Trials of Brother Ike

"A group of Engineering professors were invited to fly in a plane. Right after they were comfortably seated, they were informed the plane was built by their students.

All but one got off their seats and headed frantically to the exits in maniacal panic.

The one lone professor that stayed put, calmly in his seat, was asked: "Why did you stay put?"

'I have plenty of confidence in my students. Knowing them, I for a fact can assure you this plane will never even start."'

The story above was meant to be a joke and to the rest of the world, it's probably funny but in Nigeria, it's too close to the truth. Those saddled with the responsibility of building a country and future we can all comfortably live in and look forward to are dirty criminals who are only interested in lining their pockets but one recently ran out of luck in the united kingdom and the arm of the law caught up with him where you cannot bribe your way out of trouble so easily.

Since the arrest and subsequent trial and sentencing of former senator Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice and their accomplice, one Doctor Obinna Obeta, several people have aired their opinions and unsurprisingly, a lot of Nigerians seem to suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

Several people have chosen to look at the case from a very selfish, myopic and wrong perspective. Oh, Ekweremadu is just a poor man with a dying daughter who is doing everything to save her life. No,  Senator Ike Ekweremadu is a 4 term senator, 3 of which he served as deputy senate president, a powerful member of society who was trusted with power and resources to position Nigeria as a leading economy of the world but squandered the opportunities and helped to bleed the economy dry. He is part of the corrupt group of politicians who think the system they created back home is not good enough for them and their families but will opt for world class health care systems and care at the slightest inconvenience. Ekweremadu is a man who is so used to lying and manipulations, he would resort to dirty tactics instead of sourcing for kidney for his ailing daughter the traditional and ethical way. See, when you're used to getting your way all the time and buying people and opportunities, the next guy is just another commodity whose organs can be harvested when your daughter needs one. That is how Ike Ekweremadu and his family found themselves in this situation.

The earlier Nigerians snap out of this shameful pattern of excusing bad behavior, the faster the country will get on the track of development it so desperately need. The constant "he did something bad but..." take is tiring and exhausting. Maybe, put yourself in the shoes of the boy whose organ was going to be harvested without his full consent and consider the perpetrators could have built a system to avert the entire episode, in the first place.

The victim is the boy who was put through a terrible and terrifying ordeal not the organ harvesters. 

A former member of the Nigerian parliament languishing in jail should not really be baffling when you consider the myriad of unholy concoctions that come out of that supposedly hollow chamber.

It's probably not the crime many would have hoped for but we thank God for small miracles and hopefully, more will follow.