DEAR SENATOR AHMED Sanni Yerima, I am led to write you on account of a reply to a news story I read Friday, April 16, 2010, in the internet about two paedophiles, one of them being you. A paedophile is a man who takes delight in sexually abusing children. It is a great pity that you qualify as one, going by the evidence before me, and that you are unrepentant about your odd predilections. Indeed you celebrate your conduct shamelessly,
and are quite willing and ready to proclaim it on every roof top.
According to the report in question, you recently took a 13-year old Egyptian girl as your fourth wife, having paid $100, 000 (about N15 million) to her family as bride price. Your story is reported alongside that of Harrison Eze, a 21-year old man found guilty by an Abuja Magistrate Court of waylaying a minor on the night of April 6, 2010, and practically raping her. The fellow has since been sentenced to prison, while you are walking the corridors of power with a newfound spring in your steps, rather like a privileged monster on parole.
The story struck me as a modern-day parable of injustice on several counts, and I will soon tell you why. But then, I noticed two comments below the story, and went ahead to read them as well. It turned out that the second comment was signed by you, and the sentiments it contained have given me cause to direct these few words to you in return. Allow me to quote your comment the way it was published on the pages of elombah.com, as follows:
Nigerians, I am Sanni Yerima. It is impossible for you all to prosecute mi bcos I am above the law. You will only shout and keep quiet when u get other fresh news. Wonders shall never cease…Wot is wrong in me taking a 13yr old to bed. She will grow in my arms, so shut up Nigerians and let me ginger my swagger the more. Besides I am a senator.
Sanni Yerima.
Now, Mister Senator, I do not need your permission to tell you that you have erred before men and in the sight of God. In point of fact, I do have the permission of God to spell out the judgment that you have earned, and I shall not hesitate to deliver it forthwith. Even so, let me bring you to a better understanding as to why you deserve what is coming to you. In the first place, Ahmed, you are not above the law. In the second place, Sanni, you are in no position to tell all Nigerians to shut up. In the third place, Yerima, you pointedly told Jesus Christ to shut up in your cocky, saucy little script.
I am a Nigerian. I will not shut up. My name is Jesus Christ. My friends know me as Pope Pen The First, President of the Pen Pushers Talking Front, PPTF. I am the Living Word doth come to your doorstep as promised, like a thief in the deep night of your ignorance. I have come to knock a hole into your conscience. Enough is enough.
It is a thorough-going shame that you parade credentials as a former governor of Zamfara State, and that you currently occupy a seat in the hallowed chambers of the highest law-making body in Nigeria, contributing to legislation that is bound to affect the lives of an entire population such as our country can boast of. You deserve to lose your seat, Mister Senator. You deserve to lose your inheritance. You deserve to lose your harem. Verily, verily, I say you deserve to lose whatever shred of honour that may have been clinging onto your person.
Bear in mind that, as I write this, millions of Nigerians are starving. In times past, one of our fellow country men, Umaru Dikko, had said that Nigeria was not a poor country because its citizens were yet to scrounge for a living from dust bins. If you will be so kind as to watch a BBC documentary entitled “Welcome To Lagos,” currently making waves on the internet, you will agree with me that we have come to that delicate point of distinction which Dikko was all too willing to deny.
Today, the world is witness to the fact that Nigeria, Africa’s most promising nation, is a poor country quite in spite of our heavyweight potential. The evidence is made even more obvious by the hollow sound of our national coffers. By all accounts, what is left in our excess crude reserve is a paltry $3.2 billion, and there is no let to the looting spree. What is more, we are faced with dire prospects that in many states of the federation, except perhaps Lagos and Kano States where the internal revenue profile is appreciable, government may not be able to pay the salaries of civil servants by June. Such a gloomy prognosis is enough to get every discerning Nigerian worried.
I cannot help wondering how you came to be in possession of a staggering $100,000, and find it so immaterial as to spend it as a mere bride price. I cannot help thinking that you stole the money and, surely, your priorities are in disarray. More than that, I am suitably scandalized to know that you are so unconscionable as to enslave a 13-year old girl in the name of marriage, that you are gloating over the experience, and taunting Nigerians to do their worst. Is it possible that there are no mature women in your neighbourhood who could satisfy your peculiar lust for flesh?
I have no doubt that you are familiar with the scandal surrounding the world’s most famous golfer, Tiger Woods, at this moment. For several months now, he has endured being harangued by the media about his runaway sexual escapades, even on the eve of his appearance at the last Masters tournament. It should strike you as an example worth emulating that Mr Woods submitted himself to public scrutiny, surrendered his closet of skeletons when he knew that the game was up, and willingly gave in to sex therapy. And Woods, unlike you, earned the money he spent on his women the hard way.
I dare say you are over ripe for your own therapy. You are ripe enough for shaking. May you fall from your rotten height and be stamped into a podgy mess by the passing feet of men and women. Because you say you are above the law, may the law come down hard upon your head with the weight of a heavenly gavel. And because you dared to tell all Nigerians to shut up, may you lose your tongue in the senate, lose it in your home, lose it in your mouth. May you mumble and never be heard mumbling, until your desperation leads you into a cardiac bind.
How dare you shout down a nation chosen by God? Who are you, Ahmed Sanni Yerima? Do you know what ingredients go into minting a one dollar note that you dare to spite the rest of us with your obscene and misbegotten wealth? What kind of a father are you that will nurse a baby in your own arms, patiently awaiting nightfall just so that you can release your vile seeds into her? May every mother in and around your neighbourhood spit upon your nakedness. May you replace Harrison Eze quickly in that prison cell, and watch him step into repentance. May your beard grow long enough to strangle you in your sleep, you low, creepy viper from the depths of hell.
Who are you? How dare you insult an entire nation, and suppose that it will all blow by with the next item on the nine o’clock news? No, you are completely mistaken. I put it to you and your wicked kind that you will never get away with it, even as you run into your hole. You may run but, verily, verily, you cannot hide. Let your shame stick to you like a vagrant pair of eyes. Let your error of judgment stick to you like the foul smell of your body. Let your shadow cringe beside the shadow of every other Nigerian, that you may melt into nothingness with every passing hour.
O, let the news invade your ears right now that Jesus Christ has come Nigerian. I will not suffer fools gladly. You cannot insult me and get away with it, my friend. Neither can you insult my Father in Heaven who has chosen this unhealthy nation for the cleansing that shall overtake the world today and every other day ahead. Let Armageddon find you cowering and shivering in your pit. Let the great quake come strong to your heart and remain there, until the stone in your chest surrenders its foolishness. Verily, verily, I say onto you and your kind, enough is enough.
Your fellow countryman,
Pope Pen The First
Son of Man, Son of God