‘They Come With Envelopes’ By Adesina Ogunlana

There are readers and there are readers. Readers of the Squib Magazine; remember the Squib? That’s the magazine with the singular distinction of being judicially and judiciously branded by a former Chief Judge of Lagos State (Nigeria), the incomparable “Debisi Baby” as “an obnoxious publication.”

 

One wonders however, how “an obnoxious publication” has not only survived for the past six years but is even growing from strength to strength in “sweet wickedness.” www.squibanticorruption.com

But I digress. We were talking about the readers of the Squib. You see, Squib readers come in different shapes and styles. And I, the First Gecko, should know (See www.squiblogg.blogspot.com).

A major group of Squib readers are those I take the liberty to label the SQUIB ADDICTS or SQUIBADDIES for short.

 

Squibaddies love to read the Squib so much that they feel great pain and a deep sense of loss anytime the fire-workish magazine is not on the stands. A squibaddie confessed to me a couple of weeks ago that for him the squib is a weekly tonic which “I cannot afford to miss.”

 

However despite their addiction, there are squibaddies who cannot openly identify with their piece of ‘intellectual cocaine’ and engrossing literary howitzer.

  

On the surface, these members of the Nicodemus sub-specie of Squibaddies, may appear to have no interest at all in the “obnoxious publication.” In public and in polite circles, you will never hear or see them indicating any interest in the Squib. But there in their closets and drawers, both at home and in the office, you will find piles and piles of the obnoxious publication.

 

In getting their regular shots, Squibaddies of the Nicodemus sub-class are quite ingenious. I tell you. This is how they go about it. Sorry, I changed my mind. Instead of cheaply divulging the secret to you, I invite you on a voyage of discovery.

 

In the mornings, especially Mondays and Tuesdays, just go to a spot in the Ikeja High Court called the SQUIB ROTUNDA. You will see some Squib-selling folk there. After a while you will see some other folk coming from different temples of justice, approaching the Rotunda, after glancing furtively about, one after the other. Usually these other folk hold big brown envelopes in their hands. Then when they are right under the Rotunda, these envelope bearers quickly give some quid to the Squib sellers and with the same alacrity pick their ‘drug’ and deposit it efficiently in their envelopes. Then they go back to their offices and to their lords.

 Some minutes later, you will hear (if you have Squib-like ears) one ‘milord or milady calling another milady on the phone, saying                “Ah, have you seen the Squib today? It is too much.

                  Omo yen o ni pa wa! (that guy will not be the death of us!) I won’t lend you my copy. Go and get yours.”

  Of course, it is no surprise then that more and more envelope bearers will turn up from you know where, for you know what, under the SQUIB ROTUNDA.  

