgraced Nasir el-Rufai last year, tantrums were expected. So when the Tinubu government, for which he pulled critical chestnuts off the fire, rewarded him with a non-ministerial clearance by the Senate, many could swear by their mothers’ graves that the northern Eliri, the minutest of all rats, will become one of the rebellious faggots that will upset the fire. And that, whenever the North was reorganizing for an Araba, Eliri would play a prominent role. Araba should remind any student of Nigerian history of the historical Northern Nigerian cry of disaffection with the Nigerian state of affairs immediately Aguiyi Ironsi promulgated the highly objectionable Decree 34 which rendered Nigeria’s federalism unitarist. The North had earlier visited midless pogrom on eastern Nigeria. I got a whiff of the heartlessness of the bloodletting from a live play of Yoruba Apala music lord, Ayinla Omowura, recently. He sang, “wón ńpa yíbò bí eni p’eran alápatà…” – they butchered Igbo people as though killing cows in a meat shop.

In June, Northern politicians began coalescing around Muhammadu Buhari. They advertised this in a visit which anyone familiar with the colour, tone and tenor of historical serpentine regrouping of the north would know was the beginning of a call to put spanner in the works. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto state’s ex-governor, kicked off the visit. It was to Buhari in his Daura hometown. Within 24 hours, el-Rufai followed suit. Photograph of the former governor’s legendary stoops to shake hands, similar to Iscariot’s kiss of Jesus, a notorious signature tune heralding betrayal, was amply advertised. Packaged as “Sallah homage,” political watchers claim the visits were the beginning of a packaged northern tempest against the Yarbawa who the north was wedded to in a matrimony that has now gone sour. Shehu Sani, Afro-haired ex-senator said this much in a release and attributed it to an attempt to build a strong northern alliance using Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict Tinubu in 2027. On the comedic scene, a Bello Galandachi satirizes the rot in the Tinubu government almost weekly.

The End Bad Governance protest was the strongest alibi for Northern Nigeria to ventilate its 15-month accumulated angst. It has been said that the protest, which kicked off on August 1, was a reflection of the geographical and ethnic politics that Nigeria had practiced from pre-colonial times. While the southeast, in a bid to stamp its disavowal with its typecast as a bellicose race, signed off from the protest, the southwest, which goes on protests, whether it is convenient for it or otherwise, marched out, while the north, often pacifist in matters that doesn’t personally concern it, was at the height of its hostility. The social reality of protest against the status quo in Nigeria is that, outside of university campuses, protests are a rarity on the streets of the Muslim North. For the eight years of Buhari’s non-governance, the north was as constantly docile as the northern star. But in this protest against bad governance, not only did northern protesters go to the Hobbesian state of nature, inflicting nasty, brutish jabs on sanity, some protesters even waved Russian flags, shouting “Putin!”

There is no denying the fact that the current Tinubu government has made life very excruciating for the people of Nigeria. Perhaps, like no other government in recent history. The pain is such that, as the elders will say, it is only a child who has not beheld the sight of a lion’s devoured carcass in the forest who will pray to be killed by a leopard (Bí omodé ò rí àjekù kìnìhún nínú igbó, á ní kí eran bí ekùn ó pa òhun). The truth is also that, the government has democratized sufferings across board in Nigeria. Tinubu dishes out pains, death, escalating food inflation and hopelessness to Nigerians without any ethnic, religious or social discrimination. As the poor of Kaura-Namoda feels the cluelessness of Aso Rock, the poor of Nchatancha and Telemu equally feel it. But the way the North has taken the lead in escalating the protest this murderously, the question that begs for answer is, what exactly is that region beefing Tinubu about? Hunger? Certainly not. Since we have agreed that no part of Nigeria is spared Tinubu’s merciless, slavish Bretton Woods economic policies, why then is the north crying so vociferously as if it is the only bereaved?

