To the Magistrate Court in Ilubinrin where Baba Lekki is holding the rudimentary staff to ransom over his insistence on entering a nolle prosequi plea on a matter that had already been determined by another court of competent and equal jurisdiction. It was the celebrated State Vs Jenifa palaver. Despite the fact that the famed actress had already accepted the guilty verdict, paid her fines and sensibly commenced community service, the old stormy petrel was insisting that the verdict was entered in error as there was no case to adjudge in the first instance.
Despite the massive Covid-19 clampdown, how the ancient rebel managed to beat the tight police surveillance around the Third Mainland Bridge remained a mystery. But the old contrarian is a master of political brinkmanship often brushing past bayonet-fixed anti-riot police whenever he is possessed by revolutionary demons.
Earlier that morning, he had been sighted at the interchange between Ilubinrin and Ebute Metta running rings around a police patrol time that had accosted him to find out what essential duty could have brought an old man out so early in the morning.
“Ma pikin, me I no dey do essential commodity. Na Buhari and dem Idiagbon dey do dat one”, the old man chortled as he eyed the fierce-looking cops with a merry glint in his eyes.
“Baba, please mind yourself. I said essential duty and not essential commodity”, the policeman snapped, eyeing the old man with distrust and suspicion.
“Ha, young man, in that case justice is the first precondition for civilization and law is the essence of duty. That is the only official duty we recognise even in times of corona”, the old codger summarized as he switched into perfect and flawless English to the befuddlement of the police patrol team. Not to be browbeaten, the outspoken one among them moved with a swagger towards the old man.
“When I crash this horsewhip on your kwashiorkor back, all the Giringory grammar will disappear”, he neighed with a sadistic hiccup as he stretched out his whip. It was at this point that their superior officer who had been watching the whole drama from the other end of the bridge rushed upon them.
“Ha Ebele don’t try it! Don’t kill yourself. The baba get brain pass all dem government”, he shouted at his subordinate. Even before he could finish, the old man was already sauntering towards the Lewis Street loop.
As he swept past the lone policeman dozing off on sentry duty at the court premises on Friday morning, the old man was till in a quietly euphoric mood. When the Corona lockdown began, he had predicted the end of the world as we know it and had disappeared into a gaping hole somewhere on the Island. But when the apocalypse did not materialize, he had emerged from his self-entombment at the head of a rampaging mob of urchins hurling insults at the authorities.
But for a handful of clerks and one or two minor officials, the court was eerily empty. But this did not deter the great hell-raiser.
“Gentlemen and the lady”, he opened solemnly. “I am here to reopen the case of Jenifa versus the State. There is no statute of limitation for an assault on human freedom. The case is not justiciable because it is not the intendment of the framers of the constitution to sacrifice personal liberty at the altar of popular hysteria. The janitor state is long passé. In the celebrated case of Walker versus Crown…”
It was at this point the lady decided to cut him short.
“But baba, you can see that the court is not in session. All the courts are closed”, she pleaded.
“The court of public opinion is always in session. The court of public opinion is never closed”, the old man shot back. One of the clerks, a short fellow with cynical manners and a sinister grin, was obviously enjoying the surreal drama. He brought out his pen and a sheet of paper.
“Amofin agba (old lawyer) Let me take down your plea”, he pleaded.
“You may think this is a joke, but by the time I put your governor through his pace, he will collapse in court”, the old man snorted.
“Haba, baba but there is no weight of evidence here”, the man sneered.
“The person you are quoting wrongly was a man of much legal weight but without any moral substance”, the old man shot back. It was at this point that the dozing policeman let forth a volley of shots that sent everybody scampering for safety.
The Nation
