He knelt there stoically on his neck as the poor black man fought vainly to clutch to his fleeing soul. He begged, called on Mama while fruitlessly trying to lift his head up a little in order to take one vital drawl of oxygen into his collapsing lungs. However, the weight of official impunity, putrid racism and inhuman supremacist agenda extolled by a supposed leader exerted too much load on George Floyd’s sweat and tear-soaked frame. ‘I can’t breath’ he cried, thinking that somewhere in the scorched hearts of those four Minneapolis Policemen he could find a drop of milk of human kindness. He was wrong.
He laid still and quiet soon, drained eternally of his fears; fear of marauding Policemen looking for their next kill mainly among marginalized blacks, fear of the ever diminishing opportunity for good life for him and his little lovely daughter in White America, fear of the many faces of reincarnate Jim Crow that is virtually ubiquitous in mainstream American society in the 21st century. As his cold and limp body was stretcherred away, the executors of George Floyd stood up non-chalantly, straightened out their crumpled uniforms and walked majestically away from the probing but benumbed eyes of a motley crowd of by-standers. They had the law behind them and a cheering Leader tucked away from public glare somewhere in the bowels of a white-washed symbol of Democratic tokenism for
Support.
Afro-American community was outraged; nay many conscientious Americans were stupefied, indeed the world was agast. The broad daylight murder of George Floyd by Law Enforcer Chauvin and his cohorts took a chip off the concrete work of humanity. Then began a world-wide protest by humans and perhaps a few infiltrators, demanding justice for late George Floyd of the human specie and his family. The evidences were compellingly graphic to be ignored. The Global re-action surprised many a supremacist spirited souls in America; including the principality that egged Chauvin and his fellow merchants of death on in their fatal misadventure. And so, Chauvin had a date with the law that once empowered him.
And as the verdict of a 12 man jury was being read out to his hearing, he sat stoically still taking in all that was happening around him just the same way that he knelt stoically on the neck of George Floyd for some 9 minutes and 29 seconds on that ill-fated day. Before long, Chauvin the Law calmly turned around, both hands behind his back and was hand-cuffed before being led quietly away to jail. As I beheld the whole spectacle unfolding before me, a treacherous tear-drop fell off my eye for Ex-Policeman Chauvin. I noticed that his mien and submissive personality as he was being led away contrasted sharply with the haughty and and carefree personage that drained life out of poor Floyd that ill-fated day. As Preacherman Al Sharpton said after Chauvin’s verdict, ‘we do not celebrate the going to jail of any man, I rather we celebrate George Floyd were alive.’
Perhaps that was what brought tears to my eyes as Chauvin was led away. Fast forward to Nigeria . There are many Chauvins among us whom regrettably, the world is unaware of. From the enclaves of our power Rock to a dinghy and stinking Police outpost tucked away somewhere in Ogbaloto, some poor rural settlement near my village. From the lasciviously opulent Government Houses in Nigeria’s State Capitals to some remotely located extortionist outpost of the Nigerian Customs Service.
Our own versions of Ex-Policeman Chauvins abound infinitely both in uniforms and in starched ‘agbadas’ of political tyrants. They are sniffing precious life out of many poor, innocent and defenceless Nigerians daily either with a careless pull of a gun trigger or with a whiff of murderous hand to some lost souls. And like the disgraced supremacist enabler of all American Chauvins, our Nigerian Government Houses have become ‘Command Posts’ from where obnoxious orders and instructions are dished out to political thugs, ballot box snatchers, hired assassins etc. Pity is that the world has since written us off as a serious nation, or so it seems, to bother itself with bringing our own version of Chauvins to justice.
Bring it nearer home to Kogi State, the remains of late Adejoh Akowe, Ogacheko Atanu, the murdered Anyigba lads; including the Policeman that was assassinated during the burial of late Adejoh Akowe are still fresh, may be swollen, in the bowels of Mother Earth in Igala land. They were all felled by our own Chauvins tucked trepidly behind immuned spaces that are far beyond reach of the feeble hands of Nigeria’s justice system. But like the American Chauvin, a day of reckoning will soon be here for all our exalted Chauvins. If not now, certainly soon. However, I have promised myself that there will not be a single drop of tear from my eye any longer for any Chauvin; even if he or she is headed for Golgotha.
Those that have ear, let them hear the words of
Prophecy!