After his announcement as winner of the 2023 presidential election, one of the victorious thoughts that must have crossed Tinubu’s mind was that the ground Chief Obafemi Awolowo wobbled while treading, he gallantly stomped on it. Awolowo’s famous 1959 election campaign round the north, which roused Ahmadu Bello from his slumber, culminating in a Sardauna embarking on a political campaign which got his royal face caked with dusts in the process, opened Awolowo’s eyes to the myth of a monolithic north. Awolowo then came to the conclusion that an alliance of Southern Nigeria with the Middle Belt and Christian North holds the key to a southerner’s presidency of Nigeria. An alliance of his AG with NCNC to form UPGA had Michael Okpara, Eastern Premier, campaigning on the streets of Ibadan. This model still didn’t work during the Second Republic.

Citing S. L. Akintola in his book, House of War (2003), Dare Babarinsa said Akintola, Western Nigeria Premier, rationalized his romance with the feudal north in that, the economic, educational and commercial aggressiveness of the Igbo was a greater danger to the Yoruba than the political hegemony of the Hausa/Fulani. An alliance with the NPC, he believed, was the surest way of rescuing the Yoruba from political annihilation. MKO Abiola lapped up the Akintola power model. From his alliance with Muhammadu Buhari in 2014, Tinubu also dusted the Akintola and Abiola handbook hook, line and sinker. On a superficial level, the trio of Akintola, Abiola and Tinubu would seem to be right and Awolowo wrong, right?

The above, however, cannot elicit a QED (quod erat demonstrandum) answer. The northern establishment’s political pedigree hoists it as a typical African witch. Of the many symbols and attributes of the witch, she holds tightly to her ferocious mystic power, using it as bait. She is also reputed with the upside-down symbolism. Among the Akan tribe of Ghana, the witch is literally “inverted.” Hans Werner Debrunner, in his Witchcraft in Ghana: A Study on the Belief in Destructive Witches and Its Effect on the Akan Tribes (1961) said of witches, “Before they leave the body, they turn themselves upside… They walk with their feet in the air, that is, with the head down, and have their eyes at the back of the ankle joints.” The Ewe in same Ghana also believe that witches walk backwards and, in walking upright, have their feet turned backwards. The witch is represented by such animals like snakes, owls, hyenas, and leopards, characteristically nocturnal animals.

As it romances political power like the witch, the Northern establishment has an inverted thinking as well. Awolowo’s welfarist philosophy futuristically foretold that a feudal north not weaned of its weaponization of the large population of its Talakawa and roam-about Almajiri children would pose huge danger to the rest of Nigeria. That prophecy has made him a Nostradamus today. In a 1978 presidential speech, Awolowo had said, “For the North, I have three things, Education, Education and Education.” He also maintained that, “The children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children have peace”. The bulk of Nigeria’s social malaises today – insecurity, bloated population, renteer system of overdependence on the lean purse of the federal – come from the north.

This has bred multidimensional poverty, misery and anger in the region. Governor Uba Sani recently said the region has over 70% out-of-school children and same number living in grueling poverty. You cannot solely blame Tinubu for all these as the north’s vulture has been suffering the merciless trouncing of rainfall strokes for more than a century. From Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar to Musa Yar’Adua, as well as their northern accomplices, successive northern leaders share huge slices of the hopelessness that the north is today. Not minding the multidimensional poverty, the northern establishment still frantically shuts the door against education of this crop of persons, lest they be liberated from its chokehold.

At the turn of Lagere to narrate the root cause of the tiff, the elders were aghast. Rather than him being an ingrate, the python is almost the equivalent of Omolokun, he said. Omolokun is a Yoruba Ifa deity scholar and practitioner, Araba Ifáyẹmi Ọ̀ṣúndàgbonù Elebuibon’s drama series that ran on western Nigerian television in the 1980s. A couple, suffering decades of bareness, besought a deity for a child it named Omolokun. A spoilt brat who demanded the impossible at every point, when Omolokun one day demanded a human being to be propitiated to him, it dawned on the couple that it had a misbegotten ghormid in its household. Lagere reminded the elders that but for him, their son, Buhari, could not have won the presidency. Like Omolokun’s parents, the Lagere in Aso Rock has bent over backwards to please his Python, allocating consequential federal ministries to the North and in many cases, devoting junior and senior ministries to it. Recently, Lagere even established a Federal Ministry of Maalu as sacrifice to Omolokun. Yet, the northern establishment is steeped in roiling anger and cannot be pacified.

