So Now You Can Be Arrested By A Tomato? -By Abimbola Adelakun

One of the things I have come to detest about Nigeria is how individuals, especially the ones with means, get to use security agencies like they are personal thugs. Once upon a time in Nigeria, when you needed to settle scores without recourse to the law, you hired urchins from a motor park to beat up people. These days, you use the police or the Department of State Services for the same purpose. Both agencies differ in scope and responsibilities, but they fulfil similar functions of punishing people on behalf of those who can afford to summon them. They so cheaply make themselves available to service anti-democratic causes that they leave you no doubt about which master they serve.

Many instances of people using security agencies to abuse others do not make it to the news, but all the ones that do reflect the shameful fact that Nigeria has too many puny-sized gods in high places. The latest example is the case of Chioma Okoli, a Facebook user who shared her thoughts on a brand of tomato paste, Nagiko tomato mix, on social media. She complained that the product contained too much sugar, and suggested it might be harming people. Boom! She was arrested and has since been transferred to the police headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory.

Briefly setting aside the very troublesome fact that someone could be arrested over a review of a product, you must wonder why the company marketing the product, would meet a review of their product with such imperiousness. If they failed at managing a simple situation like responding to a product review tactfully, then we must also worry about the quality control of their production process. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control should probably investigate them because the truth does not need that amount of high-handedness to be defended.

In this age of online marketing and social media networks, businesses contend with subjective consumer tastes in ways they probably could not have imagined decades ago. We live in times when almost everything (and everyone) has become a product, and consuming them warrants feedback. There is no escaping the tyranny of public judgment. Even religious organisations are now regularly dragged to consumer review websites to be reviewed. People will scrutinise based on other people’s momentary feelings, and unfortunately, the most brutal opinion will stay permanently online. Anyone and anything can be hurt by public opinion. Whether or not the intentions were malicious, mischievous, or an expression of the reviewer’s sincere thoughts, we all live with this vulnerability.

For businesses, harsh reviews require having (and maintaining) organisational purpose and deft public relations management. Since Okoli did not tag them in her Facebook post, they could have ignored her. The exchange would have passed like the many million small things people chinwag on social media every minute. Even if they must respond to a reviewer, they could have done so from their official account. All they needed to do was list the contents of their products to counter her assertions that their product had too much sugar and was therefore injurious to public health. By instead responding with police arrest, they have shown that they are the kind of people who will force anything down your throat.

As they have shown themselves, their actions are not isolated. As I stated earlier, there are many instances of this abuse of power happening every single day but they just do not make it to the news. Too many people in Nigeria cultivate networks of access to power to abuse others and thereby assert their self-importance. From politicians to government officials and even at varying middling levels, it is all the same story of disproportionate use of force over what could have been resolved through civil means.

Take another recent example of the Ogun State Local Government Chairman, Wale Adedayo, who petitioned authorities that their state governor, Dapo Abiodun, had hijacked allocations meant for local governments. What he alleged surprised no one. There is a reason the local government in Nigeria is comatose. The wonder is not that one person eventually spoke up, but that other local government chairpersons have been (and are still) quiet about it. In a place where governors are not above accountability, the response would be to disprove the claim. Because it is Nigeria, the DSS arrested Adedayo instead!

It was a turn of events that shows that many things in Nigeria just do not make sense. Why was any of that the business of the DSS? If the governor is defamed by the accusation, he has enough resources to pursue a civil case against his accuser. Now, Adedayo is being tried for making an allegation that he “knew was a false allegation and likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or to disturb the public peace.” The officers who wrote the charge sheet likely do comedy part-time. The Nigeria police might not be outstanding where it matters, but give it to them when they want to punish you, they know how to strain logic to make spurious charges.

Again, another recent example of the DSS being used for personal scores happened when their official was summoned by an unnamed Nigerian whose tailor did not deliver on their promise. Some things one hears in Nigeria and one’s head bursts. How does anyone consider it appropriate to call a DSS official to harass a tailor in the market? How did the officer too not think it was beneath their professional profile? That is an indication of how unserious that organisation has become.

There is a similar story of ex-First Lady Aisha Buhari who also sent the police to waylay a young man who had written an unflattering comment about her on then Twitter (nowX). Listening to the police officer who arrested the young man testify in court detailing how they went about it, you realised how entirely petty our leaders can be. Their mean-spiritedness is, unfortunately, serially enabled by security agents who seem unable to define their role within Nigeria’s so-called democracy.

Mubarak Bala, the Kano atheist, is another person suffering because we have a police force that has conditioned its reflexes to attend to the errands of oppressive forces. One man, ironically a lawyer, petitioned the police against Bala and threatened Muslim violence if they did not punish him. That was enough for the police to have him arrested, incarcerated, and eventually imprisoned. Tani Olohun (real name Adegbola Abdulazeez) is languishing in jail for the same reason. Time and space will not permit me to reel out more examples, some of whom are even pastors, who have also used the police to arrest individuals over personal issues. They could have pursued a civil case, but no, they must use force because what is at stake for them is proving themselves as connected to power.

It was bad enough when politicians and regular individuals used the police (or the DSS) to harass regular citizens. Now things have degenerated to the point that even a business operation thinks that is the way to address issues. Gone are the days when customers were always right because buying something with their money gives them the privilege to be right or wrong about their assessment of a product. Writing an unflattering review of a tomato can now get you arrested. The resources expended in taking Okoli to police headquarters would probably fuel the patrol vehicles of their hapless officers currently begging for money from road transport workers as you read this, but they would rather spend it proving a useless point.