“That Woman In Sports Ministry, Does She Have Your Nude?” — Lawyer Explains Statement That Sent Otu’s Critic To Prison

“₦5 million? Oga, do you want to sleep with me?”

I made that statement, out of gratitude, to a client who paid my agreed professional fee and then added a substantial amount as jara. We had agreed on a particular fee, but the client was so satisfied with the work I did that he voluntarily added significantly more to what we had agreed. That was when I made the statement.

It is a very popular Nigerian expression of surprise and gratitude, popularised over the years by stand-up comedians. It is not, and has never been, ordinarily understood literally.

It would therefore be nothing short of ad hoc stupidity and sponsored mischief for anyone to interpret that statement as meaning that my client was homosexual or that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with me.

Context matters.

“Does that person have your nudes?” is another example of street lingo. In ordinary usage, it means: Why can’t you deal with this person? Does he have something on you? We all understand that. We know exactly what the expression means in context. Let us stop pretending otherwise.

So, in the context in which Denis Odama used it, the statement simply meant: Fire that Commissioner for incompetence. What is keeping you from doing so?

Anyone deliberately interpreting it as a direct allegation that the Governor is having a sexual relationship with the female Commissioner is either being deliberately obtuse or deliberately pushing a narrative. And, frankly, no matter how much you pretend otherwise, I will not believe that you are genuinely that ignorant of ordinary street language and its context.

That said, the fact that the statement does not mean that the Governor is having a sexual relationship with the Commissioner does not automatically make the statement appropriate.

It was an annoying and disrespectful statement.

We were not raised in Cross River State to address our parents, elders and leaders with street expressions carrying sexual connotations. There are ways to criticise a Governor without crossing that line. The statement was, therefore, shameful. The Governor is entitled to be annoyed by it. Indeed, we should all be annoyed when public discourse descends to that level.

But our annoyance must not make us lose our sense of proportion.

The statement, in itself, is not a crime. The person who made it should not be arrested and detained, particularly at the expense of taxpayers. To annoy the Governor is not an offence.

A critic is not required to package every criticism in pleasant, diplomatic or courtly language before that criticism becomes legitimate. I may personally dislike such rhetoric when addressing the Governor, and I certainly would not choose to use it myself. But disliking the language does not turn the person who used it into a criminal.

And therein lies the irony.

The Government has become so consumed with the critic that it appears to have forgotten the actual substance of the criticism: the performance, or alleged incompetence, of a Commissioner.

That is the issue that should occupy our attention.

Not the noise around the criticism.

Not the offence taken at the language.

Not the attempt to manufacture a sexual allegation where the ordinary context does not support one.

If the Commissioner is competent, let the Government demonstrate it. If she is incompetent, let the Government act.

But arresting a critic does not improve the performance of a Commissioner.

And silencing criticism does not make a government more competent.

Deal with the substance. Leave the theatrics.

-By First Baba Isa (FBI)