Lagere compared the excesses of his Northern wife to an excessive liquour that intoxicates; excessive sun that runs a child mad; excessive stronghold that begets madness and a spinach vegetable which, if it grows in excess by the stream, is rendered a common weed (Bí otí bá kúnnú, otí á p’omo; bí òòrùn bá pò l’ápòjù, á s’omo di wèrè; bí a bá l’óba l’ánìíjù, á sínni n’íwin; bí tètè ègún bá pò á di òleri). Lagere concluded that he had reverenced the cow enough and even went overboard to call it “Brother.”

The target of the Northern Witch is to stop Lagere’s reign. By now, Tinubu must have realized that the Awolowo who divined education and welfare as antidote to the tyranny of the Northern Witch was no fool. The Witch cannot be appeased. It is insatiable. Like Omolokun, this Witch will demand flesh and blood. Suffusing Nigeria with plenty and Northern Talakawa with education is the only route to rescue Lagere from the chokehold of his Python captor.

Monthly meeting of UNN Alumni Association Abuja holds August 17

The monthly meeting of University of Nigeria Nsukka Alumni Association, Abuja branch has been scheduled to hold on the 17th of August 2024.

Watch the video below.

#EndBadGovernance Protests: Rights groups condemn internet disruption

A coalition of human rights organisations under the aegis of e-RIGHTS Project has expressed concern over internet disruptions in Nigeria because of the recent protests against hunger and high cost of living.

The coalition said that by deliberately disrupting internet services, the Nigerian government is effectively silencing citizens, hindering their ability to access information, engage in public discourse and exercise their civic rights.

A statement by the Executive Director of Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), Yunusa Zakari Ya’u, frowned against any form of internet disruption, shutdown or stifling of dissent.

He called on the Federal Government to stop all forms of internet disruptions and uphold the constitutional rights of its people.

According to him, the e-RIGHTS project is aimed at enhancing digital rights in Nigeria and is being implemented CITAD, Spaces for Change (S4C) and Lawyers without Borders.

The statement reads, “Nigeria is a signatory to several regional and international human rights treaties, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

“These instruments guarantee the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.

“Domestically, Chapter Four of the Nigerian Constitution enshrines these fundamental freedoms. The internet has become an indispensable tool for exercising these rights in the 21st century.

“We join civil society organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria to advocate against any form of internet disruption, shutdown or stifling of dissent. We urge the Nigerian government to cease all forms of internet disruptions and uphold the constitutional rights of its people.

“This act is not unprecedented, the ECOWAS Court of Justice’s ruling against Nigeria following the Twitter ban sets a significant precedent, highlighting the unconstitutionality of these actions. The Court’s decision held that such bans and disruptions are illegal and violate the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.”

Paris is a Blouse

By Kirsten Okenwa

Paris is…

A blouse. A silk blouse our father got for my sister from Paris in ’82.

An elegant blouse in white, with drawings of blue, green and gold ribbons dancing

an intricate tango.

This blouse,

This stylish, sophisticated blouse!

It represented the world beyond me.

My sister often wore it with a dark plaid wrap skirt, 

and I simply adored the look. 

Though I was a little girl,

this elegant blouse gave me visions of Paris;

beautiful people, gorgeous clothes, incredible scenery. 

I would look at this blouse for minutes unending and dream;

Dream of me as a graceful woman strutting through the streets of Paris

in my splendid clothes,

or cruising in my vintage car.

Paris is…

that beautiful silk blouse that awakened beauty in me;

Beauty for a little girl living in northern Nigeria. 

