By Bamidele Temitope Johnson
I cannot decide whether or not to be astonished that some people think their emotions and tradition around an oba outrank the laws of Nigeria. Real human beings, complete with flesh, blood and sentience, think it a splendid idea that the Obaseki dude got beat up like a ballot box snatcher? Stop this world, I wanna get off.
For allegedly hinting at a preference for a dimunition of the status of the Oba of Benin, he was seized on a football pitch, stripped to his drawers; slapped around by bonafide miscreants and marched away.
No tradition, assuming one even exists and however ancient it claims to be, should license its custodians to behave like a deranged militia. Such a tradition, if it exists, deserves to be spat at and drenched in expectoration.
Benin is a Nigerian city. It is governed by Nigerian law, not an edict written by Ekaladerhan. One can safely bet that some of those excusing this madness were floodlit in rage when homicidal fundies in Sokoto killed Deborah Yakubu because their religious feelings were offended.
If every wounded sentiment must be indulged with violence, society collapses into a permanent tantrum. What happened was not tradition. It was gutter conduct. To see people cheer and justify it shows we have not evolved a lot despite going around with high-end Internet-enabled phone and thinking we are part of the modern world.
You can keep telling yourself that your oba is a rarefied figure whose name deserves a reverential suffix like pbuh, but his domain and everything above grass level within it remains subject to Nigerian law. Tradition does not suspend the law of the land.
That governor who speaks like a tape recorder at half speed should care about what happened. But he will not. He is probably disappointed the fellow did not leave with lips swollen to the size of a big plantain and eyes clenched shut like a fist. The victim is an Obaseki, a relative of his predecessor, someone he would gladly toss to the same thugs while nursing a glass of cognac.
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