John Milton, celebrated 17th century English poet, has provided for us in his Samson Agonistes a metaphorical dramatisation of the full import of the meaning and consequences of human struggles, especially our epic pursuits.
We are reminded that in the nature of our existence, there is a strategic struggle between our will as human beings and divine will. Between them both is the interplay of the importance of faith, courage and fortitude. Even though the characterisation of Samson in the biblical account in Judges celebrates Samson’s physical prowess, Milton’s Samson Agonistes which draws largely from the Jewish folk tale of Samson the Nazarite, focuses on the inner strength or workings of the mind of the drama’s protagonist. A person engaged in a struggle or aluta (as we say in popular local lingo) is referred to or described as Agonistes.
Dele Farotimi, the Nigerian civil/human rights activist and lawyer popular or adored for his polemical ardour, his unique distillation craftsmanship of socio-political issues respecting our beleaguered situation in Nigeria, and his no-holds-barred disclosures of unsettling facts has been in the eye of the storm of a law that is as recondite as it is unhelpful in a democratic environment that is desirous of striking a balance between the requirement to expose ills and corruption in its body politic and the necessity to guarantee the right of the individual to the protection of his earned character or reputation.
Farotimi’s sometimes prophetic and lucid explanation of where Nigeria is headed if she obstinately persists in her reproachful trajectory, has become a model for younger social critics who are fast becoming legitimate heirs to the Farotimi epistemology and mantle. They are all moved by a mood of utter disgust over what they perceive as the malevolent brutalisation of their psyche. Their reaction is a “ wounded outrage … against the crisis that threaten[ed]” and still mercilessly threatens their generation.
Events in Nigeria particularly since the return of civil rule or what is facetiously referred to as the 4th Republic, have sorely widened the trust crunch between the people and their government. The youth of Nigeria have become particularly restive. The poetry and mournful lyrics of the young people have become a dominant refrain of their frustration and exasperation.
Many podcasts, blogs or political commentaries have tended to display the profound resentment and anguish which are truly the defining mood or spirit of this era. The ordinary people are frustrated and tired. The people are tired!
For allegedly ruffling or upsetting some identifiable feathers, Farotimi was bundled vi et armis by the police from his home in Lagos to forlorn Ado Ekiti. He was arraigned before a Magistrate on a 16-count charge of crimes which are feared to be not cognisable under the Laws of Ekiti State. The police may have been suborned or are oblivious of the fact that the law which they cite for bringing Farotimi to Ekiti State no longer exists in the Ekiti statute books.
Criminal libel or defamation is thankfully alien to the corpus of laws known as the Criminal Law of Ekiti State. For the records, the bundle of charges preferred against Farotimi before the Magistrate in Ekiti was cited as criminal defamation. This law was not contemplated or provided for by the drafters of The Criminal Law of Ekiti State. Criminal defamation, whatever it may connote in police parlance, is not recognised as a crime in pristine Ekiti State.
Even as the alleged offence is not evinced in the laws which Farotimi was deemed to have breached and which charge the Magistrate did not have jurisdiction over, the Magistrate perversely pronounced an order of remand on Farotimi. The accused person was ordered to be remanded in prison custody for one week or until the 10th of December (later December 20) when the matter of his bail would be magisterially decided.
Farotimi rightly bears a sense of righteous indignation respecting his belief in the human capacity to reverse the ignoble trend in many of Nigeria’s national institutions especially the Judiciary, INEC, the police, etc. He is appalled that Nigeria’s array of public intellectuals is unable to stem the tide of the country’s plunge into the abyss. Impatient to wait for this elite’s gradual metamorphosis, Farotimi has devised or has proffered a practical body of solution for restructuring society. His belief is that an egalitarian society where all citizens are contributors and where the wealth of the land is equitably shared will put an end to hunger, violence, strife, etc – all of which are caused by our private or individual greed and incontinence.
Hunger, want, poverty, etc are, in the main, the direct result of an unjust socio-political structure, Farotimi ideologically contends. His political philosophy has found encompassing ambience in Afenifere, that all-time ideologically clear socio-political formation of the social welfare democratic hue of which Farotimi himself is a ranking member.
The forced or unwitting experience of Farotimi in Ekiti State has further exposed the oppositional relationships that exist between the entrenched dominance of the ruling elite even within the practice of an esteemed or noble profession and the acutely conscious but oppressed or marginalised members of society who consciously recognise the limits of the unconscionable use of state power. The penchant to unlawfully deploy a fawning institution of state to wilfully use the law wrongly is the chief characteristic of this elite group.
What Farotimi represents possesses significant socio-political relevance with remarkable impact on the requirement to sanitise our national institutions that have fallen into the vice grip of desuetude or that are no longer cherished or regarded by the people. The intellectual engagement of the rot in the Judiciary, for instance, which Farotimi highlights in his best-selling Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System will appear to be the new locus for challenging the conveniently built-in gridlock in the system otherwise referred to as corruption.
For the projected tackling of our tacky social problems, a new practical and tangible frontier will appear to have opened. Farotimi’s contribution to an intellectual approach for conceiving and perceiving our nagging social difficulties is the new elixir. It deserves to be applauded; not harassed or harangued.
We conclude our essay by acknowledging the relevance of the theme of Milton’s Samson Agonistes to our search for a new nation. The theme highlights a precious truth. It is to the effect that God’s mercy and providence are not limited by our flaws, our collective timidity or pusillanimity.
Nature is still in the business of supplying every age, every era with men of courage, valour, and public spirit for reversing our ugly trend. These men of faith, courage and fortitude will appear deus ex machina or as a thief in the night in spite of ourselves even as we are generally laid back or have been busy snoring away our future.
Our people have yet to recognise as true and unfailing the admonition of Agnes McPhail (1890-1954) – first woman to be elected to the Canadian Parliament – that:
“The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, put your hands to their throats, and you will get all they have.”
Rotimi-John, a lawyer and commentator on public affairs is the Deputy Secretary-General of Afenifere.
