“I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing. The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present,” – Abraham Lincoln
It was a pun but they did not see the fun. Yet, I am not writing in jest, but to follow the rhetorical footprints of President Bola Tinubu in his inaugural speech that echoed another great man, Abraham Lincoln. I write, as this essayist has always done, with “malice towards none.”
When I wrote the piece, Obi-tuary, there was a tempest in the land. I did not even know until half-way through that Monday in early August when my attention was drawn to my phone. It was on silent mode, but the screen flashed like the restless winks of a war zone at night. The cannons unleashed, the night-sky brilliance a bloody omen. An incandescence without sound. It was not only phone calls but text messages. They clashed for living room in my device.
I didn’t pick any of the calls because I had indicated on the column that I only entertained text messages. But when I saw the messages, I gasped. Before I read one sentence, another had entered. It was like this for weeks. The messages said such things as “you and your generation will never know peace.” “Since you wish our candidate death, we shall also kill you.” Amadioha will perish you.” “Sam you think you can rubbish Peter Obi and go free. We go shoot you. That obituary na there we go put you .” “We must kill you.” “We are tracing you.” Many said lines like this, “We know where you live, expect us and say goodbye to your family.” “Tinubu is your slave master”. “Idiot educated slave.” “Your days on earth are numbered.” “You and your principal are in trouble. If we can’t get him, we will get you.”
These are a few of them. Online, on Facebook and Twitter, it was mayhem. They posted false photos of me. One photo of man holding a goat with a sign, My name is Jonathan, was identified as me attending Goodluck Jonathan’s rally. Several posters of my obituary bloomed darkly. One of them read the “shameless of a foolish man.” A TV station veered from professional integrity to host a guy who propagated that falsely. Yet, the hosts know who I am, my face and profile. I had to rebut it on TVC. Some wrote press statements that I had been fired. I discarded my phone number and tossed the SIM card. I got calls from well wishers on my other line showing solidarity and praying I survived it. A friend sent a text, saying “this too shall pass.”
It was a hectic time for me and my loved ones. I did not go to the office for four months. I was a hermit, except my trips for TVC Breakfast show, and I had go there in disguise. I attended no parties, no public events, and restaurants. I was as Americans say a home buddy.
But I forgive all. I forgive them who did not understand English enough to know that I was using a figure of speech. In the article, I said it was an electoral obituary. But I pardon their ignorance. If Jesus could ask God to forgive his foes because they knew not what they did, who am I? Ignorance is fatal, and I saw the danger for months. I also wondered, if they could turn Obi into Obidients and get away with mangling the word for their purpose, why did they not see my own wordplay? They make right their impunity to twist Tinubu’s name to all sorts of innuendoes. That is the nature of populism. They are 100 percent right; no other person has a right.
I also forgive their candidate who acted as though nothing happened. I thought he was not online. But he is a man who knows me personally and who I visited in Awka when he was governor. I forgive him because he was in the insular business of sealing minds in his favour as a politician, rallying tribe and church for a personal gain. I feel no pain for him and his “yes daddy” candidacy.
I forgive also those who should belong to an intelligentsia and who know about hyphens and metaphors but who shut their minds from the light. Some I have known for decades. Some I have worked with, played with and wept with over the fragility of a nation. The same wrote as though I was their monster. One of them I just saw a few days earlier. I forgive him for his lack of grace and finesse. One of them said he did me a favour for reviewing my book as though he did not get paid for his effort. Who was encouraging whom? I forgive him. One said I was not a seasoned journalist, referring to a newspaper report that described me as such. He said I was a seasonal journalist. At least, you should have seasoning first before you become seasonal or seasoned. I thank him for the unintended compliment. This same person called once to describe me as the number one columnist in the country. Maybe it was an inebriated moment. One of them had very bad words to say about the LP candidate and he had shared it with passion and sometimes bitterness because he worked with him as governor. But he joined the Obidient rage with such gusto that I wonder whether I was observing schizophrenia. He was not the only one. One other one had written bales and bales of articles over his abysmal stewardship as governor. Suddenly, he scented him as a saint. It was probably loss of memory. A tear for their memory. It is the tragedy of what an author, Eric Hoffer, designated as the true believer.
When I wrote about “closet Biafrans,” it was a hint. My article teased them out of the woodworks. They came hooting and raging. I forgive them for their pharisaic paroxysm, for not making the election about ideas but about tribe and church. My misty eye for them for failing.
I also forgive that man, who will remain anonymous. He called me and said, “Sam, why are you profiling a whole tribe?” I said I did not profile a tribe but a tendency of some within it. Then he said he had not read it. This man is too big to mention without sullying his majesty in Nigerian history. I respect him too much to name him. My tears for him.
Someone said I take my quotes from a book of quotes. I forgive him because he just revealed how he writes. He does not read like me and if it is envy over my cornucopia of learning, I also forgive him. Some of us don’t need to justify our depths. How will he explain my copious allusions to history, plays, novels, poems, philosophy, sociology and the Bible? I must be superhuman to get all of that together within a day. It is another unintended applause. I hail him.
Someone said, he does not read me because I write poor sentences and wrong words? Really? This guy’s column is never read unless by his family and myself occasionally. Maybe he does not know my syntax or my imaginative use of language. I forgive. I must say, no writer is perfect. Nor am I. Even Soyinka’s, Achebe’s and Shakespeare’s flaws are well-known. In his Cancer Ward, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote of a person, “You have the strengths of a great writer but none of his weaknesses.” I came upon this line in Kano during my youth service when I read the novel. So, I do not need to be perfect to be a great writer. As humans, we are not perfect either. As essayist William Hazlitt writes, “It is well that there is no one without fault, for he would not have a friend in the world.” Apostle John said, “If we say we have no sin, we make Christ a liar.” As for those critics, I pardon their perfection.
I also forgive my group I have been with for all of 50 years and how they turned against me because of my political stance even though they knew we were on the same WhatsApp group. They are a vital part of my identity today. Their vitriol tested friendship. But I forgive.
I also sought personal security then, and called the commissioner of police in Lagos and seemed to harangue him with my calls. He picked a few times and promised. Then he stopped picking and replying my text messages. It was then I knew I was all alone with God. Maybe he was too busy. I forgive his busyness.
If I forgive, I ought to thank. I thank those colleagues of mine who stuck with me in those trying times. I thank some who called from the southeast and stood by me and understood that I meant no wrong. What I wrote was only confirmed by the fiery waves of reaction. Instant prophecy, instant fulfillment. Some constantly got in touch with me. One of them worked with the LP candidate, and he was miffed by the herd of worshippers.
I thank Reno Omokri for his phone call and for his kind words when the storm came. I recall his words even now and also his stand for me on his platform. I remember getting calls from PDP chieftains. Indeed, one of them, now a PDP senator but then a governor, wondered if I was in my home, and whether it was safe. I told him I had already moved to somewhere anonymous. I thank my uncle, Prof. Nesin Omatseye, for his shout of solidarity in the press. God bless him. Of course, my close family, for standing by me. I thank The Nation newspaper family for understanding.
In all, the essay was about free expression in a democracy. If one has a candidate, it is in the democratic culture to allow others to scream. I had my vision for Nigeria. They would not. They wanted to skewer me because I had a dream. A dream of one country. They skewed it into a dream agency for one part of the country.
NB: Sam Omatseye is a respected columnist with The Nation Newspaper