THE LEARNED SQUIB By Adesina Ogunlana

 TIMI’S WILL
We have, I believe come to the end of Act One in the increasingly fascinating play/soap opera called “TIMI’S (Unseen) WILL. Don’t tell me you’ve not been watching this opera. Gosh! Have you been spending all your time on lesser entertainment such as BB2 – where much of what you get to see is muck: – mock home, mock home-making, mock love, mock lovemaking and real mammary gland exposure! For those who may not know, Timi’s (Unseen) Will hereinafter referred to as TUW is just about four very grown up children of a famous Nigerian lawyer who died in 2005. These children, all boys, sorry, all men are warring amongst themselves over the control and I dare say, enjoyment of their late father’s vast estate.       
So far, it is an even, balanced contest – it is a two against two thing. That’s an indication of how decent and fair minded children from a greatly cultured family background behave even when at war. Two against two is neat, nice and meet.       
Now let me give some flesh to the identities of the dramatis persona.       
The paterfamilias of the four fighting children is none other than Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams S.A.N a.k.a Timi the Law. Timi’s first son is Ladi a.k.a “Ladi Gentleman” (in his younger days). The second is Kayode, a prosperous land tiller. The third is Folarin, a lawyer and business man. The last but not the least or darkest is Tokunbo, a lawyer too and a Senior Advocate like his first brother – Ladi.        Further information about the dispute is that the two older brothers (Ladi and Kayode) are more or less together while the younger two, Folarin and Tokunbo form the opposing force. To put it in sharper relief, we have a tag-team ‘A’ LADIKAY fighting tag-team ‘B’ to wit FOLATOKS.       
So far, the most intriguing aspect of the plot of the play is the absence of F.R.A Williams’ Will. That fact to many people seems quite odd indeed. How can it be that a lawyer of F.R.A Williams’ status would not leave behind a Will to govern the administration and appropriation of his vast estate?        This is the question millions of Nigerians have been asking one another since the opera debuted. Of course, everybody knows Rotimi Williams was not just any lawyer. He was the best, the very best, not only in Nigeria, but in all of Africa. So why should such a man leave a vast financial empire without a will?       
Could his action stem from ignorance? Could it be an oversight? Could it be from wickedness? Could it be from indifference? I suspect and there are a few others who suspect that, the extraordinary F.R.A actually wrote and left a will, but in an extra-ordinary manner. Such a will cannot be seen with the naked eyes, or held with bare fingers. It is only sages and deep spiritualists that can see F.R.A Williams Will. Are you puzzled? If so, then this story will help.        
Once upon a time a wealthy trader died. Before he died, he gathered his twenty children around his bed and prayed for them. Days before his transition he kept telling his children never to depend on his wealth or other inheritance but to struggle and really make their own names and fortunes. Just before he died, he indicated where he kept his fortunes – a very large, uncultivated farmland of several acres.Said the old man, – “All my jewelry, my sacks of money are somewhere there.”What news this was in the ears of the children – they knew never knew how really wealthy their father was! After burying the old man, the children could hardly wait to discover their fortune.         
Three days after their old man was committed to mother earth, the troop rushed to the farmland. They searched diligently through the bush, combed all the undergrowth but drew blank. The failure to find the bags of treasure their father hid on the farmland saddened and puzzled the trader’s children. So they embarked on another search, this time around, more thoroughly and very slowly. Alas, after three days of meticulous search, they discovered nothing more precious than a dozen eggs of a partridge, ten snails and the shed skin of an old snake.          
Feeling very sad indeed, the troop decided to seek from an elder, counsel about their predicament. The elder asked them to dig up the farmland; “somewhere on the farm lies your father’s treasure.” It took the twenty children three whole weeks to complete their labour. It was indeed a backbreaking job. But once again, it yielded no treasure.         
Thoroughly beaten by now, the embittered and dispirited children trooped back to the house of the elder who had instructed them to dig up the farmland and told him of their misfortune. The elder however insisted that their father’s treasure was nowhere else but in that field. The old man spoke with such confidence and authority that the children went back to the “treasure site” reinvigorated, to conduct a fresh search.         
Armed with hoes, cutlasses, rakes and other farm implements, they ploughed the earth once again. This new effort took them twelve days to complete. Yet, no dice! Now, completely miffed and exhausted, the poor children of the wealthy father dropped the farm implements, sank to the ground and began to weep.         
Oh, how they ululated! And what a sight they made. Twenty grown men weeping their heads off in the centre of more than fifty acres of freshly ploughed land.          They were so lost in their emotions that they did not realize that the sky had started turning dark with rain clouds. Suddenly, the big, loud, slow grumbling rumble of thunder sounded in their ears. A few minutes later, scattered fat drops of tears from the sky dropped to the earth. Some of the sparse sprinkles fell on the children.         
Suddenly, the eldest child, a man of sixty years, called Niniola jumped up and hushed up his brothers.         
“Listen to me,” Nini shouted and looked up into the heavenlies with arms outstretched. His brothers were surprised at his rather dramatic pose. But they became even more startled when the man started laughing –first gently, silently and then vigorously and uproariously. Nini’s brothers quickly scrambled to their feet, worried about their brother’s sanity. Poor chap, they thought, the disappointment had surely “turned his head.”         
Their fears became reinforced when Niniola, with quite a rapturous look on his face declared:         
“My people, the treasure is here, I see papa’s treasure. It is here! It is here! “Where is it?” the other brothers shouted in unison, feeling the stirring of hope once again in their bosoms.         
Our father’s treasure, his gold, his money, everything is all around us, here in this field now, and in other fields.”         
“But show us now, now. We’ve suffered enough. No need to waste further time,” chorused his brothers.         
“If I show you how to get it, will you believe me, will you obey? “We all will!” shouted his siblings. So Niniola showed them. He told them to plant the vast acres with seeds and tubers. And mercifully, they obeyed. And the Lord blessed their efforts and they became richer than their father, richer than they could ever have imagined, certainly more than they could have been, if they had been content with sharing amongst themselves, their inheritance.        Now let’s get back to the story of Rotimi Williams and his quarrelling children. Can you now begin to see that the great lawyer in not leaving a Will, actually left a Will?       
Timi, the genius lawyer was neither a fool nor an irresponsible father. I assure you. Can you see the old man’s will now? I see it. And I tell you its contents. The legend reads:       
“Ladi, Kayode, Folarin, Tokunbo, my dear children.I leave you all this vast estate and stupendous wealth.       
If I share it equally, one or two of you will complain and contest my Will. If I do not share equally, one or two will complain and contest my Will.       
But if I leave it for you to share among yourselves, the whole world will see and judge by the way you handle my wealth whether you are indeed children worthy of coming from my loins or not. If you handle it well, the glory is yours.       
If you handle it badly, the shame is yours. Remember I am no longer in the flesh. Material wealth does not count with me any more.       
“Alagemo ti bi omo e na”        “Ai mojo ku sowo e.”

