'Thank You, Marvel' By Adesina Ogunlana

I have a confession to make. A small one really - I am always suspicious of big men. And big women too. They type that one now extinct political character, coloured flamboyantly with the unforgettable phrase “Men of timber and caliber.”
If you are no heavy weight yourself, you’ll be kidding yourself to see a friend in a big man especially where the big man, is a big man in government.
Trust you to know their type, governors, Deputy governors, Senators, Commissioners, Ministers, Ambassadors, Special Assistant, Director-General, etc.
What a new unknown safe postulated about these GBM (Government Big Men) is for most tunes, an infallible truism-“A friend in government is a friend lost”
When you need the help and services of the GBMS, you’ll find yourself in a quandary of shocked disappointment suddenly. You are like the man who puts his hand to the scabbard to pull out a trusty blade in self defence, only to find only a needle there, if anything at all!
One may not blame the big men too much. It may be a class thing. You know the law of social grouping says a member of a group (all other things being equal) receives attention and care almost compulsorily from other members of his group."
This is a longish way of stating what the yorubas have known from time immemorial that “Olowo a sore olowo,
olosi a sore olosi”.
“As the rich is friend to the rich
the wretch to the wretch.”
So whatever I “jam” a BGM, I take their display of amity and fanfares of familiarity with a grain of salt. I do not make the mistake of asking for the compulsory cards of BGMS and when they offer me, I promptly lose them
My thinking is, these people are not my friends and I am not taken in by the transient conviviality - for when, thereafter now you reach out to the BGMS, you’ll find yourself knocking your head against the wall.
No Access. Repeat. No Access. It is either your poor man’s call does not go through or in those rare miraculous situations when the camel ‘some how, some how’ goes through the eye of the needle, the call cries itself out, with no heeding from the outer space of course your text messages never gets a response. So much for your vaunted connection to a BGM.
A couple of months ago, I was in company of some Executive Committee members of the Ikeja bar, on a visit to Marvel Akpyibo Esq, C.P Lagos State. At the end of the visit, the police commissioner, a cheerful and banter some extrovert distributed his cards to us. I took one politely. By the next day, the card, as usual with its type flew away from my possession.
Then just five weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, a distress call came in. The caller's plight was that his mother was under arrest at Dention Police Station over a case wrongly classed ‘arson’ by the big man of the station.
When I got to the station the D.P.O was, as we say in Nigeria, “not on seat”. A fellow obliged me, the officer’s number and presto, I placed a call.
Lawyer: Good afternoon sir.
D.P.O: (gruffly) yes, good afternoon
Lawyer: Sir, I am a lawyer and I am making this call with respect to so and so madam being detained here over a case of arson.
D.P.O: Please today is a Sunday I am not in the office.
Lawyer: Sir, that’s why I am calling you
D.P.O: I am not in the office (switched off)
You can imagine my situation. Here’s Mr. Saviour, alias, lawyer, drafted in to save the situation being summarily stopped in his tracks.
Then I remembered the honorable Commissioner of Police. Lets just give that a try, I thought rather resignedly. I got the CP’s number from the incumbent Elekun of Ekunland, His Bar Majesty, the Kabiewa, Dave Ajetomobi, the Ikeja bar chair.
Then I placed the call.
Miracle 1: the call went through
Miracle 2: the call was picked
Miracle 3: the BGM, all the way from outer space gave orders for the immediate release of the detained woman.
Miracle 4: the D.P.O who had no time for small lawyer, now had time to quickly effect release of the detainee. All on the phone.
Interestingly after the release of the woman from detention, I placed calls to the honourable C.P, to say my thanks, but true to my earlier postulation, they never went through again.
Well, here sir, Marvel Akpoyibo Esq., C.P Lagos State, is my thanks. E se pupo pupo. E se gan an!