That lovely blouse was my crystal ball to the future;

A future of beauty and wonder, 

A future where I could look spectacular, every day. 

Paris is…

where I haven’t visited, yet. 

But, beauty is alive in me. 

I still love all things gorgeous and elegant. 

Fondly, I remember that silk blouse of decades ago.

  • Kirsten Okenwa

Hunger Protests: There’s no justification for shooting peaceful protesters —Ex-EFCC senior prosecutor

As protests against hunger and bad governance continue in some parts of Nigeria, Mr Jonson Ojogbane, the Managing Partner of  Signature Law Firm and ex-senior prosecutor with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has called for the prosecution of law enforcement agents who shot unarmed and defenceless Nigerians in the course of the protest.

Speaking at the formal opening of Signature Law Firm in Abuja recently, Ojogbane who remarked that the protest was “as a result of the impact the economy is having on Nigerians” added that “nobody is spared.”

“It is unfortunate that people died in this protest. The policemen who recklessly shot at protesters should be brought to book. I know the IG has a team that monitors the work that the police do and if anyone died as a result of this protest, it should be thoroughly investigated.

“If gun-toting officers are found wanting they must face the wrath of the law. There is no justification for shooting peaceful protesters.

“There’s a system to investigate who shot what, at whom and what the circumstances were. When that is done, there will be appropriate punishment meted out to the offending officer.

“I hope our system continues to evolve because I saw the violent protests in London and nobody was shot at. They were using rubber bullets, water cannons, and tear gas to disperse the rioters.

“I hope that Nigeria will one day get to that point where our officers will know that the lives of our people are precious.

“If you are a police officer carrying a gun, it is for the safety of Nigerians and not for their destruction. As much as possible officers should exercise restraint.

“Even when your life is in danger, before you can respond for your safety there must be a commensurate threat. Where there is a commensurate threat to an officer’s life there is no law that forbids him from responding.

“When you shoot someone that is the end of his life.

“No doubt the government is doing the best they can but, Nigerians are groaning under so much pain.

“In the course of the protest, things went wrong. Some hoodlums hijacked the protest. Some of the pictures we saw were not protests. That was anarchy. Looting and destroying shops.

“I hope our leaders assemble enough teams around them that will be passionate about the progress of Nigeria. A team that knows what they want to do, to make Nigeria progress.

“While at EFCC I travelled around the world and saw how countries whose economies and development were low grew because somebody arose in their midst.

“Let’s work for our country. I believe that one day we; ‘ll find a system that will work for our country,” he said.

On Saturday the police fired teargas and live ammunition to disperse some youth who were protesting in the Galadimawa area of Abuja.

The #EndbadGovernace protesters came out at 6:30 a.m.. They were marching from Ebano Supermarket to Galadimawa junction when the police arrived about three hours later and fired teargas and live ammunition to disperse them.

The protesters scampered for safety as a result of the attack, though no life was lost.

“We started at 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. before they scattered us. We started around Ebano supermarket at that junction and matched to the Galadimawa roundabout. Before we could get to the Galadimawa roundabout, police came with their usual trademark and chased us away.

“They didn’t shoot live bullets at us directly, but tear gas was directly fired at us. But since they started shooting guns, no one can tell if they will start killing us if you don’t run.

“We are not scared of teargas and arrest, sir. If they didn’t shoot live bullets, they wouldn’t be able to scatter us. We want to live to see the country we are fighting for. So, we couldn’t face bullets, and that was why we ran.

‘’But today hasn’t marked the end of the protest. We will continue to protest until our demands are attended to. The most essential is the reversal of the removal of fuel subsidy, which is the major reason we are where we are now,” one of the protesters told PREMIUM TIMES.

The 10-day #EndbadGovernace protest against hunger and hardship began on 1 August nationwide and is scheduled to end today, as scheduled.

Last Sunday, President  Bola Tinubu addressed the country on his policies and demanded an end to the protests. However, some Nigerians who were not appeased by the speech continued the protest.