Files of Sorrow

THE LEARNED SQUIB By Adesina Ogunlana www.squibanticorruption.com

 Today is 17^th October 2007. In two days time, it’ll be the whole of thirty-one days that the Lagos Judiciary marked the commencement of 2007/2008 New Legal Year.         On the new Legal Year Day, beautiful sermons and powerful prayers were rendered during the worship sessions. Admonitions perched on the back of exhortations all to the end that the judiciary should perform much better than it did last year.        Honourable Justice Augustine Adetula Alabi the Chief Judge of state, the “Oga pata-pata” of the judiciary, whom I will call the commander-in-chief of the judicial forces of the state gave a soul-stirring performance on that day; at least on television.        With my two eyes, I watched the Judicial Augustus, wax eloquent before journalists and their invariable cameras and recorders about the resolve of the judiciary to do its very best in the new legal year.        According to the Augustus, Lagos State judges have no reason to complain about their conditions of service given the munificence of the state government in that direction. Said the Augustus, if any judge demands bribe or any such thing, then such a judge is “an armed robber.”        After watching and listening to the emphatically patriotic effusions of the learned Chief Judge, stars danced in my head; My head “swelled.” On that day, the Chief Judge vividly presented the organization he leads as one earnestly ready and invigorated to work and excel.        Alas, talk is cheap! Nearly thirty days after 17^th September 2007, much of the action in the Lagos State Judiciary (at least as far as lawyers and litigants are concerned) has been inaction.In the two main judicial divisions {Lagos (Igbosere) and Ikeja}, one can without any fear of contradiction say that since September 18 2007, not up to 50% of the judges have had any impressive, consistent court sessions.        When you ask the reason for this tragic redundancy, you get interesting answers as follows:(a)            “Ah, it is due to the present renovation of the various court rooms.”(b)            “Ah, it is because of the re-posting of the judges from their divisions.”(c)             “Ah, it is because the Chief Judge is yet to re-assign the files of the numerous fresh and non part-heard cases to new judges.” Of all the three wicked reasons given above, the one that intrigues me the most is the last.        How numerous are the files of fresh and non part-heard cases? Quite numerous I can tell you. Let me supply some statistics for just about 11 judges who returned case files to the registry for re-assignment to some other judges, upon their reposting.Here goes:- 

Name of Honourable Judges:		No of files returned to the registry:
Atilade J.	-	707
Idowu J.	-	402
Adefope-Okojie J.	-	371
Pedro J.	-	256
Oyekan-Abdullai J.	-	234
Okunnu J.	-	147
Coker J.	-	82
Nwaka J.	-	71
Kayode Ogunmekan J.	-	46
Taiwo J.	-	40
Gbajabiamila J.	-	30
Total	-	2,386

 Even anti-mathematics brains will understand that we are talking about a little less than two thousand, five hundred files here. These,from just eleven judges in a judiciary of forty-six judges.        Yet as at press time, none of these files has been re-assigned. In fact, there can’t be less than five to seven thousand files ‘rotting away’ in the Record Section of the Lagos Judiciary, waiting, crying; indeed shouting and screaming for reactivation by way of re-assignment.        Of course there has been no re-assignment. Nobody knows the reasons why. At any rate, I think that as usual, the Chief Judge and his lieutenants consider it “infradig” to condescend to the point of furnishing information to the bar about the paralysis.        Instead, lawyers are advised by mandarins of the Registry to “write to the C.J or file something new.” Such actions the mandarins assure, would quicken or wake the Chief Judge or his administrative judges to re-assign the affected files.        What odious suggestions! So the Chief Judge and his administrative judges need to be jump started to crank alive? I shudder! How did we ever come to such a sorry pass that administrators of justice have to be specially appeased or jump started to get them to work?        Just imagine the stress and distress, the failure, neglect and refusal of the authorities of the Lagos Judiciary to re-assign case files to judges for more than four weeks now have caused the good people of Lagos State in particular and Nigeria in general! I implore the NBA to intervene in this matter as a matter of urgency. Or do we need to jump start the bar too to act! Oh, Nigeria.

Agbako-bar

The Learned Squib by Adesina Ogunlana www.squibanticorruption.com.

Were you at Ilorin? In the last week of August 2007? For the lawyers’ conference? Oh, you were not there? My, my, you were not there! Really?
I got you there. You see, if you missed the 2007 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Conference, you were really lucky. Because, all what you missed either by the whiskers or by a mile was “plenty, plenty nonsense,” or as Fela would put it, “babanla nonsense.”

