The arrest
of Evans, the press-styled 'kidnapping kingpin’, provoked a backlash typical of
a case of criminal grandeur in this clime.
As soon as
Evans began to sing about the size of his kidnap industry and his principle of
collecting handsome ransoms in hard currency and the pictures of his Lagos and
Accra mansions emerged to validate his confessions, a fan club surfaced and
started gushing over his ‘genius’ and his fabulous success. Within a few days, the Free Evans campaign
had taken shape, grown in membership and became as vociferous as the Jewish mob
that demanded a Passover pardon for Barabbas.
Evans
captured people and held them against their will. He put a price on them. He
commodified them. He commercialized and capitalized human captivity, making it
an ongoing concern in Nigerian society.
For many
years, Evans exploited people’s affection for their loved ones. He would create
the agony of a member of the family missing. Then, he would proceed to exploit
the climate of anxiety, desperation and panic in the household of his victim to
enrich himself. He would threaten to kill if his price was not paid in full.
Sometimes, he would take both the ransom and the life of the hostage.
Yet, you
didn’t see the Nigerian public united in collective relief that the free reign
of the cold- blooded predator had been punctuated and that he would soon answer
for his crimes and receive his comeuppance.
We couldn’t
form a consensus on his morality. We couldn’t agree on the depravity of his
iron-seared conscience. We couldn’t deplore, as one man, the wickedness of his
outsized multi-million dollar ‘business’.
We couldn’t
disown Evans because he fitted our imago. His chutzpah taunted the inner
version of our timid, risk-averse selves. He cut the figure of the insanely
rich criminal we dream we would have become if we weren't restrained by
cowardice.
The Free
Evans campaign is not an oddity. It’s our collective baby. It exemplifies the
reaction of our collective unconscious to abominable success.
We crave the
experience of a magic alchemy that delivers prosperity without value-adding
diligence. Evans personified the reality of that possibility. That’s why we are
infatuated with him. That’s why we are rooting for him.
We are
inclined to yearn to be identified with the rich villain. We fetishize their
story. We idolize them, imagining that we are qualifying ourselves for
initiation into the in-crowd.
Wealthy
criminals don’t have to have any relationship with us. Their affairs may not
have benefited us in any way. They are often complete strangers.
But we feel
obligated to lend ourselves to championing their cause when their careers hit
the buffers. Our instinct is to defend them, rationalize their choice and
generate specious reasons why they must be exculpated.
We are
overly protective of criminals of imposing stature. We yield ourselves to
averting their ‘humiliation’ before the law. We urge indulgence, respect and
deference. We explain that those sane adults are victims of fate.
People who
leverage our weak security architecture to maximize their criminal potential
awe us. The wow factor of their felony
charms us. It inspires us to jealousy.
Nigeria is
rich in Evans characters. They abound in government. They kidnap states,
ministries and parastatals and exact ransom us.
Yet, we
don’t abhor them. We envy them. We begrudge them their pay dirt. We wish we
could trade places with them.
Seemingly decent
people have come out to condemn and compliment Evans in the same breath. They
submit that his acts were wicked. But they advise that we appreciate and learn
from his ingenuity, ambition and taste. He brought innovation to kidnapping…
and grew into a Dangote.
But the
truth is that Evans harbored no virtue in his person. His undoing was not
caused by a character flaw. His disgrace developed from a character vacuum. He
had no character.
Evans did
not have impressive brainpower that was corrupted by greed. Greed was the very
makeup of his brainpower. He did not misuse his fertile mind: he had none. He
forfeited the entirety of his being in a Faustian barter with Mammon.
The attempt
to salvage some goodness from Evans and project him, as a model worthy of
emulation, on the basis of that nice quality, is reprehensible. Evans has no
socially redeeming value. He sold all of himself to evil. He is only worthy to
serve as an example of a man bankrupt in virtue.
People are
glamorizing his ‘trade’ because he managed to get kidnapping down to a fine
art. The rave reviews say more about the character of the shameless
cheerleaders than the putative sophistication of Evans, their hero. Their
freemasonry gave them away as kindred spirits.
The Free
Evans parade is giving full theatrical expression to the warped philosophy that
money is all that matters. That all successes are valid. That all’s fair in
love and war.
We can’t
find a common ground on Evans because we pornify wealth. In culture. In songs.
In religion.
We judge
people’s significance by the abundance of their possessions. We enthrone the
filthy rich. We don’t permit ourselves to be distracted by the question of what
shortcut led them to untraceable riches.
The
stupefying argument about the legitimacy of the works of Evans would never
happened if he was an indigent kidnapper. We don’t debate the innocence of
lowly criminals. We serve them jungle justice. We hasten to garland them with
car tires, baptize them with petrol and immolate them.
Evans was a
Big Man. He was no loser. He never stinted on his niche. He supersized his
department, pursued it as a vocation and amassed enormous wealth thereby.
The Free
Evans vanguard says his fake lifestyle should have lasted forever. The growth
of his lucre should never have ceased. He should have been allowed to grow from
strength to strength.
The support
for Evans is a sign that there might be hope for Abubakar Shekau.
Boko Haram,
the terrorist group, Shekau leads, has murdered tens of thousands of people.
They have made wastelands of many villages, rendered a million people refugees
and imposed death by starvation on thousands of children.
Three years
ago, Boko Haram abducted over 200 girls from a secondary school in Chibok. They
abused the girls as sex slaves. And they caused about a dozen of the parents of
the girls to die of heartache.
The
outpouring of love towards Evans suggests that if Shekau was arrested tomorrow,
the mad caliph would find a group of praise singers ready. All he need do is prove
that he was a wealthy psychopath. If he revealed a staggering net worth and
pointed at a trophy property in Abuja or Dubai, he would be shown lots of love.
You can
reach Emmanuel at immaugwu@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EmmaUgwuTheMan.
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