In the matter of the yam eating division of the FCT High Court

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

“Rights are only worth having if they are occasionally boisterous, often inconvenient and frequently tiresome.” Inigo Bing, The Ten Legal Cases That Made Modern Britain, 169 (2022)

Two years after his inauguration in October 2021 as Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT High Court), Husseini Baba Yusuf, decided in November 2023 that it was time to indulge in a sport of institutional mating games with the newly installed Minister of the Federal Capital, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike. By a stroke of coincidence, both men are members of the Body of Benchers, which describes itself as “the legal body of practitioners of the highest distinction in the legal profession.”

To initiate the mating, the Chief Judge relocated to the office of the Minister with the judges of the court where they proudly put their assets on display for the edification of the Minister. At the meeting, he reminded the Minister that “as a judiciary we are part of the government and we expect that we should be able to do things that should make government work….”

The Chief Judge was desperate to let the Minister know how ready he was to consummate this relationship. To ensure that he got fullest Ministerial attentions, the Chief Judge made it known that he had instructed the Administrative Judges in charge of the various judicial divisions of the FCT High Court that all cases involving the Federal Capital Territory “would only be assigned by the Chief Judge.”

The following quarter, when the FCT High Court went into the market for judicial appointments, they allocated one out of the twelve new vacancies on offer to the FCT Minister, to which he promptly deputed his sister-in-law. As the new judges got inaugurated in July 2024, the Minister quickly announced that the judges in the FCT are the proud beneficiaries of new housing development. The relationship between the Chief Judge and the Minister had moved from intent to intercourse.

Things were going so well between the two institutional lovers that it was clear neither of them would knowingly allow any interloper to get in the way of their romance. When the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria organisers threatened to intrude into this by making Abuja and the FCT a major theatre of their protest, it was time for the lovers to prove their commitment to one another.

On 31 July, the day before the scheduled commencement of the protest, most people turned in early in anticipation of the disruptions from what promised to be the mother of all protests. Even judicial business was not left out of the sense of apprehension.

It was in this uncertainty that the Minister of the FCT decided to prove to the world the depth of the intimacy between him and the Chief Judge of the FCT. On 31 July, he initiated proceedings without notice to the defendants (ex parte) asking the court of the Chief Judge to kettle within the confines of the Moshood Abiola Stadium any wannabe protesters who showed up in the FCT.

This was a poorly rationalised decision, suggesting an executive loss of nerve for many reasons.

First, the Moshood Abiola Stadium is at the neck of a funnel into the city from both southern Nigeria and from the international airport. It was not difficult to see that any significant demonstration would constitute an obstruction to in-coming traffic, if not a risk to travelers. One conclusion from the proposal contained in the filing by the FCT Minister was that the FCT administration had decided to pass the most substantial burden of any risks from the protest to travelers into and out of the FCT, effectively making them expendable.

Second, in addition to making certain segments expendable, the FCT Administration simultaneously also chose to indicate in this proposal that they were not amenable to according any bandwidth to the protesters’ discontent. Banishing them to the vicinity of the Moshood Abiola Stadium was designed precisely to signal this.

Third, the kind of order that the Minister sought from the FCT High Court was a profound safety risk to both potential protesters and law enforcement officers, whom it required to enforce the cordon. This kind of policing arrangement had been considered and found unlawful in places with more capable policing, including in England.

Fourth, this was shameless evidence of an irresponsible FCT Administration. A more responsible administration could easily have designated the stadium as a viewing centre for the Olympic Games and invited the excluded youth of the FCT to a different experience of what’s possible when government cares.

Even more curious than the nature of the orders that the Minister sought was the identity of the parties against whom he sought them. Omoyele Sowore, the lead defendant, was in New Jersey in the USA. Another leading defendant was called “Persons Unknown.”

