By Abdu Rafiu
I found this advocacy difficult to swallow because of the uncommon degree of violence involved in killing a fellow human being. If a husband killer or wife killer is pardoned lightly for showing remorse (medicine after death), what do we do with ritual killers, kidnappers, terrorists and wanton dealers in human blood and human spare parts.
I have even heard in whispers that some obas, but very few indeed, have squads they use to harvest human souls and body parts. I found this level of degeneration too barbaric to associate with thoughts of pardon or clemency. Still, I must thank you for the sublimity of your essay. Wonderful weekend, Sir.
My response:
I spoke of classifications, one crime committed on impulse and the other driven by propensity. Ritual killings and those that come under banditry, kidnapping, corruption and terrorism cannot be classified under impulsive action but under per-meditated, intentional criminality.
I concentrated in the column on Maryam Sanda Bello whose action came under impulsive reaction upon seeing the nude photograph of her husband’s girlfriend in his phone. She could not believe it because she loved her husband very dearly.
When the scale dropped from her eyes after the dastardly occurrence, she could not believe herself that she did it and wondered under what influence she came to commit the act. She knew remorse and regretted her action, thus paving a path to atonement for her crime. It was in that state the Presidential Committee reviewing cases found her. The prison authorities also had the same report on her. She lost control of herself feeling betrayed.
There was a scuffle and the rest is painful history!
Let’s face it: how many women can hold themselves finding their marriage threated in that manner? Without first reconsidering she dealt her husband a mortal blow.
No man can match a woman in love or in cruelty when they fall. I may have to write on this soon, using your reaction as a peg! The modern judicial practice in Western world courts is to put criminal actions into categories and see in which one or the other falls! Impulsive action is looked at with understanding and mercy, more leniently and it receives lesser punishment.
Reaction to my response:
GOOD morning, sir, and thank you for gracing my reaction this charitably. In truth you qualified your essay with all the facts you mentioned here—and I took notice of them. I too was moved to the other extreme of cold-bloodedness because of the abominable degree of bloodshed in our geography.
I think of the 100 years of civil war in Yorubaland, the attendant bloodshed; the 400 years of slavery and anguish, the 221 years of Fulani jihad and the Holocaust, native colonialism and the pogrom they all have unleashed on us.
These historical foundations were the ancestors of modern forms of killing in Nigeria and even when we thought we had moved away from our pristine existence people are still dying daily, most in cold blood.
You are of higher grace, and I appreciate that, but Nigeria needs to find a formula to extinguish this fire consuming people like ready plant tinder. It is abominable to God and the sense of our humanity and decency. God bless your pen, sir. It is always seasoned with grace, wisdom and strength. Always a joy to read. Happy weekend, sir.
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