On February 18, 1947, the Daily Service newspaper published a story whose theme, like the ancient Secretarybird, has remained with Nigeria ever since. It is a story of the affinity between s3x and corruption. Son of Alake of Egbaland and a no-nonsense judge, Justice Adetokunbo Ademola, then of the Lagos Santa Anna Magistrate Court, presided over the matter. After the wotowoto of the prosecution and defence, Ademola sentenced a female welfare officer, Ayodele Potts-Johnson, to six months imprisonment, without an option of fine. Potts-Johnson’s crime was demanding and collecting bribes of the sums of #5.30s and 25s.2d. from two prostitutes, Elizabeth Agadagwu and Alice George, in order to stave them off the wrath of the law.
Christened by the Nigerian press of the time a “sensational celebrated official corruption,” the scandal had famous African and British lawyers, led by FRA Williams, and which included E. A. Akerele, J.A. Kester, N.O.A Morgan and V.O Munis, as defence counsel. In his book, When S3x Threatened The State, (2015) Saheed Aderinto, award-winning author, filmmaker and Nigerian American Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University, doubled down on the story for his hypothesis. It is that, the popular notion that bribery and corruption were postcolonial vices that erupted in Nigeria in the wake of military rule, was not only unreal but a-historical.
Immediately the prostitutes were apprehended, rather than the office, Potts-Johnson escorted them to their homes. There, upon demanding #10 as bribe, the welfare officer was offered #5.30s by Agadagwu’s landlord, one Bakare, who negotiated the bribe sum with Potts-Johnson in Yoruba. Bakare promised Agadagwu would pay the balance later. The other prostitute, George, also offered the welfare officer 5s.2d. from the bribe amount demanded. If they hadn’t paid the bribes, upon conviction in court, the prostitutes risked two years in prison, #50 fine and repatriation by government from Lagos. But immediately after paying the initial bribes, the prostitutes reported it to the police. The Lagos police then handed them marked notes which represented the balance of the bribe money, on which was covertly inscribed, Wayo. The police also planted an undercover Sheriff to witness the bribery. When Toviho, Potts-Johnson’s middleman, came to collect the bribe money, he and the welfare officer were arrested.
A major obscene scandal broke out last week. It will seem to annotate the above theme of the need for us to pay more regards to obscenities in our analysis of society. It is a narrative which tangentially bears the colour of s3x, though it smells more of corruption. With it, we can measure the barometer of how low our society has sunk and how political and social powers are implicated in the rot of our society. The story starred controversial cross-dresser jailbird, Okuneye Idris Olanrewaju, whose allegedly leaked audio conversation has created a national mess.
A social media influencer, Martins Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, had circulated an audio conversation Bobrisky alleging that he paid the sum of ₦15 million to unnamed EFCC officers to have a charge of money laundering spiked off the criminal charges preferred by the state against him. And that he spent her term in an apartment, as against the Nigerian correctional centre imposed by the court.
Beyond the theme of crime and corruption in the Bobrisky case is the Nigerian society’s disdain for considered unusual sexuality and in particular, Okuneye’s audacity to flaunt it. As a measure of its conservatism, the Yoruba frown at counting the fingers of a nine-fingered person in their presence (a kii t’oju oni’ka mesan kaa.)
The allegation that Bobrisky paid bribe to the EFCC for a money laundering charge to be removed then crept in. The viral audio, amplified by VeryDarkMan, also alleged that he paid bribe to prison top officials to enable him serve his term outside the hostile walls of the Kirikiri prison. On this, all we have been entertained with since last week when the obscene scandal broke is a national breakfast of hypocrisy. Why are Nigerians feigning prudery at these scandalous revelations? Are we hearing about a story of this stench for the first time? Let us hop down from our high horses. If truth be told, the only way to reform this country is for both the leaders and the led to come clean with themselves.
Nigeria is a thoroughly worsted place and all the bounds and parameters of societal civility, decency and global norms of civilized people have broken down irretrievably. I personally overheard an Edo-born prison warder detailed to a politically exposed person arraigned before the Lagos Federal High Court some years ago, saying, “Mek dem post me to (I am hiding the politician’s identity) mek I no buy car? He no go happen!” Last year, we witnessed an obscene altercation between DSS operatives and prison officials, right in the premises of the court. Their beef was on who owned custodial power over embattled Godwin Emefiele. And apparently, his loot. It was later that Nigerians found out that the scuffle was not strictly a turf battle; it was a graft fight, something in the mould of a robber robs the till and a thief robs the robber (ole gbe, ole gbaa.)
Like Nigeria, the prison is brimming with rotund-bellied maggots which reflect the collapse of virtually all the values that cobbled Nigeria together. Apart from decayed infrastructure, overcrowding and allied issues, Nigerian prisons are home to officers who, in saner societies, should themselves be in prison. In 2019, investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, adopting the pseudonym, Ojo Olajumoke, spent five days in a police cell and eight days as an inmate in Ikoyi Prison. It was in the bid to track corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system. There was no single whimper from the Nigerian establishment. After Soyombo’s arrest and detention in police custody, he was arraigned in court and ultimately got a remand in prison. He emerged with very distressing stories of illegitimate arrests, extrajudicial killings, bribery and corruption and a criminal justice system that is in a sorry case. He even claimed that a prison official asked him for money to remove his name from jailbirds’ roster.
If Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo is merely interested in the optics of being perceived as proactive, in order to save his job from the Sword of Damocles said to be hanging on ministers, he should let us know. But if he is genuinely interested in reforming Nigerian prisons, he surely has a humongous job on his hands. It is more demanding than the “I swear-to-Almighty-God” raising-of-a-finger he was embroiled in last week. Yoruba talk about how widespread a covertly released fart could go in its “B’a se nyo’so, l’a se nyo’gbo” aphorism. The Bobrisky allegation of Very Important Prisoners being ferried out of jail while serving their terms is almost as old as corruption in Nigeria. We have heard of a VIP who impregnated his wife while serving his term and who was present at the child’s christening. We have also heard a story, which occurred some twenty-something years ago, of a man who later rose to become a senator and a political party bigwig. While in detention for alleged murder, exhibiting his libidinous prowess, the girl procured for this Very Important Detainee in an apartment outside of prison had fainted under him. If indeed, as it is said, that a people is assessed by the way it treats its most vulnerable, prisoners are vulnerable lots and we should be interested in what goes on inside that nocturne called prison. Until Nigerian prisons become reformatory, as opposed to the place of torment it is today, it will continue to be a microcosm of our macroscopic Nigerian tragedy.
It will be gratifying if Olanipekun Olukoyede, the EFCC chair, on hearing the messy news that his operatives were sunk in the Bobrisky N15m scandal, is silently preparing earthly purgatory for them. He must do as the police did in 1947 to Ayodele Potts-Johnson. This is time for Olukoyede to peel himself of his church mien and wear the garb of a Dracula. Otherwise, he will be dragging in the mud his pastoral calling claim, perceived to be atypical with the task of a crime fighter. If news circulating in Nigeria from those who experience Olukoyede’s men in all parts of the country is anything to go by, he is sitting atop a maggots’ empire where operatives are nothing more than armed gunmen who terrorize and extort criminals of their loots. These Wayo theatrics, in the name of crime fighting and law enforcement, has to stop.