Now, a basic rule of civil proceedings is that cases can only be instituted against natural or legal persons. “Persons Unknown”, like spirits or ghosts, does not have capacity to sue or be sued. This does not ordinarily require any particular depth of legal skill or insight to figure out except, of course, before an FCT High Court caught in the throes of deep judicial passion with the FCT Minister.

In this particular case of the suit against “Persons Unknown”, the FCT Minister retained the services of two Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs. Fittingly for a regime whose agents had expended their bigoted propaganda to demonise the Igbo nation over the protest, it seemed appropriate that the judge whom the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court found to assign the case to was known as Chinedu Oriji. From its Igbo language origins, the name roughly translates into “God guides the eating of the yam.”

With little ado, this yam-eating court quickly granted all the orders sought, including “an order restraining the 1st-5th defendants from gathering or parading themselves along any roadway, street, offices and or public premises/property within the FCT between 1st-10th August 2024 or any other day thereafter pending the hearing and determination of” this case. Instead, the Court required all intending protesters from anywhere within the 7,315 km² of the FCT to converge at the Stadium at the entrance into the city where they would be confined by an armed security cordon thrown at the instigation of the FCT Minister and backed by the order from the  judge called Oriji.

Even before the Court rose for the day, the order was already in the public domain blaring from all government media. It read uncannily as if the order had been granted even before the case was filed. When the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court promised to “do things that should make government work”, he meant just that.

In this case, however, it was doubtful whether the court was in fact making the government work or exposing it instead to irredeemable odium. A proposition more suited to the mass slaughter of protesters would have been hard to invent. If the protesters had not defied the order in the full majesty of its impracticality, it would have been easy for the government to claim that any number of them trampled to death thereby were unknown. The perpetrators would have been unknown too. That would have been fitting for a protest whose leaders the government had judicially designated as “Persons Unknown.”

All that would have been both foreseeable and yet judicially authored. A court alive to its duties would have spotted this and saved itself and its executive suitors the embarrassment of issuing such an order. The only thing that mattered in this case, however, was how the FCT High Court could prove to the FCT Minister its rampant capacity for heedless intercourse with the executive. In this case, it was spared by the resilience of citizens. Providence, surely, will not always this gladly suffer the excesses of judicial prostitution. The morale of this tale is simple –  there must be more dignified ways to eat the judicial yam.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]

Briton jailed 10 years for sexually abusing dozens of dogs 

Renowned British-born crocodile expert Adam Britton was sentenced Thursday to more than 10 years and five months in jail in Australia over dozens of cases of sexually abusing dogs.

Britton, who worked with outlets like the BBC and National Geographic, pleaded guilty to 56 charges relating to bestiality and animal cruelty, CBS News partner network BBC News reported.

Britton also admitted to four counts of accessing child abuse material, according to the BBC.

Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the court that the details of Britton’s crimes were so “grotesque,” that when they were read aloud they could cause “nervous shock.”

As they were read out, some people rushed out of the room. Others watching from the gallery mouthed insults at Britton or cried, the BBC reported.

Britton “was sadistic as a child to animals, but I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can’t stop. I don’t want to. :),” he wrote in one message in an online chat room that was introduced in court.

He would manipulate his own pets, but “only badly mistreat other dogs… I have no emotional bond to them, they are toys pure and simple. And [there are] plenty more where they came from,” he said, according to the BBC.

According to court documents seen by the BBC, in the 18 months before his arrest, Britton tortured 42 dogs and killed 39 of them. He would find animals on the website Gumtree Australia, where many families were often searching for new homes for their pets if they had to move.

Britton would then abuse the animals in a specially designed shipping container fitted with recording equipment on his property. He would upload the material to the internet and was caught because in one clip — where he tortured eight dogs, including seven puppies — an identifying dog leash was visible, and someone turned the clip over to police, the BBC reported.

Britton was arrested in April 2022. Police seized his recording materials and found 15 files containing child abuse material.

“Once respected and esteemed, you’re now a disgrace to the scientific community,” said activist Natalie Carey said, addressing the zoologist directly outside the court. “No one will ever look at you with admiration again.”

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