'Lies of Life' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Democracy has many problems and this is no surprise. At least to me. The system is too elaborate and depends on the goodness of the hearts of her main operators to succeed. Of course we all know the condition of our hearts. According to the Bible – the heart of man, is, mark the qualifier, 'desperately wicked.' Of course that heart becomes at least ten times more evil if they belong to politicians in third world countries. Please, why did your mind stray to Robert “The immortal” Mugabe?

However I think one of the biggest problems with democracy is because it is settled and founded on some irredeemable mendacity. Just consider one of the “big, big lie” of democracy – all men are equal. This lie is one of the tenets of democracy, hence in a polity, voters are ranked equally, once they are not infants, lunatics, convicts and aliens. Thus, each of them have a right to only one vote, regardless of their education, influence, wealth, status etc.

Consequently in political contests, leaders comes to office on the strength of their popularity above that of their opponents. And how do you judge popularity contests in a democracy? It is only through one means - the number of votes in favour of one candidate against the lesser number of those in favour of his opponent(s).

It will not matter then, if the majority consist of the ignorant, the misguided, society light-weights etc, so long as they are the majority. The choice of the majority no matter who the minority are, say egg-heads, business gurus, captains of industry, top-profile professionals, must prevail. The principle of equality of man is at work.

But are all men really equal? I don’t think so. Maybe they are in some other climes but certainly not in Nigeria. Certainly not in the Lagos State Judiciary. I come to this conclusion because of the late Lateef Osho Jogunomi. Jogunomi died about three weeks ago He was an auxiliary staff with the sheriff department of the Lagos State Judiciary.

One day he was coming back from work, when he met his death. His untimely death. In the licensed(?) hands of a power drunk Lagos State Transport Management Authority Staff. The LASTMA killer slew Jogunomi by violently pushing him to the ground. Jogunomi hit the back of his head on the concrete and the rest was his burial, and the grief and suffering of his suddenly dis-fathered family.

Since the man died, nothing much has been heard about his case. I guess the Judiciary merely cocked a brief puzzled look at the incident and continued on her way.
Now assume that Jogunomi, was a judge, or a Chief Judge, a registrar or a chief registrar, a magistrate or a chief magistrate, certainly the judiciary would do more than cast a look or shrug a shoulder.
There would will be hues and cries. The death of the dead great one will would be made to disturb the lives and concerns of the living. And it would not matter whether the fallen judge is a judicial Oyenusi, or the departed magistrate is a bench robber. All that would matter is that he was a top dog.
Are all men equal?