By Iretiola Doyle

The current happenstances in our polity are so bizarre, how does one begin to even contemplate them… we’re blowing up court houses now…? In “anticipation” of a verdict or judgement that “we”, may not like?Ol’ boy that’s taking ‘na we get dis land’ to an all new different level, jokes apart. We’re back to the days of ‘the wild wild west’ (or is the sizzling south –south?) and wetie, abi wetinuna say make I talk?

I beg dis one pass me, let me focus my attention this week on a different story that captures no less the human tragedy. The story was reported in one of our dailies of a man who was riding his motor bike on New Year’s Eve when he came across an elderly man who appeared to have been knocked down.

Not only did the Good Samaritan help the man up, he drove him to the local clinic and took it a step further by paying the equivalent of five hundred and eighty dollars in medical fees for him. I’m sure he thought to himself “let me get a good deed done early in the New Year!” little did he know.

No good deed they say; goes unpunished. For his trouble, the family of the injured man turn around and accuse the Good Samaritan of knocking the old man down and demanded that he pay hundreds of thousands in damages. After two days of sustained “hounding”, the Samaritan summons his family, articulates his vexation and frustration at being hounded for damages by someone he was only trying to help and that in the face of such a diabolical lie he thought it would be better to die than too prove his innocence and in the process drag his family down.

He then gave his daughter instructions for his funeral, and a few hours later, his body was found floating face down in a pond. The tragedy is not only the sad fact that someone somewhere, put so small a value on themselves as to take their own life for such a reason. That’s putting a pretty bent spin on the word “honour”. Then, wasn’t there anyone; not one single person that could speak up for the old man, no witness?

The real tragedy is encapsulated in the statement credited to the supposed victim’s daughter after they were informed that the Samaritan had committed suicide as a result of their extortion … “if he hadn’t hit my father with the motorbike, why would he be so kind as to bring my dad to the hospital and pay for his medical expenses…?” therein, in those few words lies the real human tragedy, we are so calloused and so unfeeling that even the smallest act of human kindness is viewed, received or extended with deep suspicion and or self -seeking motives. What has happened to our compassion, our sense of community? Did she and her family really believe what they were saying or were they just being sly, seizing the opportunity that had suddenly presented itself to fleece and extort an innocent man?

It doesn’t matter that this particular story took place in some distant province in China, swap the names with Chinedu or Jimoh and it could be right here at home. You hear stories of accident victims being robbed or good Samaritans being harassed or worse for their trouble.

It is this same selfishness and self-centredness and the quest for self-preservation and self-perpetuation that will cause a man or a group of men (and women) to view a nation of  hundreds of millions only as an extension of them….

Come, true, true, true, demdey bomb court house I know? Bombings are now common place, yeah (that statement in itself is wrong!) it’s the reason behind these bombings that I find mind boggling… That’s the new thing now? We don’t like something or someone we simply destroy it or them? In this instance you don’t even wait to see if you like it, just the mere possibility that you might not guarantee destruction… and these are supposed to be signposts flagging the journey to 2015….? Okay o!