Soon after surviving the Ilorin conference, I came across reports in some newspapers claiming that the said ‘suffer, suffer’ conference was “the best ever.” I couldn’t help but grimace, even sorrow at such gross mendacity. If, the Ilorin conference was the best ever NBA conference then be assured that the snail is the fastest animal in the world.

I know many ‘Squibbers’ have been on the look out for our reports of the Ilorin conference. But since in our candid opinion it was nothing to write home about, why bother to write it? Take it from me, the Ilorin conference was a disaster, with most participants seriously shortchange.
Sympathisers of the administration of Olisa ‘The Stranger Who Became King’ Agbakoba (See www.squibpublications.wordpress.com ) have played down the awful mess of insufficient accommodation for conferees and dearth of conference materials, as if they were mere trifles while playing up the attendance of President Umaru Yar’Adua at the opening session of the conference as a big deal.

But to me, Yar’Adua’s presence was more of a minus than a plus for the Nigerian Bar Association. Of course, some individuals gained by the president’s attendance but certainly not the NBA. I believe the NBA contradicted itself by honouring Yar’Adua with an invitation to her conference. Of course, the nation’s president did not need to be at the conference and was he not the chief beneficiary of an election that the NBA had strongly dismissed as unacceptable and actually ordered a boycott on?

Of course, the president’s presence meant that the opening ceremony was turned into a carnival-rally of his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At the event, party faithfuls took over the venue and at least half of the lawyers present were shut out of the hall. What a waste of time!
The acute shortage of decent accommodation forced many conferees to sleep in untoward places like cars, balconies and lounges of hotels. Of course, after a day or two of humiliating non-shelter, many conferees headed back home. As the Yoruba aptly put it: “Bi iwaju o ba se lo, eyin a sa se lo” (when a journey turns awry, at least the traveler can beat a retreat).

It was a sad little smile that played on my lips when I heard Agbakoba claim that the NBA was only expecting about three or four thousand conferees to turn up at the Ilorin conference because “it was not an election year.”
What a lame excuse! If true, then it is proof of a poor sense of imagination and judgment. Any veteran bar person would know that Ilorin 2007 would attract quite a huge turn-out of lawyers simply by the sheer fact of her advantageous geographical location, being very near the densely populated (lawyer wise) southwestern and eastern parts of the country.
Of course, ab initio, Ilorin should not have been selected to host the conference. Objective persons would know that the two other bidders for the hosting of the conference, Ikeja and Kaduna, are better in terms of accommodation capacity than Ilorin but the NBA leadership gave the hosting chance to Ilorin, for obvious selfish reasons – to please Lawal Rabana, the General Secretary of the Association who hails from Ilorin.

Another terrible fact of the Ilorin conference was the absence of conference materials. Up till now, only a few conferees have a complete conference pack of the materials. What the majority managed to get were empty conference bags, of a high quality, but empty nonetheless.

The struggle to get conference materials was tough, rough, and undignifying for many as they had to engage in rugby like contests, kicking, shoving, grunting, pushing and elbowing one another in frantic struggles to lay hands on the papers.
It is on record that Nurudeen Ogbara Esq., a staunch Agbakobaist in the 2006 elections who witnessed one of the many ugly struggles for conference materials chased away a Squib photographer from recording the “sad scramble” on film. According to Ogbara, he acted in defence of the NBA’s image. Wonderful! Things were never this bad at NBA conferences; that conferees had to fight to get conference materials.

Some noises have also been made of the provision of “free lunches” to conferees at the conference. What free lunches? Registered conferees remember only too well that they paid no less than five thousand naira each; more than the usual conference fees they normally pay. And it is a fact that not all conferees got to eat of Agbakoba’s “free lunch.” There is no free lunch anywhere, least of all in the Agbako-bar.

I don’t want to say anything much about the engagement of the “Events Manager” for the conference other than; victims of the Ilorin conference have him or her to thank for at least 70% of their misery. That Events Manager and his engagers should be probed.
But for the assistance of the Local Organising Committee of the Ilorin branch which was at first spurned, the situation would have been much worse.

In spite of the great disappointment that Ilorin turned out to be, I beg to report that the ‘Tigers,’ one of the few large cohesive groups there, managed to have fun. Their party on the 30th August 2007 was one of the wonders of the conference. The live band that performed at the party drove away the rheumatism of some aging tigers and tigresses with their Ilorin flavoured “dadakuwada” music which compelled gyrations from merry Tigers as well as, wait for this, naira spraying.

In all, Ilorin will remain, at least for me, another example of how the inadequacies of know-it-all sophisticates are exposed in the cold and harsh terrain of practical realities.
I ask, where are the re-branders of this world?
One hopes NBA Conference 2008 will not be a repeat of the Ilorin 2007 fiasco. Amen.

Please see www.squibdiary.wordpress.com for the week’s judiciary gist.
(Look out for latest Learned Squib and Diary this week).